Traffic Jam

A Vietnamese guy who is on his way to school on a narrow crowded road.

Traffic jam
I'm on the way to school.
It's 5:45 PM, the rush hour, and it is pretty dark. You know?
Traffic in Vietnam is a mess, the roads are quite narrow and there
are too many bikes. It is just like you being compressed in a small
bottle along with thousands more. We're in the midst of January,
the coldest time of the year. It's about 7 degree above zero. Maybe
you could laugh at my face because of this. I know there are places
where the temperature often go down to -10. But in a tropical zone
like this, 7 is really a big problem. I can feel the freeze to the
bones, all I need to do now is to reach my destination as soon as
possible.

I put on my headphone.The road is still crowded.
Vehicles're hardly to move. Damn it ! people from the surrounding
provinces comes here in hope for a better life that made this shame
little city overpopulated. The light turns red, now the flood of
vehicles stop for 90 seconds. There's nothing to do but wait. I
turn on my phone radio, they're broadcasting news.

I hate
this government, they're such a bunch of liars. The only difference
between a gov-guy and a robber is that the gov-guy are legal.
Unemployment rate ? Increase again. CPI ? Another hit. Damn ! I don't
want to think of this anymore, the gov-guys still got their purse
filled and their income always be more than 8 figures.

They're
broadcasting about East Sea dispute. The matter is always hot. I
don't know what those gov-guys will do to keep our islands.
Nothing? or turning this nation into a puppet-state? I couldn't
bear the way they reacted when the EAF sent its first citizens to our
islands, they did nothing but to show their 'deep
concern'.

Anyway, that is the gov-stuffs. Politics is a
complex world. We're just normal citizens and our work is just to
support our pathetic life. We have learnt to ignore bad things
because we couldn't do anything at all. Anyway if those government
agents among us know anything about things like people say bad things
about the government or the EAF. The police will have us in jails or
even the worst. They excuted 11 men last year, they were accused of
high treason. I know one of them, Hoang, he was my friend in
highschool. He was a good fella who had a dream to become an author.
His girlfriend cried all the time, and his mother tearfully said that
he was innocent.

The light turned yellow and then green. The
vehicles start to move slowly, then another boring day ahead. The
broadcaster says that tension is rising as negotiation failed that
the EAF refused to give our islands back. EAF Representative have
shown a document since the Mao regime that our government agreed to
ceded the islands to them. What a bunch of cowards! They legally sold
our lands to a foreign power. They forbid any Anti-EAF protests. They
put anyone who mentioned just a word about the border war in jail.
Fuck them! They refused any helps from the Great Powers just to make
sure that the EAF leaders feel the way most convenient, so those
cowards could keep their seats as rulers.

There is no hope
for this situation, the road is too crowded, and I'm late. Damn! I
always late. Suddenly another bike hit mine from behind.


'Motherfucker, what are you looking at ?' The rider yells
at me.

I'm about to get off my bike to teach that asshole a
lesson that I notice a comet flying above. That is so wonderful ! I
have never seen a comet before !

Then another comet flying.
Two, three, then for .... Ten, then countless 'comet' flying
above us. Then I realize that they are NOT comets, they are ballistic
missiles. One missile hits Lotte Tower, it is burning, the
surrounding buildings are on fire too. They will collapse soon, there
will be high civilian casualties.

It soon turns to chaos as
people start to run for their lives. They are doing the impossible,
the road is too crowd and it is hardly to move just in centimetres.
From afar I can see the incoming shockwave throws cars and trucks
away. The earth begins to shake crazily, many buildings have
collapsed.  Panic ! I get off the bike trying to run. But run where
?!

I see a pedestrian tunnel on the otherside of the road. I
need to hurry, there's not so much time left, but it is too
crowded, people start to fight each others just to run away from the
incoming disaster. I need to fight off this shit ! It is just a bout
10 metres more.

Something, a force overpower my efforts, it
lifts me up from the ground and violently throw me away. My body hits
the wall and then the ground. Anything infront of my eyes gradually
grows faint and I could barely realize that I am lying on the side of
the tunnel. I try my best to crawl my way to the tunnel entrance. In
a brief moment, I see figures of a woman and a child running in the
chaos, looking for safety. The woman is carrying the kid. I can
barely hear his voice.

'Mom' he says, 'What a beautiful
big mushroom !'