Secrets- #### Chapter Five

Sometimes Thui could hear the sound of traffic, the howling of cars. That tormented her; that sound somehow reminded her that she was not what she had dreamed to be but she was a disgraceful, pregnant girl of seventeen. The turbulence of her soul was shown in her ever angry eyes. Often times she was internally and outwardly was like a hard block of aversion with her face disfigured and her body condensed.

Harold's house was a two story building with living area in the first floor and two bedrooms in the second floor. The master bedroom window was opened to an open field which Thui liked to stand there for hours and to watch the day become night and the night become day. However, many things bothers her tremendously. Among them was the constant noise, the terrible wailing of mosquitoes, and the howling of wind which passed across the filed. Sometimes the wind's agonizing moaning drove her to madness.

She sat on a chair in front of the window for hours, indulging her ill- fated desire to be in America, and watching the passing wind among the grasses or trees. She thought of her condition, what it was, the way it was, without magnifying her vain desires; and she admitted to herself of a dangerous game she was about to play.

In her manner, she knew of this awful reality, her kind of skill for manipulation. It seemed as though at that young age, she knew that human being, each and every one of them, were capable to absorb what was necessary for survival, and to find the essence of life. However, she needed a sign, a symbol which would be greater than what she was, a sign which would tell her that what she had in mind was perfectly normal. She needed a susceptive warning of who she was and what she needed to do. Everything was like hell for her. It was almost like being ready for death watching the signs for having the baby. She felt like a wounded bird, who could not fly in that condition.

She said little to her mother, for the ideas and images she had were hateful; but she agreed to have her mother's friend, and old midwife to assist her with the child birth. She wanted to have the baby in the old man's house against her mother's wish.

She suffered the pangs and travails for two full days before calling on the midwife. She made it clear that she did not want her mother there. The spasm and sever twinges of pain were beyond her endurance; but she refused to cry or scream. She just lay there flat, and listened carefully to the old midwife's instruction. She pushed when she was asked and did not when she was told to stop and to breathe. The whole ordeal lasted three days. At one point the midwife told her that this was too impossible for her and she needed to go the hospital. She refused.

The baby girl finally came to this world, which at that moment made her a mother. Thui hated it. The midwife asked her what she wanted to name the baby. She answered that she had no name for the baby. So a nameless girl was born to this world of cruelty; not only the savageness of the entire world but also the brutality of her own mother, the one who was supposed to give her love and care! The strangest thing of all was that the baby was born on Thui's eighteen birthday. Perhaps the hand of God was at work that Thui's birthday each year from that time to the time of her death would remind her of the other birthday.

To Be Continued