Shadows of the Past

The War was already over—or so the adults said. But in our village, whispers of it still clung to the air, like the thick smoke of burning rice fields. The war had taken so much from people's houses, their land, and their families. But I didn’t understand any of that yet. I was just a child, playing barefoot with my friends in the dusk when the older kids ran toward us, eyes wide with excitement and fear.

“There’s a dead body at Bà Mười’s house… it was a murder,” one of them whispered, his voice trembling. He looked around. “Do you want to see it?”

Bà Mười worked for the new government at the time, holding the power to decide who could stay in the village and who would be forced to leave for the distant, undeveloped “Kinh Tế Mới” economic zones. Her house was located just fifteen minutes away from ours, up in the neighborhood everyone calls the “upper village.” All the people in our area knew Bà Mười because of her authority. She was friendly enough to us children, often smiling or nodding as we passed by, but families who had worked for the old government rarely received any warmth from her.

A dead body and murder. I had never seen one before. My heart pounded, not with fear but with curiosity. Death was just a word, something from stories my siblings told at night, full of ghosts and shadows.

So when asked “Do you want to see it?” of course, I answered, “yes.” And we ran.

As we reached Bà Mười’s house, the air felt wrong. The evening breeze had stopped. The cicadas, usually so loud, had gone silent. The kitchen door was open, swinging slightly as if someone had just passed through.

Then I smelled it. A mix of something sweet and something sour. Incense smoke. Flowers. And something heavier, something metallic. Something my young mind could not yet name.

The other kids pushed me forward. I stepped onto the hard dirt floor, and my eyes landed on the first thing— the blood.

It was dark and thick, pooled near a long knife that gleamed in the dim yellow kitchen light. My stomach twisted and hurt, but I couldn’t look away. Then I saw the white chalk lines.

And inside the white chalk lines, Bà Mười was lying there.

She wasn’t moving. Her body looked stiff, twisted in a way that didn’t seem real. Her hair was matted to the side of her face; one of her hands held the bloody area, and the other hand was over her head. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I saw what was next to her: green bananas and a bundle of tuberose flowers. Their white petals were still fresh, glowing faintly under the flickering candlelight.

Tuberose—those heavy, milky-sweet flowers that bloom at night—filled the room with a scent that didn’t belong. Thick, lush, and too sweet, like perfume spilled in a sickroom.

The smell stuck to my nose, wrapped around my throat. My chest tightened. I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t. It was as if the tuberose itself had trapped the moment in amber, refusing to let me look away.

I heard whispers behind me.

“Thằng Đê giết bà ấy!”

Đê. I knew that name. Everyone in the upper village knew that name.

He was young, just a little older than my oldest brother. They sent him away to Kinh Tế Mới before I was even born. I didn’t really know what “Kinh Tế Mới “ meant, but I’d heard grown-ups whisper about it when they thought no kids were listening. They said families who went there didn’t come back the same—if they ever came back at all. There was never enough food to eat, and mosquitoes as big as bees bit people all night. The forest was full of animals that made people sick. I imagined snakes hiding under their beds, rats running around their feet when they tried to sleep, and people shivering with fevers they couldn’t escape.

Đê’s family had been sent there. His father died first, then his little brother, and another sister. Some said it was sickness. Others said it was hunger.

Now, Đê had returned, but not as the boy who had left—he came back with anger in his chest and a knife in his hand.

I didn’t know what anger that big could feel like. I didn’t understand how grief could turn into something sharp, something deadly. But standing there, staring at the blood on the floor, I knew that whatever had happened to Đê had followed him home.

I couldn’t breathe. The walls felt too close. The incense smoke curled toward the ceiling, twisting into shapes I didn’t want to see.

Then I ran.

I ran past the darkening houses, past the voices of the village women whispering, past the fields that stretched toward longan trees and large tamarind trees with big branches. I could imagine Bà Mười’s dead body lying there in my mind. I closed my eyes and ran as fast as I could. I didn’t stop until I was home, throwing myself into bed and yanking the blanket over my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could still see the chalk outline, the blood, the sweet smell of tuberose.

That night, I didn’t eat. I didn’t speak. I didn’t sleep. I kept the window by my bed closed.

Days later, I heard my mother whispering to my father.

“Thằng Đê bị bắt rồi. Ba nó chết. Em nó chết. Nó hận Bà Mười vì đưa nhà nó đi Kinh Tế Mới. Nó về giết bà.”

“Thằng Đê was arrested. His father died. His younger sibling died. He hated Bà Mười for sending his family to the New Economic Zone. He came back and killed her.”

The police had taken Đê away.

I imagined him sitting in a dark cell, the smell of blood still clinging to his hands. He was only twenty-five, but what would happen to his life next? Was it over?

Bà Mười was gone. De was gone.

The war ended years ago, but it was still taking people—it had taken Bà Mười’s life and Đê’s future. I didn’t understand war yet, but I knew one thing: it wasn’t over, just hiding in the hearts of those who had survived it.

And from that night on, I could never look at green bananas or smell the scent of tuberose the same way again.