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by Han Nguyen "Hey kid, don’t be so angry!" he wrote after clicking her screen name hoabanglang in the chat room. "When I was your age, I didn’t do that, but now…," he added. He had nearly finished his advice when she signed out. Shaking his head and smiling broadly, he sent her another message, "What was that for? Just to show me how childish you are and to unintentionally ruin the pleasant moments in this virtual world? We’re only online for fun, aren’t we?" he went on.
In his experience, he knew that she has only set her status to invisible, but had not signed out yet. He also guessed that she was still available to talk more and might become really angry and send him an unfavourable retort. However, ten, twenty then thirty minutes elapsed, and still she hadn’t responded. Finally, his patience wore out. Without her screen name on display, he found his virtual world uninteresting. Strangely enough, because of her absence he had left his office for the neaby cafe with his laptop in hand because he did not want his employees to know that he was busy chatting. A few minutes later, he disconnected his WIFI and left. * * * Reaching home, he found it wafting in darkness. "Where are my wife and child? Worse still, there isn’t even a note!" he said to himself. Since he was hungry, he picked up the phone. "Where’re you, darling? Where have you taken our kid? Dinner hasn’t been served!" "I’m awfully sorry! I’ve forgotten," his wife answered regretfully. "I’ll bring home some fast food for you at once." "What about food for the dogs?" "Everything will be ready in a few minutes, my dear." Settling down into the armchair he sighed. "The dogs will have their own meal; whereas, their master will only have a frugal ration!" he exclaimed. Without waiting for his wife’s return, he walked down the street. A few moments later, he was in a cafe with a bowl of pho on the table in front of him. "I nearly spat my coffee out on that foolish guy’s PC over there," said a waitress, giggling, pointing at him. "He thought I was just a naive girl!" They all burst into laughter. "My attractive girl online and that waitress with her muti-coloured hair are world’s apart from each other indeed," he whispered. "What’s more, my girl must be well-educated, even though she’s still a bit childish. In comparison to my age of over forty, she’s very young: twenty-five at most. Anyhow, she might be a diligent public servant," he said to himself again. * * * After two days without seeing her online, he was on tenterhooks. As a result, he broke his own rules by clicking her screen name again and again right in the office. On the third day, he couldn’t stand it anymore. Consequently, he was compelled to send her another message, "Hey kid! Are you still angry with me?" and patiently waited for her reply. Yet, there was still no answer. His wife paid no attention to her husband sitting up late or staying at the office much later than usual. For her, nothing he did mattered. Paradoxically, he secretly thanked her for her indifference. The next day he entered the online forum, where he had first met and made friends with this cherished girl. He opened a link called "looking for old friends" and posted a message in the hope that she might read it. On the seventh day, he was very happy when he saw her screen name flickering. Again, he broke his rule by putting her name in stand-by mode, available at any time. He soon received her reply: "I’m terribly sorry! For the past several days, I’ve been too sick to answer you." He sighed with relief. "Well! After everything I said I thought that you were angry with me." She sent him a smiley face: "How could you think I’d be so childish?" she reproached him slightly. In this way, they frequently saw each other on the web. He often complained that his wife had not cooked dinner properly; she poured her heart out to him about her recently broken love affairs that failed because of her high self-respect. If he failed to talk to her on any day, he would miss her very much. She tried to stay late in her office to chat with him. "My family is now on the verge of destruction," he told her one day. "Why? Because of me?" she asked confused. "No, not really!" he denied. "When I’m having trouble in my married life, I log on to this website looking for something pleasant to tide over the boring moments. That’s the reason I met you in the forum. At my age and with my position, how else could I be keen on the virtual world?" "What about your child? How can you dare to deprive him or her of innocent smiles?" He believed in her so strongly that he gave her his phone number and the address of his office. But she remained quite a sealed book to him. When he suggested they meet, she refused his proposal point blank. "I don’t want to make it worse while your family is in trouble," she said. "But I’m trying my best to keep it healthy, you see," he disclosed bitterly. "How could I know that?" she asked by sending him a sad face. "For the sake of your child, think the matter over. Who has raised him while you have focused on your success and achieving such a high social position? Maybe your wife has lost interest, but it wasn’t always like that, I’m sure. Or else, now that you have become a company director and have had a lot of delicate affairs, maybe she doesn’t wish to intervene and is merely ignoring them all?" With such explanations, he respected her all the more. One day he told her that on a forum like this one, a lady of about twenty had called him Daddy. She flew into a rage. "How brazen she was!" she protested. "Why do you think that?" he asked, thinking that she was jealous of the young lady, which pleased him very much. In the meantime, she typed away incessantly without waiting for an answer: "In my opinion, the relationships between parents and children are sacred, they can’t be smeared at any cost. In her early twenties, that girl was legally old enough to be an adult; she couldn’t become anyone’s adopted daughter. Besides, why did she want to be your adopted child, not somebody else’s? Perhaps it’s because you told her on the forum that you’re a corporation director and a wealthy man. I’m not sure whether you’re rich or not, but I despise such a union." To his surprise, her reasons were extremely convincing. Virtual connections were usually impermanent, but in this case they had been talking to each other enthusiastically for nearly one year. Sometimes he tried to make up with his wife, but all his efforts came to nothing. She did not seem to want to strengthen their relationship. As a result, he decided to give up. He expressed that he still wished to chat with her, but she refused point blank. "I want to meet both you and your better half," she said. "I hope that she could thank me for trying to help her heal the wounds of her married life. If your happiness were to fall to pieces, I wouldn’t talk to you any more," she wrote resolutely. He thought and thought. At first, he thought about just lying and telling her that his family had started living in harmony again and that his wife would go with him to see her. But then on second thought, he didn’t dare. "Anyhow, it would be beneath contempt if I told her a lie," he said to himself. He remembered she had once told him, "My motto is that if I find anything hard to say, I’ll keep it mum, that’s all. On the contrary, I’ll never tell a lie." In vain, he had done his best to find information about her. In the end, all he could do was wait for her change her mind some day. * * * Driving along the big city’s Kim Ma Street one day he was greatly surprised to see purple bang lang flowers blossoming abundantly on both pavements. He suddenly remembered a poem she had sent him recently: Bang lang flowers are only half-opened For they are still hesitant, In wait for their time of ripening Until the moment they are fragrant. Since the day he met her online, he found himself a little more romantic. He began paying attention to the season of falling leaves, especially of her favourite flowers. He stopped the car when he saw a little girl trying to pick some of the bang lang flowers. "She must love that kind of flower very much," he told her the next day. She only smiled. "I’ve never picked bang lang flowers," she said. "They’re only beautiful when they adorn our streets; one of their branches means nothing to me," she added. Another insight into her nature! The more he found her sophisticated, the more he wanted to know about her. In his mind, he felt longing for her dainty beauty. The steamy side of virtual online love affairs had been covered by many articles. As for the relationship between this courting couple, it seemed to lie beyond that domain. The type of connection it was, he could not define. It appeared both near and far. * * * He was summoned to the court of justice for the second time. Thanks to his girlfriend’s advice he decided not to sign his name to his wife’s mutual consent petition for divorce. When he disclosed the matter to his romantic friend, she reiterated the issue emphatically, "If you do divorce her, I’ll disappear from this virtual world for ever." One month later, he told her that he had received a certificate of divorce. At once, she removed her screen name from the website. Despite sending a lot of notes, he did not see her online again. Then one day he discovered the new forum, "How to Lead an Honest Life of Your Own?" Surprisingly, it was there he met her again. "I’m not brave enough to meet you again simply because I don’t want to get involved deeply in your complicated relationship," she wrote. "I’ve already been twenty-five years old. The lofty ideas I talked to you about before were only to cover my cowardice. I’ve made you believe that I behave like this just because of you and your family. No, not at all! It was merely for my own sake…," she went on. He heaved a sigh. "How could she tell me lies? No, not really! She hasn’t done so. She’s wise enough not to indulge in such a crazy affair. It’s me who has told her lies," he whispered. The first time that he had told her a lie was when he said that he could not maintain their connection any longer because on the one hand, the wounds from his failed marriage could hardly be healed, and on the other, he did not dare to put too much hope in her. "The final question is, do I have the right to tie you down with my excess baggage?" he asked her. No adults have gone to the coffee house just to chat online for pleasure ever since. Translated by Van Minh Nguồn: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/
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