Walking towards infinity

Every day, he exercises by walking for eighty-eight minutes. When work is over, no matter what time it is, he'll change into sportswear and soft-soled shoes. He'd leave his belongings in the car, except for his wallet, two mobile phones, one to listen to zen music or Buddhist scriptures, the other to handle work. He walked into the main street in the city, wandered around, after eighty-eight minutes, walked back to the office, down to the basement to get his car. 

In reality, he rarely gets to spend a few dozen minutes listening to a sutra or truly meditate with the mantra Om mani Padme hum. His phone is always heated by long calls, so he'd keep moving while answering the phone. His job position is not significant, just a tiny manager in a huge, foreign-invested corporation, so he often has to go abroad for business meetings, reports, summaries, studying the market, and the company is developing the retail industry, the goal is to open a new customer system in different provinces every month.  

He has to meet all kinds of people in the world, exchange and cooperate with them, whether noble intellectuals or rugged salesmen. It feels completely normal when life is but journeys, trips, rushy meals on the plane, and incompleted nights of sleep in all kinds of hotels in different lands. 

But for him, and for a long time now, there is no limit to the fluctuation of life. Say, it is not necessary to listen to a whole sutra to learn the Buddha's teachings, listen for a minute and experience it for a minute, listen for an hour and learn for an hour. Better yet, he meditates during hot phone calls with all kinds of piled-up tasks that need to be resolved immediately. 

People can dump on him pressure and problems at work to their liking, and he will listen to all of them, bash them in the right place, take care of the right people, he's not aggressive enough to fire anyone without a valid reason, but also not touched at all by the tears of office girls who sometimes can't help but weep after meetings or a dozen of stressful emails. 

Those who meet and work together in this life must have a great predestined relationship, so everything is up to fate. Philosophically speaking, if you are suffering from the hatred of others and they're causing you sorrow, then you may have owed them a lot in your previous life. So you should let go, repay grudges with grace, and build all ties with love, so it's not only good for this life but also pleasant for the next life. In another realm, who knows that one day you will meet them again in a moment of only love. To receive that fruit, you must sow the seed now. To put it simply, don't worry about unhappy things at work, it's completely normal to have conflicts, solve them, and when it's over, look at each other and smile, you'll see that life is still lovely - he regularly told the girls. If you like to cry, just cry for relief, the company's rules don't forbid crying, but crying won't solve the problem.

However, some things in life can hardly be "up to fate", such as illness, which often arrives at the most unexpected time and the severity of which is different for each person. The manager next door who is in his early forty, the same age as him, young, healthy, and elegant, suddenly got gout. So he stopped eating and drinking and switched from the beer table to the tennis table, exercising every morning, noon, evening without missing a day. He doesn't have that rich man's disease, but he has erectile dysfunction, which he doesn't dare to share with anyone. He barely sees the doctor, he lacks both time and the courage to divulge. 

For years, he couldn't get the feeling right. The time he spends with Thuy is already too little, yet every time they are together, he often disappoints her. Traveling too much for work, every time he comes home, he craves her warm full breasts, her soft and demanding arms. But the intimacies could only last smoothly for a few minutes then gradually waned, it seems he had lost everything and fell into a vast space with nothing to hold him back, and every time he approached the climax, suddenly all his feelings vanished. Despite him being more and more stressed, struggling, trying his best to focus his mind and regulate his emotions, the necessary part could not be erected as his wish. Everything is sloppy and persevered. He was confused, apologetic, and at first, Thuy was bewildered, later patient, and finally depressed. He went on business trips more and more and went home tardily, after finishing all the work at the company, having dinner with all necessary partners, walking for eighty-eight minutes around the city center, answering all the phone calls, and comfortably pressing the elevator button of the 18th floor to enter the pen-house apartment. 

It is not that he avoids Thuy, but the doctor said that walking is one of the most effective ways to help him reduce erectile dysfunction. So he tries to maintain a walking schedule, even on business trips, every time he goes to a new place, the first thing he does is look around the property to see where he can walk at night.

There are locations in which, as soon as a business trip is scheduled, he already knows where he will stay, what to eat, what route to walk, they are lands associated with certain memories. Da Nang for example, or Hoi An, Hue, Quang Binh, Quang Ninh, Can Tho, Kien Giang... He used to be in love with a Hoi An girl, so whenever he visits this ancient city, he immediately read to the clerk the address of the Victoria hotel, though he could never understand why in the middle of a small ancient city that worshiped and preserved Asian traditions, he still felt that Hoi An girls are very easygoing. She slept with him the first time they met. He took her back to the hotel while the two made love, and all night he wondered what her parents, what her family thought. Later he told her, my life is full of journeys, it doesn't suit you, I can't take you with me, and I can't come here with you often, so you're free to make your choices. He was invited to her marriage, with a message: If you ever visit Hoi An, call me. Later on, every time he returned to Hoi An for work, he was still in Victoria but never called her. He only thinks of her on the coastal promenades. 

He takes advantage of all the time he does not have to answer the phone or handle work, to think. Thinking, for him, can be a recollection, or a future orientation, it might cheer him up, it might also be remorseful.

If he didn't have to answer the phone while walking, he would read the penitential prayer instead, bringing his mood back peacefully in his mind. If he had to answer the phone and handle work, he couldn't think of anything else, he could even become angry, short-tempered, yell, and sometimes make mistakes, but would still stick to the eighty-eight-minute walk, it personally means of penitence to him.

Many days, he returned when Thuy was asleep. He stood quietly lighting a cigarette, looking down at the splendid riverbank with twinkling night lights. After smoking two cigarettes, like a programmed machine, he turned on the hot water, dropped himself in the bath, changed into pajamas, brushed his teeth, shaved, then turned on his laptop again, checked all the unanswered emails, selected priority, responded to some emails immediately, left some that are not too urgent. 

Gently entering the bedroom, he always stopped for a few minutes to look at Thuy lying alone hugging a big soft cotton pillow, her face even when she was asleep, there was still something very youthful, almost sulky. The look on her face always made him feel pity. Hesitantly for a few dozen seconds, he gently lay down, wrapping his arms around Thuy. Although he knew that even if he was not so gentle, Thuy would not wake up, somehow, he still tried his best to be gentle. He found himself unable to turn on his heel to the other room, couldn't help but hug her, but couldn't do more than that. In the end, he told himself, let's go to sleep, tomorrow morning, the bell will ring and it will be a new journey. 

Saigon 2016

("A date at Heaven's gate" - Short stories collection, Phương Nam Books and Women's Vietnam Publishing House, 2017)