From: maverick@ucrengr.ucr.edu (linh le)
Subject: [LIT] short stories:  The Journey
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Date: 3 Oct 92 09:27:26 GMT


Hi everyone,

I'm learning to write story in english and I need your feedback.
Please help me by criticize/analyze my story.  Anything is helpful,
including correct mispelling and grammar mistakes :_) .  If
any of you have time to uhhh... proofread this story, that would
be supper !!!  Please be specific so I know where to look.  Thank
you in advance :_)

Quo^'c Linh
email:  maverick@cs.ucr.edu

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THE JOURNEY

_  Hi...
A skinny girl greets me in a friendly voice.  The room is small,
dark and damp which makes the atmosphere even more exiting,
reminding me of a french spy movie I saw not long ago.  Imagine a
small room packed with people of all kinds, showing worried
expressions on their faces, not making the slightest bit of
noise.  There is absolute silence.  This is exiting!  We are like
the french revolutionists on secret mission trying to avoid the
Germans.  We are waiting ...
There I am, standing in shorts with the usual back pack I always
carry to school.  However, the back pack does not contain books
and pencils but instead a pair of clothing, twenty American
dollars, a bottle of water which I don't know why my dad put in
there and a small notebook with all kinds of photos and messages
my friends wrote to me when I told them I was Leaving.  Leaving
or sneak out the country is a common thing around here.  If they
catch us, I hear that they will send the adults to jail.  Well, I
am just a kid, and I hear they will send a kid back home, which
is all right.
Anyway, the skinny girl moves over to make room for me.  I sit
down.  I am waiting.
_  Where are you from?  The girl whispers.
_  Here, Saigon.  You are going alone?
She nods.  I look at her carefully and she doesn't look that
skinny anymore.  She's quite cute, like a kitten curled up near
the fire to keep warm.  I can't imagine that a girl my age would
be allowed to go alone to a place like this.
_      What's your name?
_      Kim.
She smiles.  The same friendly smile she gave me when I came in.
_      And yours?
_      Tim.  How come you're going alone?
_      My dad is in the concentration camp, and my mom just passed
       away.  My aunt thought it would be good for me to make a new
       life somewhere else ...
Ten p.m.  The boat arrives.  It docks right next to the house and
people are anxious to get down.  Each tries to be as quite as
possible while pushing the others out of his way.  A bunch of
sorry-looking people... I guess that's why I don't want to mix in
with the crowd. Instead, I take the last look at the city lights
above me.  The lights don't seem to notice I am leaving.
       Good bye city for now.  I am going to make a better life for
       myself.  There will be a much better life and especially
       movies where I am going.  I hear U.S movies are excellent,
       not like Soviet movies in which the Red Army always wins.
       Soviet movies are so unreal!
Kim pulls my sleeve to wake me up from my thoughts.  I guess this
is it.  We are the last ones to get on the boat.
The security people cover the boat with wood and straw. Supposely
we are a merchant boat of some sort.  Under the wood, I feel like
I am in a submarine.  It is pitch dark.  Not even a red dot of a
cigarette.  That's it.  This is the Nautilus and we are invisible
under the eyes of the English.
The engine rumbles in the night, taking us to the promised land
under the city lights of Saigon ...
I wake to noises like fire crackers on New Year's eve.  Bup bup
bup ... I sit up and raise my head to see what's going on.
Someone screams my name and a hand gets a hold of my collar and
pulls me down.  I am fully awake now and I recognize Kim lying
next to me.
_      What's going on?
I notice everyone lying terrified on the floor.  The boat is
flying on water.  The sound goes on constantly.  Bup bup bup...
_  The National Guard is shooting at us!
_  You mean we haven't gotten to International Waters yet?
The sound of an unmerciful bullet goes past my ear and nails
itself on the wall.  Wow!  This is something else!  Kim snuggles
into my chest.  She must be scared stiff.
_  Kim, don't be scare.
I look down at her, and I feel the warmth of her blood running
down my hand.
_  KIM.
_  STAY DOWN.
Someone screams in vain.  A man pushes my head down.  I lie
hopelessly on the floor like a fish stuck under the sun.  She is
lying there beside me.  Dead!  Dead!  The chase goes on...  the
night is falling...  the sound of bullets go past my ear. What
difference does it make!
       We made it!  We escaped the National Guards!  We made it to
       wonderful International Waters.  We are out of Viet Nam.
       Hurrah!  We only suffered one casualty.  With 157 people
       packed on the boat, the only one who got killed has to be
       her, my only companion.
The sun comes out.  She is not beside me anymore.  They took her
away after searching for information in her pockets and her back
pack.  There was nothing except an address of someone in the
United States.  I asked for it, and I got it.  The address was
neatly typed.
_  Are you related to her?  A man asked me at the time.
I paused for a while, and then shook my head.
_  Is there anyone here related to this young girl?  He yelled
out.
There was silence.  Absolute silence.  People looked at her with
pity in their eyes.
_  Poor girl ...
_  Where is she from?
_  ...
Someone is crying.  It isn't me.  I just sit there, staring at
the bullet in the wall.  Everything inside seems to fall apart.
Using all my strength, I reach for the bullet.  I feel the chill
coming through my hand.  I shrink back.
       I mean, the bullets seem so harmless in the movies.  Like in
       a western, you cheer for the good guys shooting down the bad
       guys.  You clap your hands as the bad guys fall down.
       I mean you can't feel the cold metal.  You can't feel the
       warmth of blood flowing out from the bad guys.
The rays of the sun like a millions nails pierce through my
skin...
There is no way they could have kept a body of a dead person on a
boat full of living people.  So they do the best they could do:
Wrapping her in a blanket, they throw her into the sea.  Funny,
that's the same way captain Nemo buries his companion.  There is
no funeral, no trumpet, no tears!  People are too tired to cry.
Only babies don't know.  They cry.  They don't know they need
water to survive.  Each teardrop is worth something to the body.
We are frying under the sun.  My throat is dry and my head spins.
Water!  Water is everywhere but there is no sight of land.  I
pass out hearing some woman who goes out of her mind and calls
out for a taxi to go home.
_  LAND.
_  Malaysia.
I open my eyes.  We are here.  The beach looks like some kind of
military operation.  There are soldiers everywhere.  Net like
fishing net is thrown down to us.  People push each other to
climb up.  We need to reach the top.  We are save!  The Malaysian
soldiers stand above in a brand new uniform with U.S. M-16
looking straight ahead. I finally get to land.  Finally, I have a
chance to look at my boat from a distance.  It is a crumby old
boat not much bigger than a regular fishing boat.  It has a
greenish brown look with its eyes wide open.  A faded word "Viet
Nam" is the last thing I recognize before I see smoke coming out
of it.  They are burning our boat.
A Malaysian soldier standing beside me, fully equipped with
deadly weapons, grins and says:
_  We are burning all the shit you people may have brought over
here.  There's a bath over there.  Take off your clothes and
clean yourself up.
The soldier looks at the boat, shakes his head, and then looks at
me.  He says mockingly with an eternal grin:
_  Welcome to the Real World.