Heroic Nobodies in Stupendous Banality

[Vung Tau, 12/20/24]

At 5:15 each morning, a bird starts singing high up on a tree just outside the café on General Uprising. Among our dozen of regulars, almost none have even seen his feathers flitting among shadowy leaves. Most unforgivably if not detestably, no one can identify him. We can only agree he’s not a red-whiskered bulbul. (I say “we” to hoodwink you into thinking I can tell such a bird from a pigeon or sparrow.) We long exiled from even the fakest paradise must listen to his marvelous songs in confusion or shame faced.

Just a day earlier, there were news a 51-year-old Hanoian had killed 11 people and seriously injured two more. Unable to pay a $2 tab, Cao Văn Hùng was beaten up, he said, so he torched that café. His own pants caught fire. After turning himself in, this mass murderer cheerfully related the entire incident. His relaxed demeanor punctuated by satisfied smiles enraged netizens, but those cops knew what they were doing. To relax Cao Văn Hùng, they even gave him a cigarette.