Zaltho Foundation

Short Stories & Essays | Next >

"Aftershock"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Sunday, I think it was a Sunday when I left him alone in his room. I kissed him goodnight and he kissed me back. I pulled the covers up around his chin, stroked the side of his face until his 3 hear old eyes just wouldn't stay open any longer. He had no idea, no clue that that would be the last time we would see one another for many years. I thought I was leaving because I wanted to. I thought that I was leaving to pursue my art, my music. I thought that I was leaving because connected to his mother, trapped in a lifeless bondage of steel mills, Better Homes and Gardens, Betty Crocker, and Leave It to Beaver, I wanted, almost endlessly, to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.

I didn't want to leave him, my son, I wanted to take him with me. But in my darkness, the darkness of my life, there were small pockets of light that whispered to me - "He needs to be here, stable with his mom because you, you might be dead tomorrow and then what?

I thought that I was leaving out of choice until one more sleepless night, drenched in sweat, 20 years later, I saw it all reflected in the face of a young Vietnamese girl. I was looking into her eyes when suddenly I heard them, 30 or 40 children gathering, swarming about us, begging for food, begging for cigarettes, money - just begging. Trying to sell us Coca Cola's, pineapples, bananas, their sisters, their mothers, trying to come into our helicopters, put their hands in our pockets. All talking at once - one big word, one big sound, chaos. Then a short burst over their heads from an M-16. A short burst from the direction of the helicopter in the position of lead ship, then another short burst from behind me and they scattered, the children, like a flock of sandpipers when a beach comber gets to close. They scattered clutching at one another, pulling their own little heads down, covering themselves instinctively, protectively with their hands. And as quickly as they appeared they were gone - ghosts in a dream - gone except for one tiny little baby left crying in the dust whose voice stilled the mocking, sarcastic laughter of the guys who fired the shots who were yelling, with others also, "didi mau mother fuckers - didi mau!!" Again the stillness that can only be brought about by a child's crying and then movement, the movement of men pulled by this emotional magnet. 3 from the middle helicopter, myself from the trail ship and one other from the lead ship who was running. He got there first, bending over, touching that screaming child, the other 3 within a breath of the same action, and me, maybe 2 feet away.

At the instant the hands touched that screaming child an invisible wind, cold, deaths breath, swirled about me and stopping I yelled silently "Don't pick up the baby!" An as the thought was being converted to sound just beginning to form on my lips there was a explosion, death screaming, and as I picked myself off the ground the child's hand fell from my shirt. There was a foot wedged under my thigh, ripped from it's leg still in it's jungle boot. The child had been booby trapped! The child was a bomb! I lay in pools of blood, my shirt soaked. It was caked on my face with the dust of this un-named place. And for 3 days I lived with this stench, unable to bathe, unable to change my clothes.

They died, all 5 of them, died in pieces all over me. So when you cried Zach I just couldn't pick you up. I had to leave the house in a panic, sweating, cold, shaking or I had to get high, smoke more dope, turn the stereo up louder - run away into that purple haze and I never knew why until 20 years later as I looked into the eyes of that young Vietnamese girl playing with her friends.

I thought I was leaving because I wanted to!!

Short Stories & Essays | Next >

"Aftershock"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Sunday, I think it was a Sunday when I left him alone in his room. I kissed him goodnight and he kissed me back. I pulled the covers up around his chin, stroked the side of his face until his 3 hear old eyes just wouldn't stay open any longer. He had no idea, no clue that that would be the last time we would see one another for many years. I thought I was leaving because I wanted to. I thought that I was leaving to pursue my art, my music. I thought that I was leaving because connected to his mother, trapped in a lifeless bondage of steel mills, Better Homes and Gardens, Betty Crocker, and Leave It to Beaver, I wanted, almost endlessly, to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.

I didn't want to leave him, my son, I wanted to take him with me. But in my darkness, the darkness of my life, there were small pockets of light that whispered to me - "He needs to be here, stable with his mom because you, you might be dead tomorrow and then what?

I thought that I was leaving out of choice until one more sleepless night, drenched in sweat, 20 years later, I saw it all reflected in the face of a young Vietnamese girl. I was looking into her eyes when suddenly I heard them, 30 or 40 children gathering, swarming about us, begging for food, begging for cigarettes, money - just begging. Trying to sell us Coca Cola's, pineapples, bananas, their sisters, their mothers, trying to come into our helicopters, put their hands in our pockets. All talking at once - one big word, one big sound, chaos. Then a short burst over their heads from an M-16. A short burst from the direction of the helicopter in the position of lead ship, then another short burst from behind me and they scattered, the children, like a flock of sandpipers when a beach comber gets to close. They scattered clutching at one another, pulling their own little heads down, covering themselves instinctively, protectively with their hands. And as quickly as they appeared they were gone - ghosts in a dream - gone except for one tiny little baby left crying in the dust whose voice stilled the mocking, sarcastic laughter of the guys who fired the shots who were yelling, with others also, "didi mau mother fuckers - didi mau!!" Again the stillness that can only be brought about by a child's crying and then movement, the movement of men pulled by this emotional magnet. 3 from the middle helicopter, myself from the trail ship and one other from the lead ship who was running. He got there first, bending over, touching that screaming child, the other 3 within a breath of the same action, and me, maybe 2 feet away.

At the instant the hands touched that screaming child an invisible wind, cold, deaths breath, swirled about me and stopping I yelled silently "Don't pick up the baby!" An as the thought was being converted to sound just beginning to form on my lips there was a explosion, death screaming, and as I picked myself off the ground the child's hand fell from my shirt. There was a foot wedged under my thigh, ripped from it's leg still in it's jungle boot. The child had been booby trapped! The child was a bomb! I lay in pools of blood, my shirt soaked. It was caked on my face with the dust of this un-named place. And for 3 days I lived with this stench, unable to bathe, unable to change my clothes.

They died, all 5 of them, died in pieces all over me. So when you cried Zach I just couldn't pick you up. I had to leave the house in a panic, sweating, cold, shaking or I had to get high, smoke more dope, turn the stereo up louder - run away into that purple haze and I never knew why until 20 years later as I looked into the eyes of that young Vietnamese girl playing with her friends.

I thought I was leaving because I wanted to!!