A while ago, or maybe not a while, I should say quite some time ago, the Congress of the United State of America had started a vote. The role of this vote is to consider which language would be the official language of this country, German or English. It is now known as the Muhlenberg Vote. The result is English won over German in a tight competition.
Of course it is a hoax. It was a failed attempt to translate government official documents to German during that period. However, this story is just the tip of the iceberg, which represent a long lasting debate of which language should be considered official of the United State. One recent poll today showed that there are 90% people here are capable of speaking English, while 12.5% fluently speak Spanish. It also revealed that over one million US citizens speak Vietnamese as well. What do these numbers mean?
Apparently, they means that most business and official documents have to adapt to the languages of those people. A good and straight forward example is when you have to call T-Mobile for their service, you will hear a short "Welcome to T-Mobile" in English just a second before they storm you with a 30 seconds long Spanish welcome message. Sometime I wonder why "Welcome to T-Mobile" can be translated into such a long paragraph in Spanish. Naturally, I have a feeling that those Spanish speaking people have some more information that are not available to me.
Envy is one of the seven deadly sin. Guess what, I am going to hell for being jealous with them. Lucky for me, I am not a Christian. However, language diversity is really a worth mentioning topic if someone wants to talk about US culture. After all, United State also implies that this country united every races, ethnics, cultures and languages. You never know the person who sits next to you in the bus can speak English or not, unless you try to talk to them. Although, for me, my chance of trying to starting a conversation with a person who just talked in his/her strange language a moment ago is really low. There is an invisible barrier exists between people of this "united" country. Everyone is working, learning hard to get over it, but it is still there.
Now, imagine the vote I mentioned was real, and German won over English. Needless to say, you are reading this post in German. Moreover, Hitler could have won the war, who knows?
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 3)
The name is Lenny
Lenny is seemingly even more confused.
"What are you talking about? Why am I here? Who are you?"
She frowned at him, then asks. "Do you remember anything?"
"No, my head hurts.." He closes his eyes try to recall something.
"Hmmm, this is bad. At first, I saw you were crawling up the Dead Zone, and then you don't remember a thing. Maybe you are an undead.", she then backs up.
"Undead? Dead zone? What?" He looks at the old woman.
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Just forget about it. I haven't seen anyone 'alive' lately anyway. But here, I found this in your pocket when me and Old Fart brought you here." She shows him a small, dirty lion doll. "It has something written under its belly, and also, it has the smell of a....father. A loving father." She continues. "I can not read, but my nose is sharper than Old Fart for sure."
Lenny looks at the doll, then slowly but surely, his eyes are filled with tears. "Joe.."
"You remember this doll, don't you?"
"I.. I don't think so. I had this dream. It likes it happened yesterday..my friend..Joe. He wanted to give this doll to his daughter. But it is just a dream. I meant..I don't know anything anymore. I don't even know why i am crying" His tears still fall out of his eyes, run down his temples and started to wet the pillow under.
"Hmm, a dream, and a vision of yesterdays...", paused a moment, she sighs. "My dad used to tell me stories about people who lost their memory, and in those stories, their memories come back to them in the form of dreams, unusual dreams."
"Then...is it true that...Joe is dead?"
"I don't know about that, young boy. But what else do you remember?" The grandma smiles gently.
"I ..was in a dark place. People died. Many of them.. I know their names...They called me..Lenny." He tries to get a hold of his emotion, why answering the grandma.
Her eyes light up, and she started to laugh out loud.
"What a surprise! Once I had a son, and his name is Leonard, but I always call him Lenny. haha".
Then she pauses a few second. "But he is dead now, just like everyone else I know." She starts to giggle again.
"What is funny about being dead? You are creepy." Lenny feels uneasy about her way of laughing.
"Oh sorry young boy. At my age, dead is not a tragedy, it is a miracle." The old woman continues to smile at him.
"A MIRACLE? DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW?" He yells at her so loud that, for a moment, he feels like he can move his arms and legs.
"Of course I do, young boy. I know what you are feeling right now. But believe me, after a while, you will get over it. And now, you need to sleep. By this time tomorrow, when you wake up, you will be able to move around as your wounds are healed." She says, and starts to put her hand over his forehead, hover above it in a circle.
"But, I ..." Before he can say anything more, his eyelids become heavy, and his head feels light. He falls asleep almost instantly after.
When he woke up, it is already a day later. This time, as the grandma said, he can move all of his body parts, although they are still weak. No one is in the house but him, not even the dog yesterday, Lenny decides to leave the bed and walk around to discover where he is. The house is not big, but not too small. It has two rooms and a kitchen. His room is just in the left of the kitchen while the right one is locked. "That must be that granny's room." Lenny walks around the kitchen. It is a bit dusty, but there is a warm burned block of firewood inside the fireplace, indicates that it has been used recently. He can not find any food spared, the fireplace, the table, everywhere he looks, are empty of food. There is nothing edible in this house. For a moment, he wonders if the old woman eats anything at all. There is even no single evidence of food in this dusty kitchen, as if there is no one was living here for a long time.
He open the only door leads to outside, and walk out. There is no sunlight, but it is not dark. There is noway for him to tell if it is still day or it is evening already. The sky is covered with cloud and the air, it feels dreary. Turning around to look at the house, the house is appeared to be a very old and was made entirely of wood. He then realizes that the house and him are seemingly standing alone on the top of a sloppy hill. He cannot see anything below the slope except the tops of some trees spike out a heavy fogged field beneath. The house, the hill and the fog make it feels like he is standing on a lone island, a creepy one. Each time a wind blows pass his nape, a cold runs through his spine and shakes his whole body up. It is worth to mention that the wind is not that cold, it is just the feel.
And then, out of nowhere, there is a noise of something rubs the ground. It sounds like when people take two pieces of wood and rub them together to make an annoying sound. It comes from the fog. Despite of not being able to see what is happening inside the sea of fog, Lenny can feel the sound closer in every second. It is not fast but still, it is coming toward him, or the house.
"What's now?", he thinks to himself.
The fog seems to ebe disturbed, and long, dark figure slowly come closer to him from it. Lenny still stands there, stare into the fog, knows nothing about the danger he is about to face. As it comes closer to the house, the dark figure becomes bigger, and Lenny can hear a low, sinister male voice clearer. It is almost like "...shh...shh...my...mine.....shh...shhh" or something like that.
Lenny shouts to the dark figure in the fog, "WHO IS THAT?"
To which, it still mumbles "shhh...mine...mine...my....human...shhhh..shhhhhh". It is not crystal clear, but Lenny still can figure out that this thing is not very friendly.
Then it stops getting closer. He still cannot see anything but a dark, long and big figure because of the heavy fog. It is about one hundred feet away from him, and because he is on the higher ground, he can see that its body is at least twice that long. More than that, it is emerging from the fog, as if it wants to get closer to him. A pair of glowing green eye shaped balls are placed on its head. They are staring at his eyes with a cold look. Lenny feels empty. He can not move, nor stop staring back at those things. They are coming closer to where he stands.
"GO BACK TO WHERE YOU BELONG, AAPEP! LEAVE THE BOY ALONE!", a strong, high pitched voice raises behind him.
<To be continue>
Lenny is seemingly even more confused.
"What are you talking about? Why am I here? Who are you?"
She frowned at him, then asks. "Do you remember anything?"
"No, my head hurts.." He closes his eyes try to recall something.
"Hmmm, this is bad. At first, I saw you were crawling up the Dead Zone, and then you don't remember a thing. Maybe you are an undead.", she then backs up.
"Undead? Dead zone? What?" He looks at the old woman.
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Just forget about it. I haven't seen anyone 'alive' lately anyway. But here, I found this in your pocket when me and Old Fart brought you here." She shows him a small, dirty lion doll. "It has something written under its belly, and also, it has the smell of a....father. A loving father." She continues. "I can not read, but my nose is sharper than Old Fart for sure."
Lenny looks at the doll, then slowly but surely, his eyes are filled with tears. "Joe.."
"You remember this doll, don't you?"
"I.. I don't think so. I had this dream. It likes it happened yesterday..my friend..Joe. He wanted to give this doll to his daughter. But it is just a dream. I meant..I don't know anything anymore. I don't even know why i am crying" His tears still fall out of his eyes, run down his temples and started to wet the pillow under.
"Hmm, a dream, and a vision of yesterdays...", paused a moment, she sighs. "My dad used to tell me stories about people who lost their memory, and in those stories, their memories come back to them in the form of dreams, unusual dreams."
"Then...is it true that...Joe is dead?"
"I don't know about that, young boy. But what else do you remember?" The grandma smiles gently.
"I ..was in a dark place. People died. Many of them.. I know their names...They called me..Lenny." He tries to get a hold of his emotion, why answering the grandma.
Her eyes light up, and she started to laugh out loud.
"What a surprise! Once I had a son, and his name is Leonard, but I always call him Lenny. haha".
Then she pauses a few second. "But he is dead now, just like everyone else I know." She starts to giggle again.
"What is funny about being dead? You are creepy." Lenny feels uneasy about her way of laughing.
"Oh sorry young boy. At my age, dead is not a tragedy, it is a miracle." The old woman continues to smile at him.
"A MIRACLE? DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW?" He yells at her so loud that, for a moment, he feels like he can move his arms and legs.
"Of course I do, young boy. I know what you are feeling right now. But believe me, after a while, you will get over it. And now, you need to sleep. By this time tomorrow, when you wake up, you will be able to move around as your wounds are healed." She says, and starts to put her hand over his forehead, hover above it in a circle.
"But, I ..." Before he can say anything more, his eyelids become heavy, and his head feels light. He falls asleep almost instantly after.
When he woke up, it is already a day later. This time, as the grandma said, he can move all of his body parts, although they are still weak. No one is in the house but him, not even the dog yesterday, Lenny decides to leave the bed and walk around to discover where he is. The house is not big, but not too small. It has two rooms and a kitchen. His room is just in the left of the kitchen while the right one is locked. "That must be that granny's room." Lenny walks around the kitchen. It is a bit dusty, but there is a warm burned block of firewood inside the fireplace, indicates that it has been used recently. He can not find any food spared, the fireplace, the table, everywhere he looks, are empty of food. There is nothing edible in this house. For a moment, he wonders if the old woman eats anything at all. There is even no single evidence of food in this dusty kitchen, as if there is no one was living here for a long time.
He open the only door leads to outside, and walk out. There is no sunlight, but it is not dark. There is noway for him to tell if it is still day or it is evening already. The sky is covered with cloud and the air, it feels dreary. Turning around to look at the house, the house is appeared to be a very old and was made entirely of wood. He then realizes that the house and him are seemingly standing alone on the top of a sloppy hill. He cannot see anything below the slope except the tops of some trees spike out a heavy fogged field beneath. The house, the hill and the fog make it feels like he is standing on a lone island, a creepy one. Each time a wind blows pass his nape, a cold runs through his spine and shakes his whole body up. It is worth to mention that the wind is not that cold, it is just the feel.
And then, out of nowhere, there is a noise of something rubs the ground. It sounds like when people take two pieces of wood and rub them together to make an annoying sound. It comes from the fog. Despite of not being able to see what is happening inside the sea of fog, Lenny can feel the sound closer in every second. It is not fast but still, it is coming toward him, or the house.
"What's now?", he thinks to himself.
The fog seems to ebe disturbed, and long, dark figure slowly come closer to him from it. Lenny still stands there, stare into the fog, knows nothing about the danger he is about to face. As it comes closer to the house, the dark figure becomes bigger, and Lenny can hear a low, sinister male voice clearer. It is almost like "...shh...shh...my...mine.....shh...shhh" or something like that.
Lenny shouts to the dark figure in the fog, "WHO IS THAT?"
To which, it still mumbles "shhh...mine...mine...my....human...shhhh..shhhhhh". It is not crystal clear, but Lenny still can figure out that this thing is not very friendly.
Then it stops getting closer. He still cannot see anything but a dark, long and big figure because of the heavy fog. It is about one hundred feet away from him, and because he is on the higher ground, he can see that its body is at least twice that long. More than that, it is emerging from the fog, as if it wants to get closer to him. A pair of glowing green eye shaped balls are placed on its head. They are staring at his eyes with a cold look. Lenny feels empty. He can not move, nor stop staring back at those things. They are coming closer to where he stands.
"GO BACK TO WHERE YOU BELONG, AAPEP! LEAVE THE BOY ALONE!", a strong, high pitched voice raises behind him.
<To be continue>
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 2)
Alrighty, let me pick it up where I left it last time. This part will be longer than the last part though.
His muscles relax. His eyes tell him to sleep, because he is safe now. For no reason at all, he knows that this old woman is going to save him and take care of him. Maybe it is just because she said so or maybe because of her surprisingly familiar voice. For now, it really doesn't matter much for at least his body can rest.
The legs and arms feel numb again, while the senses slowly fades away. Last thing he heard was the woman talking with someone else: "Here you are, Old Fart, your deaf nose made you lost again, huh?".
A blue sky turns dark
The man opens his eyes for someone is calling him, only to find out that he is in the middle of an open wheat field. The field is as vast as if there is no end to it. It cuts the orange sun into a half at the horizon. The winds play with his hair while also making countless waves on the wheat. Some hosts of sparrows flew over where he is sitting, make him notices the wide and peaceful blue sky above. Fresh air hides between each wave of winds fills his lung with a pleasant scent of the new wheat seeds.
"Lenny, will you ever come back to me?" a dearly voice he has forgotten for a long time whisper into his ear. The girl says, and leans her head on his shoulder.
"Of course I will. Even if this coming war will make me to leave you for a while. I promise, I will come back.". He turns his head to her and looks into those lenient eyes. "No matter what."
"Swear?" She smiles and winks at him, playfully, but also gently, gives him her pinky.
"Swear! Don't you believe me?" He looks at her, knits his brows, trying to act like doubting. Certainly, no one can say he is a good actor. They make a pinky swear.
She looks at him, with a smile so big that her blue eyes disappear behind two moon shaped curves. Then she leans her head on his shoulder again and tightly grips his arm.
"I always believe you. You just made a swear to me, he he."
She pauses a bit, and continue as he is still place his eyes on her dark silky brown hair which is moving in waves with the winds. "I will wait for you, forever. I swear that too."
Lenny turn his eyes back to the vast sky, smiling while slowly puts his back down to the grass with hers. His hands crossed behind the nape, with her cheek still leans on one arm. She holds him tightly and silently. They says nothing at all, just let the peaceful feeling flourishes.
Suddenly, there are ashes. They come from everywhere, falling down from the sky, blown up from ground by the winds. The sky turns dark and atrocious lighting begin to tear it apart with their red flame. He looks to his side, seeing the girl slowly turns into ashes. Cracks appear on her face, with fire under them. Soon he realizes that he is no longer in the wheat field anymore. Many men in uniform run around, yelling and screaming. Panic can be seen on their face, along with tears and despair. They all turn their big guns above their head, and shoot furiously into the dark sky. Even with fire lighting up the ground everywhere, the sky still stays unreasonable, some what evilly dark. Beside the fires, he sees tattered dead bodies. Some of those soulless faces are really familiar, but most are too deformed to be recognized. The sounds of incoming jet fighters tears down the sky, following up by a series of explosions. Before he can turn his head up to see what is going on, a burning airship falls down in front of his sight, explodes, thus leaves a massive fire ball that slowly levels up to the sky.
"Holy mother, it took down our entirely air support!"
"Nooooo, we are doomed."
"Jim and his men were under that explosion, come with me, they may still alive."
"How can we defeat it? I didn't sign up in the army for this kind of thing."
"Shut up and keep shooting, idiots."
"You shut up, we were lied to. They told us this campaign is not..."
A fiery explosion hits that talking soldier place, blowing everything in a range of two hundreds feet up, leaving only fire and ash falling down.
"Oh my god, it killed Dan, it killed our captain!"
"Retreat. Retreat. We are not going to win this war."
"Leave the tanks, scatter out, the tanks are useless now, morons"
"Leave those stupid tanks, it wont be able to chase down all of us at once!"
"Run for your own life!!!!"
While every other soldiers is either running, yelling or crying, Lenny still stands there, doing nothing as the deaths of his soldiers frozen his senses. People are dying in front of him, instantly. They could not even finish their sentence while screaming. Their voice just suddenly disappeared, one by one, after each explosion. It is like seeing them were alive in just a moment ago, and then turned in to ashes and fire in just a second later.
A hand grabs his shoulder and pull, makes him fall down into the trench.
"For the sake of god, what the hell are you doing? Lenny?" Joe is yelling at him.
"I..I.. don't know. They were there, and then they've gone, all of them... all of my friends..", he mumbles as tears fall down his chin.
"Damn, this is not the time for a crying baby, dude, just get a hold of yourself and run. It will kill you if you keep standing there doing nothing." Joe shakes him up.
And then they run like they have never run before in their life. Joe leads the way in the maze of war trenches and Lenny follows him closely. The sky is roaring behind them. Those roars are not like anything Lenny ever heard before in his life. Its loud, ferocious and deadly sound can break the spirit of the bravest soldier. Each roar is followed up by a ground shaken explosion.
"This way, Lenny. We almost there. Our base has an underground bomb shelter. If we get in there, it won't be able to kill us!"
"Alright, lead the way, man." He says, trying to hold himself together.
Joe jumps up a crate, pushes a dead body down in disgust.
"This man lost his head. Looks like everything from his neck were burned down to ash. So nasty.", then he continues, "But his phone still works, we have signal here. Hey brother, rest in peace, I will take your phone now, you don't need it anymore. We will make a good use of it for you.", Joe said to the body, calmly. It makes Lenny feels uneasy.
"How can you be so calm, Joe? We are going to die if we don't rush."
"Dude, don't worry. We are already there. Just need a phone so we can communicate with people. I am not going to die today. Julia will kill me if I die." Joe laughs.
He puts his hand in his pocket, pull out a small lion doll and tell Lenny.
"See this lion? I told you yesterday when we bought it in Carnice that I will give it to Julia. She loves dolls, every five years old love dolls. Looks, I even wrote my name on its belly. It says: -From dad with love, Joseph-." He laughs again then tosses the doll to Lenny, continues.
"I will have to stay alive until I give her that. And you too, you will be alive as well. You told me there is someone waiting for you at your town too, isn't it?"
Lenny promptly nods his head, admiring his friend's attitude while he is still in the worst life scenario possible.
"Alrighty then, when we jump over these two crates and get out of this smelly trench, we will see our base in front of us. And we are saved! Screw you, monster shit!"
Joe said then quickly turns to the crates and jump over them, get to the surface first. Lenny jumps after him while calling from behind,
"Hey wait, you are jumping too fast, what if it see us? And by the way, I am still holding your doll here."
But Joe does not answer him.
"Joe?"
Lenny asked, while finally get out of the trenches. When he looks at Joe standing with his back in front of him, he call Joe again,
"Joe? Why didn't you say anything?"
Joe raises his hand, shakily points toward the front.
"This...this used to be our ...b...base"
Lenny looks to his direction, and a huge meteor crate appeared before their eyes. It is as big as a foot ball stadium, as deep as an old diamond mine, and is filled with flames, resembles a gate way to hell, literally.
Suddenly, both of them hears a roar just above their heads. Lenny and Joe look up into the sky just to see a giant black figure floating covers their whole sight. Neither of them can clearly see what is that thing but its blood red eyes look like there are lava inside. It is not flying, it is floating in front of them. None of its movements on air create a single wind gust. The red eyes look deep into their souls, or at least it feels like that.
"It is ..it..t...t..th..the..Dra..cul.." Joe mumbles in shock.
The dark figure begins to open its mouth, reveals multiple sharp white teeth and a lava tongue. It is like the flame is rushing to get out of its pharynx.
"GET OUT OF THERE, JOE."
Lenny rushes toward his friend as fast as he can, while the dark figure begins to roar and spit a huge fire ball to where Joe is standing. Joe turns back, look at Lenny who is desperately running to him. For a moment, Lenny thinks that his friend is smiling, the smile of a man who accepted to not run away from his fate. That smile is like saying a farewell to him.
Joe's body begin to be dissolved in to gray ashes and blew away part by part when the fire ball come closer. Time is slowed down. While not believing in his own eyes, Lenny looks at his best friend's death in front of him helplessly. The ground is shaken, the time is slowed down. Lenny feels as light as like a bird's feather. The light fades out, as well as every sounds around him, only a calm silence left.
Then he opens his eyes, again, he find himself alone in the dark. There is nothing around him, absolute nothing. He cannot move, neither know where he is and why he is still alive. The surrounding is so quiet he can even feels his heat beating regularly and the sound of air coming in and out of his nose.
And then he feels wet on the head. His right ear is getting wet, then soon his right cheek and his nose.
"What is this? it is so weird!", feeling too uneasy, he bears it no more and yells out,
"STOPPP!!!"
To his surprise, he wakes up, only to know that a huge husky is licking his face.
"Oh dear, stop it Old Fart. Our boy woke up already because of you. " A woman voice raises.
Lenny looks around, while still cannot move anything but his head, to find where the voice is. The dog does not stop licking his face though.
An old woman appeared. She is very short, just about 4.5 feet tall, fat and wrinkled, wearing a dirty apron in front of her dusty old fashioned dress. However, her eyes are bright as the sun, and some what, very wise, despite of her mouth being edentulous. With a big smile on her face, she approaches him and says,
"Hello my dear, so you woke up. I am deeply apologize for Old Fart's action. He hasn't seen anyone in ages!"
After seeing his obviously confused reaction, she continues.
"Oh, how unmannered I am. Let this old grandma introduce myself first. My name is Melinoe. People I knew always call me Grandma Mely. They are all dead already, haha". She giggles.
<To be continued>
The wheat field
<....>His muscles relax. His eyes tell him to sleep, because he is safe now. For no reason at all, he knows that this old woman is going to save him and take care of him. Maybe it is just because she said so or maybe because of her surprisingly familiar voice. For now, it really doesn't matter much for at least his body can rest.
The legs and arms feel numb again, while the senses slowly fades away. Last thing he heard was the woman talking with someone else: "Here you are, Old Fart, your deaf nose made you lost again, huh?".
A blue sky turns dark
The man opens his eyes for someone is calling him, only to find out that he is in the middle of an open wheat field. The field is as vast as if there is no end to it. It cuts the orange sun into a half at the horizon. The winds play with his hair while also making countless waves on the wheat. Some hosts of sparrows flew over where he is sitting, make him notices the wide and peaceful blue sky above. Fresh air hides between each wave of winds fills his lung with a pleasant scent of the new wheat seeds.
"Lenny, will you ever come back to me?" a dearly voice he has forgotten for a long time whisper into his ear. The girl says, and leans her head on his shoulder.
"Of course I will. Even if this coming war will make me to leave you for a while. I promise, I will come back.". He turns his head to her and looks into those lenient eyes. "No matter what."
"Swear?" She smiles and winks at him, playfully, but also gently, gives him her pinky.
"Swear! Don't you believe me?" He looks at her, knits his brows, trying to act like doubting. Certainly, no one can say he is a good actor. They make a pinky swear.
She looks at him, with a smile so big that her blue eyes disappear behind two moon shaped curves. Then she leans her head on his shoulder again and tightly grips his arm.
"I always believe you. You just made a swear to me, he he."
She pauses a bit, and continue as he is still place his eyes on her dark silky brown hair which is moving in waves with the winds. "I will wait for you, forever. I swear that too."
Lenny turn his eyes back to the vast sky, smiling while slowly puts his back down to the grass with hers. His hands crossed behind the nape, with her cheek still leans on one arm. She holds him tightly and silently. They says nothing at all, just let the peaceful feeling flourishes.
Suddenly, there are ashes. They come from everywhere, falling down from the sky, blown up from ground by the winds. The sky turns dark and atrocious lighting begin to tear it apart with their red flame. He looks to his side, seeing the girl slowly turns into ashes. Cracks appear on her face, with fire under them. Soon he realizes that he is no longer in the wheat field anymore. Many men in uniform run around, yelling and screaming. Panic can be seen on their face, along with tears and despair. They all turn their big guns above their head, and shoot furiously into the dark sky. Even with fire lighting up the ground everywhere, the sky still stays unreasonable, some what evilly dark. Beside the fires, he sees tattered dead bodies. Some of those soulless faces are really familiar, but most are too deformed to be recognized. The sounds of incoming jet fighters tears down the sky, following up by a series of explosions. Before he can turn his head up to see what is going on, a burning airship falls down in front of his sight, explodes, thus leaves a massive fire ball that slowly levels up to the sky.
"Holy mother, it took down our entirely air support!"
"Nooooo, we are doomed."
"Jim and his men were under that explosion, come with me, they may still alive."
"How can we defeat it? I didn't sign up in the army for this kind of thing."
"Shut up and keep shooting, idiots."
"You shut up, we were lied to. They told us this campaign is not..."
A fiery explosion hits that talking soldier place, blowing everything in a range of two hundreds feet up, leaving only fire and ash falling down.
"Oh my god, it killed Dan, it killed our captain!"
"Retreat. Retreat. We are not going to win this war."
"Leave the tanks, scatter out, the tanks are useless now, morons"
"Leave those stupid tanks, it wont be able to chase down all of us at once!"
"Run for your own life!!!!"
While every other soldiers is either running, yelling or crying, Lenny still stands there, doing nothing as the deaths of his soldiers frozen his senses. People are dying in front of him, instantly. They could not even finish their sentence while screaming. Their voice just suddenly disappeared, one by one, after each explosion. It is like seeing them were alive in just a moment ago, and then turned in to ashes and fire in just a second later.
A hand grabs his shoulder and pull, makes him fall down into the trench.
"For the sake of god, what the hell are you doing? Lenny?" Joe is yelling at him.
"I..I.. don't know. They were there, and then they've gone, all of them... all of my friends..", he mumbles as tears fall down his chin.
"Damn, this is not the time for a crying baby, dude, just get a hold of yourself and run. It will kill you if you keep standing there doing nothing." Joe shakes him up.
And then they run like they have never run before in their life. Joe leads the way in the maze of war trenches and Lenny follows him closely. The sky is roaring behind them. Those roars are not like anything Lenny ever heard before in his life. Its loud, ferocious and deadly sound can break the spirit of the bravest soldier. Each roar is followed up by a ground shaken explosion.
"This way, Lenny. We almost there. Our base has an underground bomb shelter. If we get in there, it won't be able to kill us!"
"Alright, lead the way, man." He says, trying to hold himself together.
Joe jumps up a crate, pushes a dead body down in disgust.
"This man lost his head. Looks like everything from his neck were burned down to ash. So nasty.", then he continues, "But his phone still works, we have signal here. Hey brother, rest in peace, I will take your phone now, you don't need it anymore. We will make a good use of it for you.", Joe said to the body, calmly. It makes Lenny feels uneasy.
"How can you be so calm, Joe? We are going to die if we don't rush."
"Dude, don't worry. We are already there. Just need a phone so we can communicate with people. I am not going to die today. Julia will kill me if I die." Joe laughs.
He puts his hand in his pocket, pull out a small lion doll and tell Lenny.
"See this lion? I told you yesterday when we bought it in Carnice that I will give it to Julia. She loves dolls, every five years old love dolls. Looks, I even wrote my name on its belly. It says: -From dad with love, Joseph-." He laughs again then tosses the doll to Lenny, continues.
"I will have to stay alive until I give her that. And you too, you will be alive as well. You told me there is someone waiting for you at your town too, isn't it?"
Lenny promptly nods his head, admiring his friend's attitude while he is still in the worst life scenario possible.
"Alrighty then, when we jump over these two crates and get out of this smelly trench, we will see our base in front of us. And we are saved! Screw you, monster shit!"
Joe said then quickly turns to the crates and jump over them, get to the surface first. Lenny jumps after him while calling from behind,
"Hey wait, you are jumping too fast, what if it see us? And by the way, I am still holding your doll here."
But Joe does not answer him.
"Joe?"
Lenny asked, while finally get out of the trenches. When he looks at Joe standing with his back in front of him, he call Joe again,
"Joe? Why didn't you say anything?"
Joe raises his hand, shakily points toward the front.
"This...this used to be our ...b...base"
Lenny looks to his direction, and a huge meteor crate appeared before their eyes. It is as big as a foot ball stadium, as deep as an old diamond mine, and is filled with flames, resembles a gate way to hell, literally.
Suddenly, both of them hears a roar just above their heads. Lenny and Joe look up into the sky just to see a giant black figure floating covers their whole sight. Neither of them can clearly see what is that thing but its blood red eyes look like there are lava inside. It is not flying, it is floating in front of them. None of its movements on air create a single wind gust. The red eyes look deep into their souls, or at least it feels like that.
"It is ..it..t...t..th..the..Dra..cul.." Joe mumbles in shock.
The dark figure begins to open its mouth, reveals multiple sharp white teeth and a lava tongue. It is like the flame is rushing to get out of its pharynx.
"GET OUT OF THERE, JOE."
Lenny rushes toward his friend as fast as he can, while the dark figure begins to roar and spit a huge fire ball to where Joe is standing. Joe turns back, look at Lenny who is desperately running to him. For a moment, Lenny thinks that his friend is smiling, the smile of a man who accepted to not run away from his fate. That smile is like saying a farewell to him.
Joe's body begin to be dissolved in to gray ashes and blew away part by part when the fire ball come closer. Time is slowed down. While not believing in his own eyes, Lenny looks at his best friend's death in front of him helplessly. The ground is shaken, the time is slowed down. Lenny feels as light as like a bird's feather. The light fades out, as well as every sounds around him, only a calm silence left.
Then he opens his eyes, again, he find himself alone in the dark. There is nothing around him, absolute nothing. He cannot move, neither know where he is and why he is still alive. The surrounding is so quiet he can even feels his heat beating regularly and the sound of air coming in and out of his nose.
And then he feels wet on the head. His right ear is getting wet, then soon his right cheek and his nose.
"What is this? it is so weird!", feeling too uneasy, he bears it no more and yells out,
"STOPPP!!!"
To his surprise, he wakes up, only to know that a huge husky is licking his face.
"Oh dear, stop it Old Fart. Our boy woke up already because of you. " A woman voice raises.
Lenny looks around, while still cannot move anything but his head, to find where the voice is. The dog does not stop licking his face though.
An old woman appeared. She is very short, just about 4.5 feet tall, fat and wrinkled, wearing a dirty apron in front of her dusty old fashioned dress. However, her eyes are bright as the sun, and some what, very wise, despite of her mouth being edentulous. With a big smile on her face, she approaches him and says,
"Hello my dear, so you woke up. I am deeply apologize for Old Fart's action. He hasn't seen anyone in ages!"
After seeing his obviously confused reaction, she continues.
"Oh, how unmannered I am. Let this old grandma introduce myself first. My name is Melinoe. People I knew always call me Grandma Mely. They are all dead already, haha". She giggles.
<To be continued>
The sky is falling
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Friendly US citizens
People here are so friendly and approachable. They are easy to talk with and very helpful.
Three days ago, when I was waiting at the bus stop, suddenly a guy (looks nerdy with a pair of thick glasses) turned his head over me and said: "yo, how ya do'in?". Of course, that was how we started our conversation and continued doing so until the bus came, instead of awkwardly staring into the void and be quiet.
That also reminds me of half a week ago, when an old woman started a conversation with me at the bus stop by the same way. People just did that to me naturally and the frequency was high enough for me to begin to think about it. It seems like people here are more friendly than in Vietnam. I haven't even seen anyone here that did not smile when they saw me on the road.
Back in Vietnam, if we are waiting at a public place, we do not talk to each other. Our eyes always try to find a way to avoid looking at the people who sit/stand next to us. We were told by our parents that we should not talk with strangers, because they might trick us, or something bad might happen. That is Asian culture, not just Vietnamese. That is why I always do not know what to say when a stranger starts talking to me, maybe it needs practice, or may be there is a recipe for it. I do not know. The only thing I know that I am starting to adapt into this new environment. Hope everything will go well.
Still, one of the things I always want to know is how to start a conversation smoothly. From my own experience, usually, people will ask other with the question: "hey, how are you doing?" or its variances. My answer is always: "Fine, how about you?". After that, we would start talking about something that appears in our mind. However, I never know if that kind of start is appropriate enough or is there any alternative. It seems like I have to take more time sitting at the bus stop to learn this from people.
Fun fact: if you are in Vietnam, and if when you accidentally look into the eyes of a girl in front of you, then she smiles to you, I can say things are going pretty serious. That means she knows you and is into you. Sadly, the same thing does not apply to people in the United State, because if so, there must be around three hundreds girls want me already. Sadly.
Three days ago, when I was waiting at the bus stop, suddenly a guy (looks nerdy with a pair of thick glasses) turned his head over me and said: "yo, how ya do'in?". Of course, that was how we started our conversation and continued doing so until the bus came, instead of awkwardly staring into the void and be quiet.
That also reminds me of half a week ago, when an old woman started a conversation with me at the bus stop by the same way. People just did that to me naturally and the frequency was high enough for me to begin to think about it. It seems like people here are more friendly than in Vietnam. I haven't even seen anyone here that did not smile when they saw me on the road.
Back in Vietnam, if we are waiting at a public place, we do not talk to each other. Our eyes always try to find a way to avoid looking at the people who sit/stand next to us. We were told by our parents that we should not talk with strangers, because they might trick us, or something bad might happen. That is Asian culture, not just Vietnamese. That is why I always do not know what to say when a stranger starts talking to me, maybe it needs practice, or may be there is a recipe for it. I do not know. The only thing I know that I am starting to adapt into this new environment. Hope everything will go well.
Still, one of the things I always want to know is how to start a conversation smoothly. From my own experience, usually, people will ask other with the question: "hey, how are you doing?" or its variances. My answer is always: "Fine, how about you?". After that, we would start talking about something that appears in our mind. However, I never know if that kind of start is appropriate enough or is there any alternative. It seems like I have to take more time sitting at the bus stop to learn this from people.
Fun fact: if you are in Vietnam, and if when you accidentally look into the eyes of a girl in front of you, then she smiles to you, I can say things are going pretty serious. That means she knows you and is into you. Sadly, the same thing does not apply to people in the United State, because if so, there must be around three hundreds girls want me already. Sadly.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 1)
My dear Mrs. Katia,
This week was a long one with many assignments and meetings, I have not engaged in any major conversation for 5 days straight except saying "Hello", "Hi", "See you", "Have a nice day.". Therefore, I think there is no new progress to update via this blog for now. Instead, I will start writing a little story that I made up. Of course I promise I will have something to write about learning English next week.
On a dark night, in a graveyard.
This week was a long one with many assignments and meetings, I have not engaged in any major conversation for 5 days straight except saying "Hello", "Hi", "See you", "Have a nice day.". Therefore, I think there is no new progress to update via this blog for now. Instead, I will start writing a little story that I made up. Of course I promise I will have something to write about learning English next week.
<I will think of a tittle later>
Chapter I. The small house on a highland
Sounds of the ravens.
On a dark night, in a graveyard.
"Ugh..My whole body hurts.", he whimpers,
"Why it is so hard to move my arms? Why I can't open my eyes? What's happened? My head hurt so bad. Agrrr.. what is this smell?"
Lying on the ground, the man tries to move his arms and legs, but they are numb. It feels like most of his bones were broken down to pieces. Every little move hurts him badly and he still can not open his eyes, nor hear anything at all. However, he can clearly feel the sticky cold fluid that clings on his hands every where he can reach and its disgusting smell. It gives him the urge to vomit everything inside his stomach, if he has any.
The last instinct tells him to get out of this disgusting sticky place, by all means possible, even if it means that he must crawl on all four with all the strength left in his muscles. However, it does not last long, as the terrible pains strikes him down, make him lies on his back, breaths difficultly.
The last instinct tells him to get out of this disgusting sticky place, by all means possible, even if it means that he must crawl on all four with all the strength left in his muscles. However, it does not last long, as the terrible pains strikes him down, make him lies on his back, breaths difficultly.
"Where I am? Why am I here? Is this hell or something? Who am I?" His mind is filled with questions he can not answer, while agonizing, from feet to neck.
Then a small sound hits the ears. He doesn't know what is that, even in this mostly silence world, that sound still does not loud enough for him to recognize, nor to tell where it is coming from, his left or his right. However, the sound gradually becomes louder, and louder, until he realizes that is the gurgling croak from a raven. No. Not one but a bunch of them.
Their calls becomes so big, so noisy that it seems like there are thousands of those black birds around and above him.
"Ravens! this must be hell. I must be in hell already." is the first of his thoughts.
For the first time since he backed to his sense, he doesn't feel pain anymore. The wind can hear his sighs as he put all of his strength left to open his arms as wide as he can, so the devil can come and end this suffering.
"COME TO ME, END THIS!", a loudly thought busts out of his mind.
The noisy, harassing calls of the ravens seem closer and even louder every moment. With his eyes are still closed, or so, maybe he is blinded already, he waits for thousands of beaks to stab into his chest, his thighs, his face and tear his flesh apart, then kill him in the most painful way possible. He doesn't afraid at all for there is only emptiness inside his head. No thinking, just waiting.
Suddenly, there is a clear disturbance in those noise, like they are being banished away by someone, or something. He can not see but he can feel that.
"THERE IS SOMEONE STILL ALIVE HEREEE, OLD FARTTTT!!!", a lound, high-pitched and tremulous woman voice breaks down the noisy sound of the ravens.
"FU FU FU, GET OUT OF HERE YOU FILTHY BIRDS, THIS YOUNG LAD HERE IS NOT EVEN DEAD YET!", she yells again.
It seems like she is casting away the birds and her heavy footsteps indicates that she is running over him really fast. Only seconds later, he can feel his head being lifted gently up by a wrinkled hand, and another wrinkled hand touch his for head.
"HE IS HAVING A FEVER, COME HERE NOW OLD FARTTT.", her highly pitched voice almost tears his left ear apart.
"w...wh..o....ar......y...yo...ou....", he mumbles some nonsense words out of his mouth, with all his breath.
"Save your breath, young man, you are safe now, we will take care of you. Me and Old Fart will take care of you." The old woman speaks to him, with a softer voice this time. He doesn't know why but her voice reminds him of someone very dear to him a long time ago. Her voice and caring gesture gives him the feel of an orphan in its mom's hands, safe and caring. He instantly feel that he trust this woman more than anything in the world right now.
<to be continued>
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Oh my name.
If anyone asks me what is the most frustrated thing I feel about English, I will tell them right away without any hesitation: pronunciation.
Some days ago, I went to a Subways restaurant and ordered a normal sized beaf loaf hamburger. I love beaf loaf hamberger. When a Subways employee asked me: "What name do you want to put on your order?", I answered: "Phong, please put Phong on my order.".
At that very moment, I noticed a major shift in her face expression. Her eyebrows moved closer to each other while her mouth slightly opened like she is trying to say something very difficult. The direction of her eyes changed from me to the roof of the room, and then went around for about ninety degrees to the left, then moved back to my direction. If you watched the first three Harry Potter movies, you would saw Ron did that face many times. It is a clear indication of a wizard trying hard to imagine and derive the spelling from a strange sound of a new magic spell. (It was hard for me in the first 30 times using Avada Kedavra curse too, but then I mastered it). So I told her: "Phong, P-H-O-N-G".
She looked straight in to the windows of my soul, with all her prettiness, and asked me again: "Sorry, could you please say that again?".
To be honest, her magnificent beauty shocked my nerve system and shut it down for like, five seconds. Therefore, only after a major awkward pause, I told her: "Oops, I am sorry. It is P-H-O-N-G".
"G is in James, right?", she asked me one more time to clarify.
"No, no, G is in Gorge." I said.
"Jorge?"
"no, Gorge, like in Google."
"Oh I see, like in Game."
"You got it right!"
After that, she smiled and told me to wait for several minutes. Well, for that gorgeous angelic smile of a goddess, I can wait for a millennium or more.
One eternity later, her lovely voice broke the silence of a Sunday afternoon, like an angel sings: "Mr. Phong, your order is ready!"
My chest almost exploded. My feet could not feel the ground anymore. My brain was fried. I felt like there was a volcanic eruption happening in my fragile heart. "This time, I must tell her how much I love her, how much she means to me. Even this is the first time I meet her but Cupid has already shot a barrage of love arrows into my left chest. My heart looks like an Emmental cheese block now. Without her, my entire life would be meaningless and miserable.... Yes, I must propose to her right away before her love kills my little heart." I told myself, and walked toward her.
"Here is your burger, have a good time!"
"Oh, thank you, you too."
And then I took my burger back to my seat, while my inner self tried to glue all the broken pieces of my heart back together....
Then I noticed the name tag on my order, it was "Bhong".
Thursday, September 4, 2014
I miss you, Yahoo!360
There was a time when I was young, full of hope and dreams. I wanted to be a writer and actually wrote a lot on Yahoo!360 blog.
When I was a child, my dad bought me a lot of romantic novels from famous writers all over the world, including To Hoai, Migue De Cervantes, Hans Christian Andersen and some people I could not remember their names. There writing style excited me. Their words lead me to beautiful fantasies, made me fly in the vast sky like a little bird, swim in a rapid flow as a tiny bug, explore the mysterious ocean and dip myself in a heavy tropical rain. They describe the world in their own way, often detail enough to fit the readers inside their worlds but still vague enough to make us wonder. In their stories, we find our own version of their messages. Maybe, just maybe, some of they did not try to give any message at all, but their talent make us feel so tiny and imperfect that we must make up a message to satisfy our desire for knowledge.
All of those things affected my writing style and my mind. Every place I went to, every time I met people, every moment I sat on my favorite chair, I thought of something that make my hands feel uneasy because of an unbeatable urge of writing it into a story. My Yahoo!360 blog was filled with romantic entries just like that. My entries were often long, passionate and emotional. Love, family, fiction were my main topics back then. One possible reason could be puberty hormone of a 17 years old teenager. Nevertheless, It was a beautiful and memorable past. I wish I could save all of my writing before Yahoo decided to close Yahoo!360 blog.
The day Yahoo!360 blog was removed from the Internet is also the day I stopped writing. I moved on to other temptations of life and the memory of my blog, my passion for writing faded away, bit by bit. I thought that part of my life would be far gone and I will never write again.
Then those feelings came back to me all of a sudden. I talked again with my long lost crush. I had a crush on her when I still had the desire to write. Some of my entries back then were actually about her. The harsh unforgiving life as an undergrad student made me almost forgot about her existence. My ambitions were too big, too greedy that I could not open my eyes to see my soul had dried up completely. I had a gift of being able to feel my own needs but I lost it, until she came and revived my soul. Her immaturity reminds me of myself when I was 17 and any romantic picture could make me think of her. In her words, in her eyes, I found my unbeatable urge to write again. This time, I will not stop for any reason.
Thank to her and her recently uploaded picture which pretty much remind me of the blogger world. (Although the reason why she uploaded that picture was her bad day, I still appreciate this inspirational move)
When I was a child, my dad bought me a lot of romantic novels from famous writers all over the world, including To Hoai, Migue De Cervantes, Hans Christian Andersen and some people I could not remember their names. There writing style excited me. Their words lead me to beautiful fantasies, made me fly in the vast sky like a little bird, swim in a rapid flow as a tiny bug, explore the mysterious ocean and dip myself in a heavy tropical rain. They describe the world in their own way, often detail enough to fit the readers inside their worlds but still vague enough to make us wonder. In their stories, we find our own version of their messages. Maybe, just maybe, some of they did not try to give any message at all, but their talent make us feel so tiny and imperfect that we must make up a message to satisfy our desire for knowledge.
All of those things affected my writing style and my mind. Every place I went to, every time I met people, every moment I sat on my favorite chair, I thought of something that make my hands feel uneasy because of an unbeatable urge of writing it into a story. My Yahoo!360 blog was filled with romantic entries just like that. My entries were often long, passionate and emotional. Love, family, fiction were my main topics back then. One possible reason could be puberty hormone of a 17 years old teenager. Nevertheless, It was a beautiful and memorable past. I wish I could save all of my writing before Yahoo decided to close Yahoo!360 blog.
The day Yahoo!360 blog was removed from the Internet is also the day I stopped writing. I moved on to other temptations of life and the memory of my blog, my passion for writing faded away, bit by bit. I thought that part of my life would be far gone and I will never write again.
Then those feelings came back to me all of a sudden. I talked again with my long lost crush. I had a crush on her when I still had the desire to write. Some of my entries back then were actually about her. The harsh unforgiving life as an undergrad student made me almost forgot about her existence. My ambitions were too big, too greedy that I could not open my eyes to see my soul had dried up completely. I had a gift of being able to feel my own needs but I lost it, until she came and revived my soul. Her immaturity reminds me of myself when I was 17 and any romantic picture could make me think of her. In her words, in her eyes, I found my unbeatable urge to write again. This time, I will not stop for any reason.
Thank to her and her recently uploaded picture which pretty much remind me of the blogger world. (Although the reason why she uploaded that picture was her bad day, I still appreciate this inspirational move)
 |
On a rainy day. |
WOA!!! THERE IS A PLACE TO WRITE THE TITLE AND I DIDN'T KNOW THAT.
Today, I found out something interesting about English. It was the nature of communication.
Confusing opening, hah?
Well, it is a (not) long story. I was lying on my bed, and it was about 10:00 A.M. Do not judge me, it is human nature to lay in bed when there is nothing else to do, or when he just feel so lazy he could not get out of his bed. But it is not your business anyway. I got a phone call from a guy in the suit store. He told me that I had registered for more information about making suits and that was the reason why he called me. Thank him for that, or else I would sleep a little more, which is about several hours more and forget all about my homework and duties.
The thing is, I talked to him over the phone and I feel so native! My voice was blended with a sleepy attitude, but surprisingly sound clear and American like. For the first time in the United State, I did not try too hard to keep my voice all together and think about grammar correctness. All of my thoughts were interpreted into verbal word perfectly and fluently and it sounds so much like a native speaker. When I think about it again, I could not find any mistake. All the sentences and words came out of my beautiful mouth naturally as if I was born and raised in a Texas farm for 25 years.
It was a magnificent feeling when the guy asked me if I was living here for a long time because he thought I am a real American.
I guess that is the effect of being too sleepy to worry about what I was going to talk. Usually, thinking about what to say and how to say it in English before saying something takes too much of my time and leaves my speech soulless. It makes me feel nerve and steals my fluency.
Therefore, that was an astonishing experience for me and I am thinking of sleeping more to master my English speaking skill. Good night.
Confusing opening, hah?
Well, it is a (not) long story. I was lying on my bed, and it was about 10:00 A.M. Do not judge me, it is human nature to lay in bed when there is nothing else to do, or when he just feel so lazy he could not get out of his bed. But it is not your business anyway. I got a phone call from a guy in the suit store. He told me that I had registered for more information about making suits and that was the reason why he called me. Thank him for that, or else I would sleep a little more, which is about several hours more and forget all about my homework and duties.
The thing is, I talked to him over the phone and I feel so native! My voice was blended with a sleepy attitude, but surprisingly sound clear and American like. For the first time in the United State, I did not try too hard to keep my voice all together and think about grammar correctness. All of my thoughts were interpreted into verbal word perfectly and fluently and it sounds so much like a native speaker. When I think about it again, I could not find any mistake. All the sentences and words came out of my beautiful mouth naturally as if I was born and raised in a Texas farm for 25 years.
It was a magnificent feeling when the guy asked me if I was living here for a long time because he thought I am a real American.
I guess that is the effect of being too sleepy to worry about what I was going to talk. Usually, thinking about what to say and how to say it in English before saying something takes too much of my time and leaves my speech soulless. It makes me feel nerve and steals my fluency.
Therefore, that was an astonishing experience for me and I am thinking of sleeping more to master my English speaking skill. Good night.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Studying is hard. Studying in English is harder. Studying in English with a Chinese professor is the hardest.
Chinese people have their own distinctive accent. Somehow, I think it is quite similar to Vietnamese's accent. We tend to not emphasize important words by stressing on them in our sentences. Maybe because Vietnam and China are so close to each other. However, despite of having similar English accents, it is still hard to understand what a Chinese/Vietnamese people says in English.
For quite a long time, I have realized stressing and expressing tones in English is very important for making the listener understands what you say. English is like a series of songs that people remember in their head. Sometime, they do not have to clearly hear the words in order to get the meaning because the rhythms of each sentence, each semantic structure in English is mostly unique. Through the years of growing up in an English environment, people learned those rhythms by heart.
As a Vietnamese, I also understand how hard it is to learn them. I have not use that kind of sounding before in my entire life until now. However, I am trying to practice them everyday by hearing what US citizens (I avoid the word American because America is a continent) say and try to mimic them when I can. Some people advised me to practice in front of a mirror but I firmly go against that. Practicing in front of a mirror means that you will not have a proper English sentence to mimic and most likely, you will master a wrong accent. Therefore, I try to talk to people as much as I can for the sake of improving my accent. My inner desire is that everyone understand me well and not giving me a hard time of explaining everything all over again.
I still like British accent more than US citizen's accents though. They sound quite exquisite and noble, which suit my personality.
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