THE LITTLE NEWSPAPER BOY
Dong Sa Bang

That summer it was hot as all other summers passed. The red flowers of the Phoenix were falling down on the schoolyard. The school gate closed and all the lucky children some left for the countryside, and some were playing with their friends or wandering in and around the corners.

And the little boy was sent to stay with his aunt.

The little boy woke up early in the morning, gently opened the door and left the house while all others still deep in their sleeps. There, the boy was walking down the road about one kilometer to the local newspaper distributor. He held on to his hand a bundle of 25 newspapers, the Lightning. The boy still remembered the voice of the elder cousin, that: “Every where you go, you must yelling loud and clear: Newspaper, newspaper here, the morning Lightning. So that people could hear you and will buy them for you, remember that.” The little boy looked around and saw no one, he started yelling with a soft voice: “Newspaper, newspaper here.”

He yelling once and then silently walked down the street.

He walked back the road in the morning and came to the market place by the street shoulders near his aunt’s house. Both sides of the street people displayed food tables, fruits, barbecued, and fried. The inviting smelling from all the foods on the street had exiting the little boy stomach and his wish eagerly. But then, the little boy walked fast, fast away from his hungry!

The place where the boy lived, every day he had two meals. Some days he felt very hungry, but the food were limit and all were laid on the table. And every one here, for so long now, had eaten very little; two small bows of rice were enough. And all the foods on the table were gone. The boy put down bow and chopsticks but still hungered, he looked on the table and sadly walked away.

The little boy set the newspaper on the street, gathered some ravel stones and placed them on four corners of the papers. He sad down and tried to sell them as of people selling vegetables. People went to the market saw the newspapers would buy them, he thought, and he thought selling newspapers like selling meat, that’s it. He’s not yelling loud as his cousin told him to, because each time thinking about yelling loud he felt ashamed.

Each newspaper he sold for 30 cents and he would make 10 cents in profit. It’s passed haft day and he still had not sold even one!

People went to the market become lightened. The boy looked at the newspaper stack, touching the Lightning headline and washed off the street dust on the papers, he dreamed of another place far away. There, every day he went to school and played with others kids. Each day the meal never felt short. When the summer comes he walked everywhere on the yellowish rice field, catching dragonfly, picking wild flowers from the mountain. He had not known the meaning of self-supported and he was like a little deer. But then one day there were lightning, the lightning from the rockets have burned down the village where he was born.

The lightning came from the mountain has faded out his life, and from there he left.


The little boy was dreaming back the old place; suddenly a moped dashed through a water hole and wet all of his Lightning newspapers, the water splashed onto his face. The boy woke up from his dream. And the street market was vanished he walked away all people, the little boy stood up and grabbed the Lightning newspapers. His eyes were sad; the little one roamed away into the dark alley.

DongSaBang.

12/2008.