Click HERE to download a copy of Lost in Ho Chi Minh City.
Here is a sneak peek of the short story.
Chapter 1: Before the Silence
Before the tanks rolled through the gates and the city changed its name, Saigon had a rhythm—a rhythm of market chatter and scooter horns, of children’s laughter skipping through courtyards and the clink of teacups in shaded patios.
Bình Minh used to meet her friends in the mornings—women who, like her, were mothers, wives, storytellers in the small ways women tell stories. Over lotus tea, they spoke of school uniforms and shopping stalls, the rising price of sugar, and sometimes even dreams. The war was always somewhere, but for a while, it wasn’t here.
Her husband had a way of shielding them from the worst of it. A merchant with the charm of a poet, he kept their house full—not only of rice and money, but of music and proverb.
“After the rain, the sky is clear,” he would say when things felt uncertain. An had heard that one many times. She liked the way the words wrapped around her thoughts like her father’s
arms used to.
They lived in a modest but comfortable neighborhood in the southern part of the city. It wasn’t rich, but it was home. Middle-class. Safe. Familiar.
Until it wasn’t.
The day the city fell, it didn’t collapse like a building. It was quieter than that. A shutter pulled down over the market. A whisper passed from house to house. A girl watching her
mother try to smile without a reason.
Saigon disappeared—but the people remained.
And in that quiet, An began to wander.
Click HERE to download a copy of Lost in Ho Chi Minh City.
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