There is a man named Sergeant Tri Tran, lying in a worn-out bed in a windowless room. A few rays of light creep into the room outlining a spring bed and a bowl next to the bamboo bars. The man opens his eyes and the familiar darkness greets him. He closes them again and the darkness follows him. Along with the usual darkness he knows so well, there is the common smell, the smell of unclean cells and humans occupying them. He has become accustomed to this smell and accustomed to many things such as the darkness, the stale food and the loneliness which reminds him everyday that he has become forgotten by the outside world.

He gets up from his bed. It creaks along side with his protesting joints. They are so bruised and swollen in many places that they resemble a surface tree root. He hobbles to the bars, blinking himself awake. He sits down next to the bars, wipes his dry lips and drinks the dirty water, which has been left for him. He sets the bowl down folds his arms around his legs, collapses his head onto his arms and remembers better times.

He remembers their promises. Promises of assured victory, prosperity, but what was most desirable, was peace. Peace was something he had wanted his country to have after many years of fighting against the French, then the Japanese and now it was the Communists. So he joined the army hoping to help his country to seek these promises, but they never happened. The only promise which war brings is death to those who take part. So they packed up when it got a bit ‘tough’ and littered his country with their western garbage. He imagines it now, ghettos sprouting up like weeds, bringing unwanted human suffering which has the relentless urge to survive against a government which enslaves them. The people now being made to work for men who do not care for their well-being, the government only care for their swollen bellies and the doctrine which they follow. He also imagines the countryside, once beautified and controlled by many generations of farming, it is now all mud hills, barren as a desert, caused by the intense bombing. The land took generations to farm. They managed to destroy it in a microsecond.

He notices shadow stretching across the ground in the corner of his eye, it belongs to a guard.

"What day is it today? " The prisoner asks.

"Wednesday." The guard answers. Then taking the butt of his rifle slams it into the prisoner's face.

Ha! Ha! What day is it? What day is it?" The prisoner in the opposite cell bursts out laughing.

"I’ll give you what day it is madman! " The guard points the rifle between the madman's eyes. Instantly the laughter is killed by the dangerous, overbearing barrel.

Suddenly, a piercing cry wakes my Uncle Tri up, he traces it to the madman's cell. The guards are trying to take him away, maybe for questioning, for torture or for good. The madman shrieks like a banshee, he scratches, bites, kicks, struggling like a wounded lion, shot in its den. By this time, the two guards had given up trying to pluck him from his cell. The younger of the two men takes the butt of his rifle and swings it into the madman's face. This ceases the horrid beastly cries. They quietly take him from his cell.

He washes his face in the water. It drips off, as if refusing to clean such a haggard soul. He picks up the rock next to the bowl and carves a straight line on the wall, amongst the many others littered there, marking the days he has spent in the cell.

One hundred and fifty days he has spent in this hell hole. What a way to award a sergeant with awards in bravery and honour. He was there at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. He was there when they swarmed towards the heart of Vietnam, Saigon. He did not run like they did, he fought till blood immersed his uniform, until there was no ammunition left. At least he did not have the dishonour of running away. He will die for his country, in order to keep those promises alive, not for him but for his people and for the land, which should be always kept free. For a moment he longed to see the land once more, how sweet it would be if he could taste the air in his lungs, feel the firm ground beneath him, and see the land his ancestors once roamed. This would make any man smile. Yes, he would smile, even with that crooked face. He would smile.

" Tri! " a call yelled aggressively from outside the cell. The guard had returned, without the madman.

"Now it's my turn, " My Uncle thought to himself. The guard slams the door open and shoves him towards the ghetto courtyard. Tri goes down on his knees, head down and waiting patiently for his last breath of life.

The guard spoke, "Because you're a sergeant it would give us more reason to shoot you. But because the general thinks you've had more than your fair share, we're letting you go, on account that you never serve the South-Vietnam army again."

My Uncle would have willingly disobeyed, but at once, a flash of his childhood fast-forwarded through his mind like a movie set. He thought of his sisters and brother, his parents and his wife and daughter. He immediately sat up, stared at the guard who looked more scared of him than my Uncle himself, "I so hated life back then, I just didn't understand it. I was too young and too naive to know any good, " he thought. All the misery the war had brought, what has he ever gained out of it? Through his experiences, he can now open his eyes to a brighter world. Fortunately being one of the lucky few to be released, he would appreciate and value what life has to offer more. He would go home to the south and start a life, which he would be proud of, a life, where so many millions of unfortunate souls never had an opportunity to encounter.

In a split second my Uncle ran like he had never ran before. Running towards the rising sunset, a sign of freedom and hope in his life at last.

Lorraine Mafi-Williams

Big Book '99