It's amazing our first day of school has been canceled due to a bomb having dropped a few meters away from the classrooms. I try to figure out how I shall pass the time until I have to do my chores for the day.
At home, I change into my patched outfit. I've maintained the outfit by patching the blouse and pants with durable fabrics, doubling the patches serving as pockets. Some kids used to make jokes about my unusual fashion, but now they even think my patched outfit is cool, although they wouldn't dare wear the same.
I head out for the Gold Nuggets River, mainly to bathe in the river.
The Skyscraper Tree stands on the riverbank. The tree has sweet juicy fruits called Inrimanna coming in many colors. The trunk is at least fifteen meters in diameter, and about 195 meters tall, with the branches growing sideways all around and along the trunk. Some lower branches hang down so low that their tips dip in and out of the water, the submerged leaves twirling in the circular ripples, and small gleaming fish nibbling on the leaves.
Perching on the treetop, I can see the activities in the streets of Saigon. Pedestrians, food vending carts, motorcycles, tourist cyclos, bicycles, cars, and buses zigzag between one another. Trucks loaded with ammunition, military trucks carrying soldiers, and armored fighting tanks also move in the city traffic, making Saigon look like it's involved in military operations.
The children jump up to catch the low branches, which swing them out until they let go of the branches and plunge into the water. They swim fast to the opposite bank, do a flip turn, swim back, and scramble back up the tree, foamy water dripping onto friends trailing them from below. They keep repeating the process.
After playing with friends on the tree, I slip away to go to my bathing haunt bordered by fences of hedges and trees, at another section of the river. Milky Way Galaxy vines climb up the trees, spread along the branches, and hang down from the branches to the ground. The hanging vines form curtains hiding my bathing haunt.
I had chosen this site for my own bathing, but at first, there was no easy way in or out of my bathing haunt. I made a narrow gap at the bottom of the hedge by hitting on the twigs, until a gap opened up wide enough for me to crawl in or out of my bathing haunt.
I scamper along the hedge, looking for the gap. Could it be behind this elm tree branch? I drag the branch out of the way, and there it is. I look around the area and see no one, then although a bit unnerved by the hiccup, I crawl through the gap to get into my bathing haunt.
I stand in the river, feeling all excited seeing glowing rocks accumulated abundantly in the riverbed today. I call the rocks glowing gently "baby Moons," and the rocks shining brightly "baby Suns."
At the foot of my bed, I've piled the moon rocks in one corner, and the sun rocks in the opposite corner. They shine 24/7, so when I go to sleep and don't want light, I push my blanket with my feet to cover them. When I'm in a poetic mood, I let the moon rocks shine, but cover up the sun rocks, and when I want a sunny bedroom, I let the sun rocks glare.
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On the days when the big Sun doesn't come out in the sky, and I have to study, I take a few sun rocks and put them on my study table so that I can study in their light.
The jasmine plants shed their white flowers into the water flowing over the rocks. Aloe Vera plants grow on a sandy part of the riverbank. At the entrance of the nearby Dragon Way cave, there're icicle-shaped pink limestones.
I crush a baby Sun and a baby Moon and a piece of limestone together into a powder. I combine the powder, mineral-rich river water, mashed jasmine flowers, and Aloe Vera pulp, and knead the mixture with my fingers to make a paste.
Cleaning your body with this paste makes your skin clear and smooth, and makes you smell as if you've just been washed with expensive soap. Also when you rub the paste on your cheeks, even if you have sunken cheekbones, you'll look like you have exquisite high cheekbones praised by beauty seekers.
I mix the paste together with the juice of a reddish Inrimanna to make eyeshadow and smear it on my eyelids. I look into the water and see my brown eyes under the stunning eyeshadow, framed by my shiny black hair. I say to myself, "Wow, Glowing Goddess! Marvelous!"
I'll make cosmetics to sell. But I need to make sure the makeup won't cause a rash or mar the skin. I wouldn't like to have you come after me! But I need to learn first how to manufacture makeup in large batches, in case I get many customers, as making cosmetics on the rocks won't do so well in the business. There're consequently many things to learn, also many possibilities. I don't even know where to start.
Mom combed my long shiny hair smooth and put it into two braids, and put rubber bands at the end of the braids to hold them. I remove the rubber bands, slip off my sandals and lay them on the riverbank, and patter into the water. I submerge myself in water, wearing my outfit, and the braids unravel and my hair hangs loosely down over my shoulders.
I've finished bathing, get out of the water, sidle along the hedge to get to the gap and crawl through it to get out of my bathing haunt.
I'm afraid that I would lose face if anyone sees me bathing in this manner. I must save face for makeup advertisements, tout my clear smooth skin, and influence people to buy my cosmetics. Nobody would buy makeup from a lost-face beauty maker.
Sun comes down through the trees' branches to shine on the fallen leaves on the ground, I lie down on a heap of crackling leaves, to dry myself in the sun before going home. I watch the baby birds' heads bobbing in a nest in a tree. Hearing the baby birds chirping for worms from their mother bird, I feel hungry. Um, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not hungry for birdy food.