Kinaainisan ko ang number 6. Hindi ito dahil sa pamahiin—ito dahil sa pamahiin pa ako ako, aayegaye akoong smalli na pekta sa book tab with my left hand, a sinulid as thin as a fiber of hair. I told you when I was three years old, I got an extra finger, then after the operation, I forgot, when I earned money, I grew “like a big boy”. I didn’t forget until the boy started talking to me.
Ang ulan sa Hue ay bumuhos na parang pag-drain ng tubig ng Perfume River at dumiretso sa corrugated iron na tubug ng ospital. I took care of her stomach, every bundle of tears on her face, and the tears on her sideburns. Drive yourself to an emergency hall, stop your car at the safe. Bumukas ang pinto ng pag-anagat ng nagsama-sama ng two katana tools for folding the band. You went to the girl, then the bag fell on the stairs, and you cut the diaper and put it on.
“What kind of a fool are you, why are you humming so deeply… I will not touch you,” Ly said to the boy, as he took a moment to touch his pulse, trying to stop it.
Tumonog ang elevator para sa ride ay then it stopped. The saying goes: “The rain, the dust, the electricity, can get tight, the stairs are ready to climb.” I used a skeleton to support my back, counting my steps, and with each breath I used a thin knife to pluck my biceps.
Icon on the floor. Obstetrics Department. Ang amoy ng iodine alcohol, ang amoy ng mamasa-masa na ulan, ang amoy ng natiklop na unan ay medyo tao. Dinala si Ly sa delivery waiting room, at iniabot sa kin ng nurse ang thin na blue na polo, at si nabihaan akong akong usot it kung gusto kong kababi niya. Tumango ako. While I was staring at my buttons, I suddenly saw a familiar face in the background.
Tumayo ang tao, nakadi ng kayeng mai eyes, round like a lighter. “An?”
“Huang?”
At the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the sound of the wind, at the same time the table is covered with clouds). In the middle of the rain, there was the sound of a woman gritting her teeth. Lumingon ako—a sister of a girl wearing a naked dress and not pregnant, the pain in her stomach and the pain in her face. Huang took it. He was surprised when he saw me looking at him from side to side and said, “My wife… I am feeling sick in the afternoon. I cannot read Hindi, I am talking to her.”
Ako ay dumbfounded. In Hindi, the two men with the same name were standing at either end of the same corridor, but they were not able to reach everyone.
Long ago, I was dating my boyfriend Lyka. The two fell in love while they were at university, but separated in their last year because of their family at work. To get acquainted with a new class called Da Nang, everything between us is like a strange jigsaw puzzle. I heard Hoang’s name through a story by two, a gentle reflection, a wandering story from a long time ago. The foolish man is like a wonderful principle of the day. I told myself that yesterday there was a person passing by on the ferry.
However, this time of the year, ang lum ferry wharf ay nakaangkla sa same baybayin.
Dinala si Ly sa delivery room no. 5. Ang asawa ni Hoang—si Trang—ay pumasok sa silid 7. Ang mga loudspeaker ay mahiyain na inihayag ang mga tagapagpahiwatig, at ang tunog ng mga sanggol na umiiyak mula sa neonatal room ay umalingawngaw paminsan-minsan tulad ng isang tap sa dibdib. You looked at the glass table at the door of the waiting room, looking at the ceiling where the light bulb of the cabinet on the floor was sitting on the floor of the kitchen. There was a moment of rain at the same time.
“Isang.” Nakatayo sa tabi si Hoang. He tried to hold her hand as if he was holding her shoulder like a woman. “What an opportunity.”
I will not speak without any doubt. “Ooh.”
We have a bench at both ends, and a wall light bulb in the middle. Every one of them may hold a cup of tea that is drunk by the nurses, at any time they may drink lotus tea. We, two complete strangers, shared the characteristic of my mother’s silence while waiting to be taken out of the delivery room: half scared, half scared, and the other one may leave my sky.
Biglong died in the fire. Ang pasilo ay nababalot ng makal na darkness, at tanging ang return light ng mga emergency ang kumikislap. A nurse at Sumugod shouted: “Umakyat naan ang generator. The back of a woman’s head was like a tambourine of a goat. A few seconds later, the Sumabog and the generator, again the Kumikislap and the dim light, at a distance from the ceiling.
Maya-maya may cry from the room 5. Mother, strong, full of life. I started looking at my chair and the magic girl came over. Binuksan ng a nurse ang pinto at asked, “Kuya An, di ba? Congratulations, napakabait ng bata!”
The conversation was so strong, sometimes it brought tears to my lips. The whole world looked like it was like a storm, but then it was quiet. After about five minutes, a loud scream came from Room 7. You stood there, looking at Huang, at the familiar sight of his body.
In the neonatal room, after a long process of getting the results, I looked at my baby in the mirror. The little boy was like a tiny incubator, his skin was like that of a new pinnad hippo, his eyes were narrow, and his hair was half a million. I looked at it with astonishment: my left hand, besides the four fingers of a man, had a small finger like a pallu, pinkish in color.
Natulala ako. The part of my family that was not always looking forward to the moment when someone was there: the part that I was looking for was thin, the sentence that was “Nobody was three years old, I had one finger left…”.
“This…” I asked, calling him a nurse. He said: “I am growing more and more fingers. It is sad to think that there may be three cases of this in a year. The operation is simple, small at the smallest, and when it is done, there will be no mark left.”
I will listen to you, and I will give you a tip. I did not stop looking at him, his gaze was increasing and then his small breath was falling. I will call my mother, my mother, to the sky. I was lying there for a long time, looking at the baby’s incubator—along the sinuses of a nurse holding a long baby. At the left finger of the baby there is that… At the same time there is the left finger of the baby, exactly the same.
Nadarsana ko na tuyo na ang throat ko, na para bang blueunok ko lang ang an apog.
The name and tag of the incubator: “Girl—Trang/Hoang”.
A dark feeling like a few years on the ceiling, a feeling of absurdity falling from my eyes. I won’t tell you. Hindi kaaya-aya ang opportunity. “This is the same as in Hindi”-ngunit two babies have not been able to talk to each other, they have been born for a few minutes at a time, both of my children have been born at the same time as my ex-wife…
A dark question appears on the back of the leg: This is an opportunity – or this is a hindi written on the back of fate?
Let’s talk about the addition of a finger to the baby’s stomach. The God did not sleep, you rested on his lips, rested on the mercy of his eyes. “Katulad mo rin ako,” Pagod Niyang smiled, “I was helpless with my mother.” I will wait for you.
While you are sitting on the balcony without smoking, the sky is stopping, the joy of spring is on the leaves of the water and the razor is remaining on the edge of the garden. Iniabot niya akin ang lighter box at wala siyang sinai. Tahimik lang ang dawasa. Ang usok aay natutunaw sa thin na mga fiber, na tampla sa natu ng tuba.
“My baby… I have added a finger to my left hand,” said Hoang. His voice was hoarse.
I looked towards the corner and saw a girl. With his sight, no other group is tired of being worried like every new mother. She continued, “Every nurse is not reacting. No problem. But still… I am giving more time to my finger. When I told you, I cut it off. Until now, I am still trying to get it. What are you talking about?”
Tiningnan ko ang aking palad, kung kaun ang paklat ay as thin ng sinulid. Tumango ako. Why no one told me about this? When did you ask me in Hindi? O sadyang nakamilut ko?
“After…” Iniwan ni Hoang ang badger. The other half of the sentence described the distance between two people, like a giant hanging on a scale, waiting for a person to climb.
Maya-Maya came and did not tell anyone. Avoid that step by looking at the mirror and bending it long. Hinawakan niya ang head ko, banabati ako—ang uri ng makalumang manki—at nilinis ang kayang ng throat: “Maliit na bata… Kumusta ka?”
Tumango ako. Tumayo nang kilang si Huang, tumango nang magalang . While trying not to find anything, he tried to find his place, but then he found it. Dinala was in the neonatal room. He looked at it, but did not turn his face to see his left hand. He remained silent for a long time, then he held his mask and said in a fierce voice: “It… Okay long.
He saw a part of his eyes twinkling like a cloud of rain and flying like a street lamp, quickly in summer.
“Dad,” I asked, “Mayroon’s father?”
He was surprised, then smiled without any doubt: “No need to tell me, I can tell you the shape of my finger. Gupitin. My family is genetic. “If you don’t have an operation, you won’t mind.”
Oh my God, why does a big story tell only a few words like “I-dissect the thing and stop it”? When the birds ran around with all those questions like birds, they would not talk about it later.
When I went there, when I brought my love back, I did not hear it in room 7, I heard the tears in Trang, at the sight of Hoang. There is a thing that came from a place. We all went to the same room, each one embracing a bottle of milk, a new sorrow.
sa On the day of leaving the hospital, a small commotion occurred. At the same time as the method, at the same time as the brush on the electricity, at the same time as the printer and paper, at the time the nurse did not hang it. An intern nurse, a mother with a baby, brought two baby strollers to prepare to take them to the gate. At that time, an old girl who was carrying a fruit basket saw the rain and ran to the wrong place and was overpowered by the security guard at the sight of the stroller. Malakas na nag-ingo ang two cars. My son was not crying.
Maya Maya is there to cling to the child. Ganoon din si hoang. All things happen like an orphan. Then he remained quiet, and the adult midwife hurried to check the arms of each baby. Ang singsing ng aking baby ay light blue, written “Ly/An — Nam”. Ang singsing ng baby ng familia Hoang ay kulay-rosas, na written “Trang/Hoang — Baba”. There is no place. Napabuntong-hininga ang main midwife: “Pasensya na kayong dalawas. Umuulan now, hindi kampanga ang electricity, at nalilito kami. Thanks sa yaong dalawas sa papapahinga.”
Natawa ako. At that very moment, I looked at him with his left hand. At that thing—the unspoken but significant addition of the fingers—gave me a strange way of assurance: even if no fool knew the things, the world would make my children grow. A small belief, like a thread in a hole.
After a while I stopped talking to everyone, I said something in my name. On the first night in the house, when I fell asleep, I felt like a cold ball of moonlight, when I sat down without looking at it, it was humming, ngunginig ang ko ko. But in the middle of the night, a message flashed across the screen of my phone like a stone mirror:
“An… I… I would like to know if I can get a DNA test.
It was sung three times. Huang said, “What is that thing?”—what is it? An opportunity to add two fingers? Lumang peklat sa ating me kamay? Can’t my face fall asleep quickly?
I came to the corner, dropped my phone and took it again. The bamboos were destroyed by the light of the hand. Naisip ko si Lyka. Think about the tag-line of a hospital. Think of a long distance, like a road where you walk, where it leads to the rest of your life.
Kinaumagahan, told who Lyka. I looked at him, tired but strange and not clear, after saying: “I am giving it to you. I am not going to tell you anything. But I am feeling… If only I asked you in Hindi.”
One cold afternoon, we met Hoang in a private laboratory. अनुद्ध namin ang mga sample ng longo ng twolan anak—na may अनुजन ng asawa—sa aming mga sample. Quickly at fine ng pag-inom ng dugo ng technician kaya hindi siya bahut hai. “The result was a long five days,” she said.
That’s the same feeling as a linguine tag-rain. I made a few different things to keep my baby safe: washing the lamp, starting the cow, changing the lamp, learning how to handle my baby without damaging my leg. When I looked at my eyes, I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes, I saw Tatay standing at the door, looking at the person, and his eyes were far away. When I invited my mother, I came in, sat down on the side of the window, and while I was there, I pulled myself to the edge of the window because I was not very lucky. I will tell you, at that time.
The next morning, I went to collect the result. The waiting room is as cool as a glass cabinet. Binuksa ko ang paper, opened it.
Ang text ay naka-bold sa simula: “Relasyon ng longo ng ama at anak sa parlatan ng An at Be (Ly/An): AFFIRMATIVE.” I was breathing heavily, I was feeling like a bird, I was putting a sigh of relief on my chest. Ang second line: “Relations ng dugo ng ama at anak sa parlata nina Hoang at Be (Trang/Hoang): AFFIRMATIVE.” Tumango ako. From this point on, everything can happen like a recent storm.
But the third line, of smaller text, is like a hanger waiting for a hook to put on: “The genetic correlation index is between 1 and 2 and does not indicate a half-brother relationship (reliability > 99%).
Napaupo ako at listen to the sound ng pag-ungol ng aircon at the sound ng papel na naggikiskisan sa isa’t isa. What happened to you? Biglang appeared ang mga hindi nikittang lubid, tensiyonado, at makova ng mahinang sound. I took a piece of paper out of the bright sky, and the leaves were washed only by the rain as big as the mirror.
Tumayo si Mang Kanor at nahintay sa under ng poon. Inibot ko ang paper. Without eyes, he looked at the eyes of his eyes, then he blinked, looking at the sky, he felt like looking at the abundance of light. No one speaks forever.
Then I turned to Huang, a breathless breath: “It turns… I am so scared.”
I don’t feel like I am crying. Hindi contains a sadness or joy, a group contains a thing like a stranger’s departure, but a new lover’s arrival immediately.
Having said that, the old paper was placed in front of my mother. There was a door in my room with Lyka holding it, pointing towards the door. He didn’t think that he was earning even slightly. After a long time, he changed his mirror, again and again folded it using a corner of his pole, and then laid it on his table. As he spoke again and again, he seemed to collect every word:
“Tatay… Alam niya na aaradh ang na aaradh na it, but hindi niya alam kung paano it aaradh.”
He said tahimik. Tahimik din koi. At times the sun shines like a mirror or a pin-point. Sabi ni tatay.
When he was younger, his mother worked as a supply worker for a medical station in Quang Tri. The mother of the child went out of the house, when he was young, he came out and went to the pantaloon. I was a little girl—a tube boy—who went to a place to become a teacher. Nagkita ang dawasa sa Tram Me wharf. After the tagging, the two became friends but there was no time for marriage. Then I went and sent my brother south. After returning the policy, he switched to his new school. I just looked at the picture of the front door of the wardrobe for a few moments, then placed it under the chest. Dumating si Naayen, youngest si Tatay. The flashes of life that no one knows. In Hindi, there is no snake-iwan in the world as if it was a child.
“Let me try not to find it” he asked. My voice was slightly distorted so that it could not drop. I saw the eyes of my mother, the paws of my lola when I was naked on the street, and the way I came to my mother when she was humming while walking in the car. I made a mistake at the same time. Mahal at Nagagalit.
Umiling si Itay. “That day… it is difficult to hang myself. I am afraid of a stranger to my man. I am afraid of a magician to do it to a child. I am afraid of a woman.”
I sat down a few times until I saw the light in front of the balcony and then turned it off. The anger of a person makes me like a stone like a tub of water. There is a cold surface on the surface of the water but there is a bottom visible: there is a person in the bottom, there is a stone. Don’t be afraid of that person. Kung scared ka, itatago mo ito. Ang tatago ay pagsisisi.
“What name did you give him?” he asked.
When someone came to his lips, he said something like a person climbing up, saying: “This is Mrs. Lan.
Each sentence is placed in its place while the last piece of the puzzle is clicked. Tingnan ko ang test paper: “half-brother”. Usually, a small part of that word could be a knife. But now, it is like a boat: stagnant, but it can carry a person.
Kinabukasan, met hoang sa water bar sa front ng gate ng ospital. For a long time the sky did not stop, at that day it sank on a table like that of Pulot-Pukyutan. Like us, every day we have a glass of straw, a curved body.
“Everyone knows my grandfather. If anyone knows my grandfather, there is a man with the same name as Quang Tri. If you want to know the name,” said Hoang. “I hope so, Mommy, but I don’t listen to anyone else. When I see someone else, I like to watch them.”
Tumango ako. She said something to her father. My sentence had no place yesterday, and now it seems like I am waiting.
Biglang si Hoang, like a freshman in the tumult of the book he bought: “Hey, how did we have two children… I got a relative’s son.
I am still talking, I am talking till the tears come to my eyes. Naalala felt like a mother in pregnancy, her arms were tight and holding her for the first time as a baby. Biglang became as soft as the skin of all the dead people of the day.
“Ah, something about it,” Huang held his head, “The day I came out of the hospital, I noticed a bump on my newborn baby’s arm.
Nagulat ako. What my words said was like a stone falling at the bottom of a water, making me fall in love with my circle. After leaving that place, I returned to the hospital and gave a small bag as a gift as a thank you. Tinaggap ng pungoon midwife at se akin sa akin nang mabuti. Bumulong, he said a secret: “I made a mistake that day. I made a mistake with my light, the two children were together, and I had a long time to check them. Luckily, the intern noticed that the little girl was “adding a finger” to each child…. She said, ‘The little boy who had no fingers was in room 5, and the little girl who was having no fingers was in room 7. Remember the mistake.’ At that time, when we started… A little mistake… Well, tapos na.”
You came to the front door of the Obstetrics Department, looking at the day, and not getting confused about the timeline of the day. I am thankful for one thing that I don’t like: the addition of my finger. It’s like a bag, which doesn’t get stuck, but stops it from looking at the pin so that it doesn’t fall down.
Having passed a moon, we—ako at si Ly, Hoang at Trang, our mother at ina ni Hoang—we were sitting around a simple hut in our house. On the table there was a bowl of chicken porridge, on a plate of inilutong fish, on a bowl of green pinaculus morning glory. When my child was sleeping in the room, he was sitting on a table that was not the same, and when a small shallot was placed on the table, it was like a bed. Ang ina ni Huang—si Mrs. Lan—I looked at my mother, but for a long time she replied, “Why?”
Ibinaba ni taay ang kayang mga chopstick atiyuko ang kayang head. She used an unpleasant word: “I’m sorry.”
Anna was angry but her eyes filled with tears of tears. “O sit, be patient. Youngsters… Go like a pond. Every person in the world may have a story. Now we will see no one, not like a child like a pond. You are like two children.”
Dramatizing the whole family. A bright smile may carry a little wealth. Looking at him, he secretly touched my knee under the table and said in a whisper, “Don’t touch me, listen?” Took it.
Flashes of the afternoon’s broken stories. When I started talking about opening a camera repair shop, I started talking about a project in my company. Ikinuwento ni Itay ang kuvonte ng old station ng health, ikinuwento ni Ms. The story of the Tram Me ferry. How to water the leaves of a betel tree for a village. In each story there is a connection, which does not cut off any piece of life that seems to be in Hindi.
Time to name the two. Here are some names written on a piece of paper: “Ha”, “Minh”, “Binh”. Hoang took a long sheet of paper from his pocket and it appeared that it had three identical names written on it. Nagulat kami, at that time we hung out together like we talked about nahuli na nag-stalking ng popcorn sa kalan.
They said to me, “Why do you want to pick the bins?
The name of the child is Binh. The baby and the girl in Hoang are named din na Binh, and the house is not called binh. The two names are the same, written together as “Binh Binh”—just like the sound of a calm bird behind a pond.
The date of the operation to remove the extra finger for two children. An hospital is like the light of a clean tree. I will not let go of the child, I will not hold the one who is waiting for me. Before entering the small operating room, the nurse used a pin to write the name. Big Kong looked at his hand, when he saw that the tip of his finger was small like a snake, he was so sad that he did not want to put it in his mouth to make it soft like a big bubble.
“Pinagsisisihan mo ba?” My question is Lyka.
Umiling ako. “Hindi. I’m not going to look at my picture, I’m not going to look at my room. At my finger… Let it be a story.”
The operation was quick as promised by a nurse. The mother looked at the two sleeping boys and looked at their faces. Turning back, I felt as if I was in the window of Binh’s corridor, suddenly I saw the light of the emergency light on the back of the wall. When I put it on my chest, I felt the pain of my chest, when I heard a sharp sound: the sound of fluid that did not connect, and the pain that did not stop on my roof.
When I turned to Huang’s sister, I naturally asked, “Hey An, what number are you looking for in the mistake?”
I was thinking of a snake at that moment. “Hindi. An animal’s story is a story. At an anime’s story it can be told at last. Now, I look at it in many ways… to open it.”
We looked at two boys sleeping in the morning sun. On the left hand side of each thread there may be put a thread of cotton, on the side of each thread of cotton there may be a good purple ink with a dot of ink. The two guys were like two little guys. There was a bad breeze in the corridor. In one place, a monthly medical spokesperson called a pregnant woman for a follow-up test. The smell of a few trees passed by, then they disappeared into the air and the smell of cotton at the cows.
After a few years, when you told Binh about the day he was born, a different story began, about the rain, about a traffic jam in the elevator, about the first cry like a corner of the sky. Then I remembered something about a man who had never been able to call his name, standing next to another man, waiting for his child to cry on the other side of the glass window. Ikinuwento was told something about two extra fingers that he had not nailed, but then he lost his doubt. The two fingers became the halos that caused the loss of the two fingers, but then they remained in their right place.
“Everyone said to themselves, ‘Why don’t my elders tell me my secrets?’
She said, “I was afraid of my elders. But fortunately, sometimes, there was a kind of catharsis: I chose not to let my secret go out when the whole family was crying. Then I had to choose my elders—not to keep talking, or to sit down and talk to someone about food.”
Pinili ko ang food.
At that time, two children sat down to eat, and the left hand of each child—not now a day—was a beautiful cake and a line of purple ink in those days. Looking at the line, it’s like looking at a small line on a map: a road in the middle of a storm, and then you find a bird in the lake.
Some people say: Two children were born at the same time, they share the same “Hindi is unbelievable in their characteristics”, very similar, the taste of life is not surprising to them. If someone thinks: the life is a office, but in hindi it is bad. This gives a sign to the heart – no pain for a poor heart, no good for a grateful heart. Because of this, I have a brother, my friend, my mother, I have the opportunity to look up at my face, and two children have a story to tell outside the school.
When I woke up, when I was drowning, the window was opened, I heard the sound of a door falling on the roof of the house that was not corrugated, my eyes were rising like a lamb breathing. In front of that house, there was no lamp in the house, and there was no light in the lamp. Send me a message with a short but no marking message:
“How are you sleeping in Hindi, brother and sister”
On the other side, the light suddenly died. A blue dot on a snake-like screen, then a reply, as good as a cup of lotus tea in a waiting room every year:
“Then I will leave my brother’s house.”