The Carnage ( a Dark Commedy)

The Carnage.

The point was that someone could kill people- literally murder a lot of people- in Hanoi, and no one would care.

“Did you suspect,” the journalist asked, ‘ that your former colleague was a murderer?’

“Yeah,” we nodded, “but we didn’t really care.”

When the police found him- knee deep in gore, covered in blood and with the gristle of human meat between his teeth- no one was really surprised.

His email address, the one he used to apply for jobs teaching children, included the word ‘carnage’. That ought to have been a clue. But he came to work on time, there were no complaints, he caused no problems. He was reliable, and quiet and inoffensive. His opinions were mild. He kept himself to himself.

As you might expect from a man who killed, butchered and ate people.

They say it started when his manager pushed him too far.

“Please teacher,help me,” she would say everyday.”Help me please teacher.’

“I’ll give you the help you need,” he said.

Then he pushed her off the balcony.

He needed to dispose of the body, and he was hungry, and he didn’t like pho.

After that, it seems he just killed and ate everyone who pushed him too far. They pushed him, and he pushed back, normally off something high. As for eating his victims,that was probable because of the lack of protein in the Vietnamese diet. And the massive number of people who he slaughtered? Hanoi is the type of place where you find yourself saying ‘for fuck sake’ at least 5 times a day. Too many people pushed him too far. I cannot really blame him

Some times it was as if he wanted to get caught. Like the time he hold me about the sound proof room in his new flat. “So I can listen to my music.” he explained. Why would he need to play his music so loud? Or the time he posted on ‘Hanoi Massive’ asking where he could buy a good wet stone.

Most memorable was the time we were in a restaurant to together and he was given a pair of chopsticks, which he could not use.

“This is no way for a man to eat his feed,” he said.”I need a knife and fork to eat this muck.’

The waiter did not understand, but eventually he gave him a tiny fork. A really, tiny fork.

“I’ll show him what he can do with his fork,” he said, and followed the waiter into the kitchen.

“He was quite a character,” he said when he emerged 20 minutes later.

As an English teacher, he used WAS, the past tense, on purpose.

There was the time when he went to Literature Lake, to talk to his favorite Bar Maid, a short plump girl with a sour face. 4 Vietnamese men came over to his table,and started cock-blocking. They interrupted his conversation to introduce themselves, tease the girl, and make jokes about him in Vietnamese.

“Can you swim?” he suddenly asked them.

"No", they all laughed..

“It’s alright lads, I’ll teach you.”

The next morning 4 bodies were found in the lake.

No one likes being cock-blocked.

The last I saw of him, he said that he had paid the police a thousand dollar bribe, and was off to get some Chinese...

Her Lying There

I still see her lying there,
See the sunset in her hair,
Smell the rose that is her skin,
Recall joy that knew not of sin,

The scars that she could feel,
the scars that she could heal,
That faery of the light,
That angel of the night,

I cannot forget her kiss,
Impossible to forget the bliss,
Lost, found, damned and then enslaved,
Lost, loved, broken, adored, saved,

Where I dwell these days.

 Sun set at Cat Ba Island

 Ruined village in the nation park

 Jungle in the national park

Rustic bridge to a temple- Cat Ba Island

The General Bombardment,part 5

   At 1am on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Erik returned home alone.
   He had last seen Steve two hours ago, when they had separated to attack from two flanks. They had planned to ron de vue at their home at 12.45. In the chaos, Erik had been late.
   They waited for Steve until dawn.
   Then the police came. Two French officers followed by eight Vietnamese lackeys came strolling down the street, brandishing their weapons and confident in their overwhelming numbers.
   "Get in the basement," Erik hissed to Thuy.
   'What about you?" she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
   "Get in the damned basement."
   She obeyed.
   Erik quickly covered the basement trapdoor with a rug and a chair.
   Then he drew his revolver.

   Thuy heard shots, then shouts in French, Russian and Vietnamese. Then more shots, screams, shouting,more shots... A moment of silence.
   Then the stamping of many boots above her, and shouts in Vietnamese only. More stamping.
   Finally, silence.

   She was alone.
   Her heart beat like a drum hammered by a madman.
   Silent tears rained down.
   The hot, dusty air burnt her throat and lips.

   Eventually she recovered herself enough to climb up the ladder and push the trap door open.
   Everything was ruined. Everything was covered in blood. 
   She ran upstairs, fell down on her bed, and cried. 

   For the next week she did nothing but listen to the radio and read newspapers. Desperate for news of Steven.
  Then she finally read about him.
  He was to be executed by Guillotine the next day. 
  Immediately, she searched the basement until she found what she needed.

   She could not see his face, as he lay there under the Guillotine. She did not need to... she would always remember it.
   She could see the grim faces of the guards and the priest. A French Official read from a paper. Words that would mean nothing to Steven as he waited.
   She lit the fuse of the four sticks of dynamite that she had lovingly strapped together.
   Without a word, without a war cry, without a sentimental whisper, she threw it at the terrible machine. 
   It is how he would have wanted to have gone out.
   Wiped clean with dynamite.

       "That," Thuy's grandmother often said later on, "is what happens when a poor girl is raised without a father in a country full of Frenchmen."
   
   People, Thuy thought, are like the moon. They change every night, but they always returned to their true form.
   But some people, she knew, are like the countless stars in the endless sky. Their changes are so subtle and so complex that it would take a life time to understand them.

  

THE END 


 

The General Bombardment, part 4 continued

       One evening, a week after they had moved in together,and after an hour of silence, he put down his notebook and said,
   "Thuy, you are my Anti-Muse."
   "An- ti-muse? What's that?"
   "A Muse inspires an artist to create, you inspire me to destroy."
   She did not know what to say.

   The next night she woke and saw him sat at the foot of their bed. It was hot and stuffy in their tiny bedroom. The world outside was silent, as if they were alone in all the dark world. As her eyes accustomed to the gloom, she saw that he was holding a glass of vodka, and his head was bowed down low.
   "Whats wrong," she whispered.
   He shuddered, and then gulped down his vodka.
   "I can't sleep," he replied.
   "Why?"
   "Planning something big."
   "I know... How big?"
   "The Governor General's Palace."
   "Tell me about it in the morning."
   She embraced him, and gently pulled him down into her bed.  

   His plan was genius in its simplicity, and monstrous in its brutality. Steven and Erik would attack simultaneously at midnight on Tet eve. Whilst the rest of Vietnam was celebrating, they would delver a crushing bombardment.
   When Thuy heard the plan she clung to her lover passionately.
   "You are crazy," she said, "I love it."  
  
   And yet, still, something went wrong.

The General Bonbardment, part 4

   When she was a little girl, her father had deserted her, and her family, without any explanation.
   Thuy had been so angry that she had picked up her dad's radio and smashed it against the wall. For one moment, before guilt or regret, she had felt overjoyed. She saw it break into hundreds of pieces, and she felt powerful. She could control things, she could destroy thing...

   That was how she had felt when she had thrown her hand grenade at the Police Station.

   Their house was in the far north of the city, near the river. It had been built by a failed dutch trader,and retained a Dutch style in its high, arched roof. It had only two stories, living room on the ground floor,and a bedroom above. It had an outhouse in the tiny back yard, and,most importantly, a cellar.
   The cellar was accessed by a trap-door which was easily concealed from above.
   To Thuy, their house represented freedom; to Steven it was a strategic base.

   Erik would often visit the house, unexpectedly, and spend the night sleeping on the living room floor.He had learnt to trust Thuy, but he preferred to speak in Russian, so she rarely understood him. Still, she knew that he and Steven were planning something.

   Steven had changed since the incident on her birthday, and even more after they had moved in together.On the one hand, he was generally more confident, more dynamic, more passionate. On the other hand, he had become prone to melancholic moods, where he would sit in silence for hours, scribbling in his private notebook.
   He no longer went to visit ' Elderado'.
   It was clear that Steven and Erik were planning some thing very big.

The General Bombardmernt, part 3,continued.

   "So you are going to marry the foreigner?"
   "No, grandmother," Thuy replied.
   "But you said you are going to move out of my house to live with the foreigner."
   "Yes, Grandmother."
   "So you are going to marry the foreigner."
   "No, grandmother."
   "How can you live together if you are not married."
   "He does not believe in marriage, but we must-"
   "The foreigner does not believe in marriage? Is he crazy?"
   "Yes, very crazy... And his name is Steven, please stop calling him 'the foreigner'."
   Her grandmother thought about this. What was wrong with modern girls? She should have taught her better, but what was she to expect when the poor girl had no parents around... and there were foreigners every where, and everything was such a mess? A sly smile crept across her ancient,  weather beaten face.
   "Are you pregnant?"
   "No grandmother!"
   "Why not? Is he French?"
   "No."
   "Good."
   "I'm very sorry, grandmother, but I really must leave soon."
   "I forbid it." 

   Thuy left in the night, when her grandmother was sleeping.

   Steven had rented a small house, using a false passport, where it would be difficult for the police to find them.
   They had to go into hiding because of her Birthday.
   Her birthday present was the problem.
   Steven had given her a hand grenade.