Little Điu hesitantly stepped out of the cool atmosphere of the hospital. A doctor's loud voice echoed in his head with a clang, "Six hundred thousand đồng… just hospital admittance procedure!" Sounds ran one after another in a hurry. His mother's face suddenly appeared, thin and pale with messy hair, blank eyes and trembling lips…
The feeling of coolness ended. He found himself confronted with severe early afternoon sunshine in a shade of color of the street as well as the sultry oppression of real life. He seemed to be floating in a dream among thousands of realities.
His childhood had never given him any idea, though vague and remote, of the Buddha or a fairy. In his dreams he usually expected to see members of the Social Work Group. He liked to tell them what he could not say in real life… that recently he had tried drugging… that he had sometimes found Tâm doing some separate mugging but he had ignored… that he had for many a time wanted to pull off a great "coup" to have some money for his mother's illness… How come those members were nowhere to be found?
He remembered the first time he had met Tiến in a very ironic case. He "gained" an empty wallet with no money bills but just papers. That evening, cross-eyed Hải took Tiến to see him to ask for the wallet back. It turned out he didn't only ask for the wallet but he asked him to be back to his sick mother. He knew that his mother's sickness was caused by him which was not mentioned by anyone. For the first time, he heard such expressions as "will to struggle", "willing to come over obstacles" and felt himself really mature. He was only accused of a very slight mistake: letting things run their course, letting fate have it its own way, in contrast with severe blames by sellers at the market.
"That gang of swindlers," "that horde of muggers".
Notwithstanding, one side brutal, the other ornate… he felt satisfied that life was being fair enough to him.
These last three months, he experienced a feeling of happiness, a pride brought him from the meager amount of money he earned by selling newspapers and lottery tickets.
But his mother's illness was like a sponge that absorbed it completely.
He seemed to stop breathing when he caught sight of a one-hundred-dollar bill being carelessly slipped into a trouser pocket of a traveler. His senses were to freeze. A second, a minute or an hour had just passed? Having regained his calm, he found himself standing in a deserted hamlet.
His cold right hand was holding the money bill.
His curbed fingers were trying to clasp an inanimate hope. Without hesitation, he walked straight to a jeweler's nearby… He ignored the suspicious look on the jeweler's face. With the thick pad of bills in his hand, he felt all his body flagging and then with great efforts, he proceeded toward the hospital.
Once inside the hospital, he saw Tiến, Hương and even Nhàn…Nhàn was in better clothes than usual, but the flowers in her hand seemed indifferent.
Hương looked too weak to hold a dozen oranges and milk bags. Tiến couldn't help touching the envelope in his pocket with his left or right hands.
Everyone looked dazzled as if they had made serious mistakes. And still a slight look of confusion appeared on their faces at the sight of a pad of money bills in his hand. He felt like being mocked by the company. No cares! He pushed the door to the emergency ward. The frozen air rushing out startled him.
The pad of money fell down to the ground and broke in pieces. His mother was not in the room. A soft hand modestly held him back. He felt frustrated and fell down in a bottomless dark pit. Tiến's low - pitched voice sounded raucous enough to keep up with him, "Your mother was taken to the morgue… five minutes ago… too late!" His ears were stuffed. He couldn't understand what was meant by "too late". He was late? Or his mother was late taken to the hospital?
Or was he back late himself?
- Lê Hồng Bảo