The Story of Trees: Exercise Two

Continued from part one:

Well, then, back to the narrative!

Where did we leave Dad? Oh yes, up on the mango tree, unwrapping the golden nuggets, one brown foot dangled off the envious branch while the other wrapped under him in lotus position – the almost-buddha in the mango tree.

But I have not describe the surroundings – the setting!  One-fourth of the quad-umvirate of storytelling! In 1954, Danang, Vietnam had not (yet) mutated, by trade, war, and five/ten year plans, into the many-headed metropolis of today.  There was no town center, much less those parasitical suburbs – no competition between the palms fronds and skyscraper antennas, no rush hours, no slums – in fact, there wasn't much whatsoever.

There was a hamlet – clusters of earth and straw cubes, topped by more dirt and hay, or sometimes banana leaves, and for a few fortunate souls, corrugated tin.  The hamlet clung to the Marble Mountain's eastern side – and held on for dear life to her train, folded and creased as it did over and around her many curves before cascading down in a rumpled heap to the South China Sea.

The sea. Yes, the sea was greener then – more volatile – its memory tinged by the scales of a commitment-phobe dragon who fled to the ocean's depth to avoid a happily ever after life with his fairy consort... True story, so my mother tells me.  That is how Vietnam, the descendants of the princes who followed their father to the shores, was born... Fairy princesses and dragons, one hundred eggs and separation – that was how the story was told, never mind the socio-political implications that China was effeminate (fairy-like, even) while Vietnam had the sturdier lot.

But the sea – why put it in the plot at all?  Because the sea was a perfect antidote to a gangly and awkward boy, who at age twelve desired more than anything that most precious of sensations in short supply in a small village: the chance to be alone.  The smaller a village, the harder it was for Dad to extricate himself from prying eyes, wagging tongues and fluttering ears.  Besides, as the eldest child-son-brother in his family was no fun – he got all the responsibilities and the consequences of trial and errors – of being the first to ever do or ever try anything.

But Dad, in the searching for solitude, would find that loneliness to be of haphazard comfort.

Here, I'll digress. So the sea, like the mango tree, may be (I can't definitively say, as this is only my own interpretation of a boy's psychological state, one who would grow up and.. ) an oasis, a fortress of solitude for the to-be superman, a hideout cum monastery, the grove of a bodhi tree.  And because of that – I could have been a little unfair in chastising Dad's decision making.. after all, Dad may have purposefully arbitraged the known consequences of mango-pilfering for the brief solitary bliss of: thick yellow juice coursing through his throat – but not before delivering crucial sugars to his tongue-tip, which ten transmitted neural and molecular signals to his brain with the message of "Sweet Lord, this is good – this moment, this very now!" – along with the comfortable knowledge (if not comfortable physicality) that the juice have also marked its identity on his dark lips, angular chin, and: shoulder-blades, arms, elbows and hands.

But perhaps this trade was made based on historical successes, when really it (history) was not a good indicator of future performance.  In other words, maybe Thông should have thought it over a little more.

The consequence.

So what happened? What is the forward movement that can salvage this tedious tangent exploration into a plain twelve year old boy's mundane moral quandary -- one that can fling this narrative towards connected motifs, sublime themes, poignant symbolism and all the other accouterments of an inflated literary endeavor?  Or -- What could make this story readable?

The plot, as always, plods along.

So we have: Thông-Dad, in the mango tree, juices dripped down onto arms-elbows-hands, in a meditative trance on the sugars that was coursing through his brain (he reflected on the philosophy of good – and by necessity, the evil in a world without mangoes) – he is in a half lotus position – failed to notice the unmissable figure of old man Lưu. Like a large inkblot, this ancient shadow dominated the only glass windowpane in Danang village.