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A short story in Vietnamese by Nguyễn Văn Thiện
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 

khoả thân rằm by Đinh Trương Chinh

If time was a woman, then that woman must be extremely fickle and a player. When we want time to pass by anxiously faster, she prances around in her camisole; when we want time to pause for a second to catch our breath, rest, to absorb the sharpness and or nothing at all she seems to be in a rush tripping over her own feet. If we were to be a benevolent god, by default, time might be an older man, composed in his pace, steadily moving forward, contrary to humanity’s rush or calm. 

If time has a scent, it would be fragrant, often sweet. The fragile threads gently tug from morning to noon, day to night, the week of moonlight to a new season, generally changing a note in its scent. If you don’t believe me, try dangling your feet on a cliffside during the fall, close your eyes and stick out your tongue. Time will graze the tip of your tongue, dreamy-like the breeze, a long kiss, scented with the woodland. Indeed, there would be times when it’s mouldy with waiting, and as the sun sets as the moon rises, it’s salty and bitter with deceit. So what, if time possesses a scent, a frame, eyes and or limbs.

This afternoon, on a familiar path up an unplanned mountain or river, I caught a shirtless boy walking with the sunlight on his back, his dark tan skin was very familiar but the sparkle in his bright eyes were strangely unfamiliar. It made me wonder whether maybe his eyes were the eyes of time, restless, chasmic; distant, full of wistful dreams. I waved at him as though he was a friend, but once those eyes of time met the ancient eyes facing him, quickly he turned away, as though they were strangers, he continued on the spine of the mountain in the fading light. Time’s gaze was breaking, crumbling, covering the entire setting horizon.

If you’re happy, full of joy, affection will be time, it will play with you, embrace you. But if you’re sad or in despair, immediately she turns on you, she’s cold and distant, sometimes thug-like. You will get slaps on the face till you’re dizzy or she would be ripping at your hair while your face’s on the pavement. That’s time, if it has arms and legs. It was never colourless, unscented, desiccated, without a form as physicists have made you believe. Time is the manifestation of weak souls and human impulses amidst this big wide uncertain world.

You may ask yourself whether time is your kindest companion? In all separations and tragedy, we blame time, yet when it comes to our scars, we ask time to mend it? This morning, I asked Nietzche, hey, scholarly philosopher, if time is a fragrant piece of cake would you eat it, right here, right now? Nietzche, as usual, laughed with disdain, as he agitated a puddle on the side of the road. Carefully I would study it, in the muddy pool, reflections of drifting clouds, horses, vehicles, living, guns, knives, bullets, and her, most endearing! But suddenly, it would all fall apart, changed, no longer ever whole again.

It seems writing has not been excellent for the brain cells, affecting all the other major organs. Let me tell you, dear, talking to myself like a lonely madman in folklore: “Hey, so you live to acknowledge time or are you actually the victim, that time chews on and swallows, plays with like a tiger about to eat its prey?”. The brown little boy with bright eyes has moved on; the lonely elderly philosopher has cruelly stirred up and destroyed the reflection of the crumbling pieces of time. As for me, I’m still delving day and night into the desolate tales of Chư Mang.

The moonlight in pieces, pouring sunlight storms spitting, lips unknown and distant, the world’s a blur. Time losing its sweetness, now scented with bitterness, like seawater in the most glorious century of our people. I sat spelling out my name T-Thờ – i– ê- n – iên – nặng. My namesake has a body, a pair of legs, a pair of arms, ascending a period, laden in every step, no? My name and her name – Time, begins with the same letter, varied but accented!

Have you ever caught such a laden time in your hands? Time could be incredibly heavy. Nights in a flurry of gale and rain, I’m alone kicking in my bed, twisting and turning, arms and legs numb, burning, listening to the storm. That is time, and the longer I lay here, counting her withdrawing footsteps, the larger time becomes, as though the world is on top of me. 

Lucky, the fragile letters, they are full of life, dancing passionately as though ever tainted by time. I’m here spelling out the words with them like a teacher naturally absorbed in a classroom teaching. So, again children: T – i –me…

Time.

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Nguyễn Văn Thiện
Born: 1975
Home town: Anh Sơn – Nghệ An
Master in Comparative Literature and Critical Theories
Currently a high school teacher, and a prolific writer.
Editor of Chư Yang Sin (Đắk Lắk) Art and Literary Journal.
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Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.