Short story: Sea Sunshine

( Quang Ngai Newspaper) - Going down the slope, turning left, wide and straight is the spacious road under the shade of the banyan tree. The banyan tree quietly hides time in its green leaves. The leaves are like the lipstick of a middle-aged woman. When people are old, they tend to nurture a bit of youth. The banyan leaves are lush green, but the rhizomes are rough. The winding roots cling to the crevices of the rocks. The rocks are accidentally buried as a date. The rocks are bare, rough, shiny, all of them. The rocks firmly hold the banyan roots like eternal love for the countryside, for generations. The rocks block the raging sea... The sea is forever gentle and fierce. Sometimes it is clear, sometimes it is gray, sometimes it is heartbreakingly blue.

At the end of the road there was a house. The house had a mossy yin-yang tiled roof, leaning against the mountain, standing tall and sturdy. The man walked out, went in, then walked out again. It was a bearded man with shaggy hair, a mesh bag on his shoulder. This time, he was determined, he walked down two stone steps, stepping on the gravel. He looked at the sea, at the sky, looked vaguely. The waves were innocently lapping the shore as they had always been. The stones were left to their fate, to the natural arrangement, chaotically, each wave crashing, creating a series of rustling, foaming sounds. Choosing a large rock, he climbed up, thoughtfully lit a cigarette. If it weren't for the mesh bag on his shoulder, no one would think he was a real fisherman. A fisherman from his grandfather, great-grandfather until now. He looked like an artist lost in the sky of art. His long hair was tangled in the wind, his eyes were distant.

MH: VO VAN

He still remembers, when he was five or seven, naked and running back and forth on the road shaded by the banyan trees, he heard his father tell him a lot about the sea. On moonlit nights, hanging a hammock under the tree, his father did not sing or lull him to sleep, but his steady voice mixed with the sound of the waves made him fall asleep easily. The stories were sometimes lost, sometimes clear, intermittent, and gradually he pieced them together to understand that the sea is forever a secret and no one can fully understand what is hidden at the bottom of the ocean. Until facing the sea, each person received their own answer. He heard that his grandfather was from La Ngai hamlet, riding the waves out to sea on a thin bamboo boat with a brown sail, diving for sea cucumbers on remote islands, the most famous in the region. When he was appointed to the Hoang Sa Team and in charge of Bac Hai, he received the Nguyen Dynasty's imperial edict, every year he left in March and returned in August. He became a man experienced in the sea. Looking at the ocean currents moving on the surface of the sea, looking at the fish scales shining in the sky, he knew that strong winds and a great storm were about to happen. That experience had been more or less passed on to his father. But who could understand the surprises of the sea? Danger was always lurking, between life and loss there was only a plank of the boat. Stepping down the boat with a proud and arrogant air, he stood tall in the face of the wind and waves. Only his wife turned her face towards the road, pulling the hem of her brown shirt to dry her cheeks. That time, his trip was a long journey. A long journey forever into the ocean. His grave was built on a poplar hill near the village field. Xom La Ngai called it Cuu's wind grave. At sea, there was an abundance of wind. Without the wind carrying the salty breath, how could we feel the ocean? Without the strong wind pushing the crazy waves, how could we know the anger of the ocean. But "wind grave" is an immense pain. It is a sigh of sadness and melancholy of human life. But that, too, is a source of comfort and pride. Next to Mr. Cuu's grave there are many other graves.

Carrying the heroic blood of his father, he was always the pride of his family. Also on a trip out to sea, now it was no longer a small boat. It was a ship with more than ninety horsepower, leading a mighty army to conquer the ocean. His father had gone, had returned. The team of young men was like a hyphen connecting the fishing village of La Ngai with the distant islands. The sea suddenly blew. The boat of the divers had weighed anchor and turned the wheel. It was too late. Huge waves crashed down. The boat tilted and swayed. The sailors tied their hands together with ropes. In this life-or-death moment, no one said anything, but they all did not want La Ngai village to have any more wind graves. Three days later, the sea was calm and the wind was calm, people rescued the sailors clinging to the planks of the boat... It was his turn, the blood of conquering the ocean boiled again. He never intended to give up the ocean. The ocean was always fascinating and alluring. And then he set out again. Together with the fishing village diving team, for more than twenty years, he became a “sea wolf”. The sea was like his home pond to him. At night, lying with his arms resting on his forehead, the sound of the waves sounded like an inviting melody.

His wife, a girl from the fishing village, had a very sea-like complexion, salty and discreet. They were friends who used to hopscotch and catch clams in the past. They became close friends under the moonlight of the village. La Ngai village was peaceful and gentle. This couple's union gave birth to innocent children. Children who grew up breathing the scent of the ocean and had strong souls. He loved his wife and the ocean as if he could never lose either of them. Every time he went out to sea, his wife did not forget to put in the diver's luggage a can of fish sauce. The bowls of salty and fragrant fish sauce soaked into every part of his intestines before he dived deep one night, when he was having a fitful sleep, suddenly "bang". An unexpected collision. He woke up. The boat broke in two, water gushing out. In the dark night, they grabbed plastic cans, planks, anything they could cling to. And they drifted until dawn. A merchant ship passed by, seven divers were rescued. It was not until two weeks later that they set foot on their homeland. This time he returned home, he faced a painful loss. His wife left him while he was still adrift on a merchant ship of some strange nationality. His wife did not survive her last birth.

Afternoon, on the vast poplar hill. The incense sticks were smoking, drifting far away with the wind as if carrying their own feelings. He sat quietly beside his wife's grave, listening to the waves of sorrow filling his soul. The portrait on the tombstone, with its gentle eyes, reminded him that a time of happiness had passed. A fragile happiness hanging on the crest of the waves.
He had not been out to sea for a long time, not because he was afraid of strong winds, big waves or being sunk by a “strange ship”, but because his children were still too young. Many nights, lying in bed listening to the waves, he missed the sea endlessly.

This morning, after putting the child to sleep, he carried his net bag to the sea. Looking at the sea, his heart was filled with emotion. The sea was a deep blue. Wave after wave continuously crashed on the shore. A few mullet and mullet were playing with the waves. He still remembered the times he cast his net near the shore, catching mullet. The mullet was long and slender, like the freshwater goby but a little bigger. The mullet braised with pepper was no different from the goby. He gave his wife some braised fish as a gift when he gave birth to his eldest son. Each time he cast his net, his wife swayed her belly as she walked on the sand, occasionally picking up a rock and throwing it into the sea. He laughed heartily as he picked up the white fish.

Now he brought the same net to the same place but it was just him and the sea. If someone said “one plus one makes two”, he added loneliness to make the sea.
The sun had risen, the sea was shining a vast silvery white. Far away, there were the islands of his homeland. There were the bones of his ancestors buried in the salty sea. Suddenly, he felt the taste of sea salt on his lips in the shimmering sunlight...

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