Books
Share Article I invite them to Phu Bai. We stood in the shade of the old small faded airport building. It’s a clear memory of my arrival when I was a green nineteen. I needed to see and feel the area again.
I’ve carried a copy of Omar’s book, A Century Is Nothing from Turkey to Indonesia to Nam. I considered making a sacrifice in Nam. Burn it.
First thought, pure thought, said a Zen monk.
Together with Omar we used fire, crucible alchemical combinations, diversities, sweat, blood and tears to create it so I’d use fire to release it.
Save books, build a library.
Books are universes of ideas, experiences, feelings, visions and paths, destinations obliterated through discovery, reminding memory. They are worlds of dreams, stories, dramas, plays, songs, histories and guides into new visceral experiences.
Pages sing their laughter with wisdom, song, and poetry. Grow Your Soul.
Live forever with paper’s tactile sensation. Voices of reason, comedy and tragedy are skintight drum stories. They are oral transmissions recorded on parchment, vellum and illustrated manuscripts in Gaelic talking tongues, etched on Sumerian clay and painted on Asian scrolls.
I didn’t burn it. Down the road I gifted the brick to three Asian women passing through Saigon in late 2009. They had Chinese ancestry from Hong Kong and lived in Australia. I said a blind friend named Omar wrote it so I signed it laughing letting it go with them.
Thanks for the book.
You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy it.
It took all three to carry it. They staggered up guesthouse stairs with the epic opus. After breaking down a wall they struggled to get it through an opening.
People need to break down before they break through.
They discarded cheap Vietnamese souvenirs to maneuver the monster into a bag. We’ll have to check this beast all the way to Sydney.
People use words to make walls, said Zeynep.
People use words to make bridges, said Rita.
Bridges over walls, said Devina. It’s a mind map.
Show someone a rectangle, said Z. Ask them is this a door or a wall?
When you build a wall think of all the things you leave outside, said Tran.
Yes, said Leo who knew a lot about dynasties and firewalls.
Some veterans return to Europe, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and the South Pacific. Others remember to forget or forget to remember returning in their memories, dreams, reflections, flashbacks and nightmares. Some write it down and make sense of it later.
Don’t try. Do.
You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.
– Heraclitus (c. 540–480 BCE)