People crowded together, laden with all sorts of belongings, trying to bring back some local specialties from the countryside, such as dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots, fresh ginger, and spices like dổi seeds, sẻn seeds, and mắc khén... Somewhere, someone carried jugs of glutinous rice wine or corn wine, whose sweet taste lingered on the tongue even before a sip, its intoxicating aroma threatening to intoxicate anyone nearby.
Lively and bustling.
Noisy, shouting.
Brilliant in a multitude of colors.
With my backpack slung over my shoulder and a few belongings inside, I struggled through the noisy crowd at the train station to board. While trying to navigate through the throng, I suddenly heard a cry of "ouch!" and the sound of something falling right beside me. That's when I saw a girl in a pink sweater wincing and looking up at me. It turned out I had accidentally stepped on her foot, and her bag had fallen beside mine. "I'm sorry! Are you alright?" I stammered, not knowing what to do, only managing to apologize. "I'm fine," she replied, though she still winced slightly, seemingly in pain.
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Bending down to pick up the bag she had dropped, I said, "Are you also taking this train? Let me carry it for you." Before she could say anything, I said, "Hurry up, the train is about to depart." She had no choice but to follow me, squeezing onto the train with the crowd.
By some twist of fate, when I looked at my ticket again, I realized we were sharing a seat. After putting my luggage in the overhead compartment and settling into my seat next to her, I apologetically said, "I'm sorry, it was so crowded, I didn't mean to." Probably seeing how pathetic I looked, she turned to me, smiled, and said, "It's okay, sir. Every time I go to the village, I trip over rocks and fall, and it hurts even more than that..."
Ah, so it turns out he's also someone who often travels up the mountain. The train blew its whistle repeatedly, as if bidding farewell and thanking the express trains waiting at the station to let it pass first. Then it puffed, exhaled smoke, and the wheels clattered on the tracks as it slowly began to move. The train sped along, and the trees and houses gradually disappeared from view.
"Are you going back to Hanoi ?" I asked, trying to strike up a conversation. "No, I'm going back to Vinh Yen," she replied, her gaze distant as she looked out the window at the bustling crowd waiting for the next train. "Now that there's a high-speed train, why don't you use it? It's faster and more convenient. Taking the train like this is... "I get motion sickness, sir. I get nauseous every time I get in a car, that's why I take the train. But traveling by train has its advantages, don't you think?" "Yes, that's right. I also like traveling by train. Passing through the countryside, you get to admire the scenery of each region. I like the crisp sound of the train wheels rolling on the tracks, and besides, traveling by train is safer than traveling by car..."
He asked to check our tickets, but the ticket inspector's voice suddenly interrupted my conversation. We showed our tickets. As I was about to resume the conversation, I noticed the girl seemed pensive, her face tinged with a hint of sadness as she gazed absentmindedly at the trees receding along the roadside. As if unconscious, she reached into her small, pretty handbag and took something out, fiddling with it between her fingers. Looking closely, I realized it was the tip of a handgun bullet. I was startled…
The "ting...ting..." sound of incoming messages distracted my attention. My daughter texted, "Dad, are you home yet?", "Dad's on his way home," "Dad, please come home soon, I miss you so much, Mom left me home alone again..." My heart ached, and I felt sorry for my little daughter at home. This time, when I return, I probably have to make a final decision about everything with the woman I've been with for over a decade. I want my daughter to have a stable home to grow up in, but at this point, perhaps separation is the best solution to avoid hurting her further.
We had romantic years together, sweet and happy days with a beautiful and adorable daughter.
I know I've let my wife suffer emotionally because I haven't spent much time with her. Whenever she's sick, the children are unwell, or during holidays and festivals, she struggles alone. That's why every time I get to be with my family, I try my best to make up for it. I do all the housework, take care of the children, and take her shopping and outings to make up for the months we've been apart…
However…life is unpredictable, and human emotions can change from day to day.
Perhaps because we were often apart, what I tried to compensate for wasn't enough to make her want to spend the rest of her life with me. Her feelings for me faded with each passing year, and they shifted to another man who was more financially secure than me, a successful businessman. I would forgive everything if she listened to my advice and returned to our home, but I cannot forgive my wife for daring to bring another man home and do terrible things in front of our own child.
The screeching sound of the train wheels grinding against the tracks as it slowed down at a small station to avoid another train coming from the opposite direction startled me out of my reverie. Beside me, the girl traveling with me was still fiddling with the bullet, then raising it to her eye, squinting at it through the sunlight streaming through the train window.
"So you also like playing with dangerous military equipment like this?" I asked. "You seem to be a soldier too?" Instead of answering my question, she turned to me and asked, "How do you know?" I asked. "Because I see a familiar demeanor of soldiers in you. And I saw you carrying a backpack, so I guessed it. Nowadays, few people carry backpacks except for soldiers. Right?" She clutched the bullet in her hand and continued the conversation. "That's right. And it seems you have a relative who's a soldier, that's why you know so much?" She hesitated, looking shy, "Yes, my boyfriend is a border guard." Now I understood a little better, so I said, "Ah, he's a soldier in green uniform, and I'm a soldier in red uniform." As if suddenly remembering my own situation, I told her, "But loving a soldier means enduring many hardships. If you don't have a great and steadfast love, it's difficult to stay together until the end."
The train started moving again, and she looked up at the distant fields, a lone stork fluttering in the sky. "I know, I've anticipated the difficulties I'll face when I love him, but I think I'll get through it. Indeed, if it weren't for him, I'm not sure I'd have the life I have today." "You asked me why I play with this dangerous toy, right?" she said, holding out the bullet in front of me. "We started with a bullet, and perhaps we'll end with a bullet too."
Then she slowly told me the story amidst the rhythmic clatter of the train as it crept silently through the villages on its way south.
I'm from Thai Binh province, and up here, people tease me, calling me a Thai ethnic minority. Perhaps it's because during my years living in the highlands, I've somewhat blended in with the ethnic minorities like the Thai, Mong, and Dao people. Living with the people and the mountains, I truly feel connected to them. Sometimes my friends tell me to go back to the lowlands, but I'm still hesitant. I don't want to leave this place and my students, who are still facing so many hardships. You're probably familiar with the difficulties of teachers like us who live in remote areas. Besides the transportation challenges, we also lack material, spiritual, and emotional support. The hardest part is the arduous task of persuading students to attend school. During the recent Tet holiday, many students took advantage of the long break to get married, leaving us to go to each house and bring them back to school…
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On one such trip, while I was in a village near the border, it started raining. And you know, jungle rain comes down suddenly and without warning. While struggling to find shelter from the rain in the forest, I accidentally walked into an area where the provincial border guard's anti-drug unit was lying in wait to apprehend a group transporting drugs from across the border into the interior.
A strong gust of wind lashed the raindrops in my face, making me dizzy and causing me to slip and fall down the mountainside. Just as I was about to tumble over the cliff into the raging, muddy stream below, a strong arm caught me. Later, I learned that when I rolled past the border guards who were lying in ambush, he—my future boyfriend—risked revealing his position and rushed out to save me. If he hadn't, I would surely have perished in the stream below. That's what he told me later.
Just as he managed to pull me, covered in mud and decaying leaves, a short distance uphill, before I could even recover from the shock, I heard a deafening gunshot right in front of me. A bullet grazed me and lodged in a tree trunk behind me. He quickly told me to "lie down" and shielded me with his body. At that moment, my mind went blank; I just did whatever he told me to do... While shielding me, he and his comrades returned fire against the reckless drug traffickers. They had discovered the border guards ambushing them and were desperately trying to escape.
During that operation, the border guards eliminated a drug trafficker but also wounded a soldier. If I hadn't revealed their location that day, things would have turned out differently. I've regretted it ever since.
That's how we got to know each other. Whenever he had business in my area, he would always come and visit us, helping us with many things. Whenever I went to town for anything, he would always take me to his unit and then take me sightseeing everywhere. But because he worked in the anti-drug unit, he was always away, often having to stay in the jungle and mountains, traveling at night, which was very hard work. That's why I felt so sorry for him. My biggest fear was that his life could be in danger at any moment.
Our feelings for each other grew stronger every day. Then, before we knew it, we were in love. We're practically in a long-distance relationship, though we're practically living far apart. We rarely get to see each other. This holiday, he's not on duty, so we plan to go back to his hometown. He's from Nghe An province ; he graduated from the Border Guard school and was assigned to work there. Back home, he only has his elderly mother; his father was also a border guard but died when he was young, and his sister married and moved far away, so life is tough for her. He saves every penny he earns to send back to his mother so they can rebuild their old house.
But then something happened that made us abandon all our plans.
Recently, he participated in a special operation to dismantle a transnational drug trafficking ring with the provincial police force. The criminals recklessly opened fire in an attempt to escape, and he was wounded by a bullet. Upon hearing the news, I quickly asked someone to look after the classroom for me and then accompanied him to the Military District Hospital in Vinh Yen.
Luckily, the bullet didn't go any further than his heart, but he survived the critical condition and regained some consciousness. He told me and my teammates not to inform his family because he was worried his elderly mother wouldn't be able to handle it. He said he would tell her when he recovered. He told me to go back to my students, saying they needed me to continue their studies, and that if I left for too long, they might drop out, which would be a waste of effort. He said he had teammates to take care of him. I went back to arrange for the students to have a day off, and now I'm back with him. This time, we'll probably spend the holidays in the hospital!
The girl held out the dull-looking bullet in her hand and said, "This is the bullet that was removed from his body. I had to beg them to let me keep it. I'll keep it to always remind myself that I loved and will marry a soldier, a soldier who is always ready to sacrifice himself at any time, but I'm not afraid of that. Later, whether he's the same as before or not, I still believe I made the right choice, and I have no regrets."
He's so lucky to have met, fallen in love with, and been loved by you. I wish you both happiness! I told her. And then I suddenly felt sad thinking about myself.
A tangible bullet may cause physical pain, but it also brought happiness to those two. But why does this invisible bullet hurt my heart so much…?
Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/van-nghe-thai-nguyen/sang-tac-van-hoc/202604/chuyen-tau-xuoi-1ca3462/
