the notebook

small chapters

  1. Fishy and her sister came visiting from Saigon, carrying with them a little piece of justice. her sister's rapist been thrown into jail, and somehow, with my help, the world corrected itself by one small inch. it felt like watching the universe return one stolen thing. not everything, never everything, but one thing. one answer. one consequence. one proof that the wrong thing does not always stay unpunished.
  2. then came Zao and Kyle, and with them came a different kind of medicine. we found Nam sitting alone at the bar and folded him into our little storm of laughter. for a moment, sadness had nowhere to sit.
  3. i sat at the bar with Manu, Marco, and Cata. we talked about food, cities, and all the soft things people talk about when they are far from home. tortellini. Rome. spaghetti aglio e olio. Tequila. and when the night ended, they told me they would remember me for life. maybe one day, sitting by the fireplace somewhere near Bologna, they will tell their grandchildren about the girl they once met in Vietnam, in the middle of nowhere.
  4. i met a tarot reader, an ex-bar girl, and somehow the conversation went straight to the places people usually hide: men with small dicks. women with bad habits. broken homes. brave returns. bad jokes. old wounds. dirty truths. second chances. the lives we escaped. the selves we kept alive.