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Category:
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Publisher: Booklocker.Com
ISBN-10: 1961268531
Type: Fiction
Pages: 468
Copyright: August 3, 2026
ISBN-13: 9781961268531
Price: $5.57 (eBook)
Dr. Hull's fourth book of 37 short stories for your reading blazer.
The Way It Breaks: Dream Stories is an eclectic collection of short stories written by Dr. Ronald W Hull between 2017 and 2026. Most of these stories are from his vivid dreams, but not all. They range from rags to riches stories to tragic ending stories. From simple fables to erotic titillating tales. There are several genres, But Hull’s stories are original and do not follow popular storylines.
Whether you read all of the stories, or just the ones that you like, there is something for everyone in this book who wants to take time out from the grind of daily online activity to just relax and read an entertaining story or two.
You may be shocked by what you read, or enchanted. Ron does not set boundaries with what he writes. Like dreams, welcome or unwelcome, hopefully what you read will ring true to you.
What other authors have written who have read the stories as they were posted in their draft stages here on Authorsden:
Small World – David Thompson – “What a wonderful story, one that was easy to follow and kept my interest from beginning to end.”
Recovering From Brutality – John DeDakis – “Really well done. You created vivid, believable characters and kept my interest and attention the entire way.”
From Nothing to Something – Stephen Falco – “This is a feel–good story, well written and skillfully told. Reading it this morning brightened my day.”
Gigantic Joe – A. Fraley – “This was so powerfully written, I wasn’t sure it could possibly be fiction. It feels so real.”
A Beggar’s Good Fortune – Arnav Daksh – “A sweet calming story that also shows the despair beggars live in. It is not that they can’t, or they don’t know, they have just submitted to their destiny. I loved it.”
Two Muskie Tale – Budd Nelson – “I no longer fish or hunt but remember the dedication some had (like my father). a very well written story. everyone should enjoy.”
Bernie Made Off – Eva Pasco – “The man of a thousand faces comes to mind. A fascinating account of a rolling stone who gathers no moss.”
Fateful – Sandie May Joyce – “[T]his is one of your most powerful stories. Very well-written!”
Falling from Grace – JoAnne Cromp – “Reminds me of how we are stripped for a reason to see that there really is no U-Haul behind our hearse. Material things are just borrowed for our temporarily stay. Deeply fascinating story.”
The Matriarch – Patricia Hilliard – “Well written but sad. I learned something, I thought the graveyard was the elephants, interesting to know that humans ([on] ships) bit the dust there too.”
Wolf In the Woods – Regis Auffray – “A most engaging story. You captured my attention at the onset and held it to the end. I was just sorry it was over too soon.
Tom Turkey – Odin – “With so many forgotten folk-like stories and memories that, unfortunately, millennials may never experience, given the fast lane obsession of most. Thank you for reminding me of so many simple experiences we should be thankful for.”
Excerpt
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Good Karma 1
1 - Small World 3
2 - Recovering from Brutality 17
3 - Foundling Pearl 29
4 - From Nothing to Something 41
5 - Hand-Me-Down Home 53
6 - A Beggar’s Good Fortune 55
7 - Two Muskie Tale 65
Bad Karma 77
8 - Bad Karma 79
9 - Fateful 85
10 - What the Hell? 109
11 - Winner, Loser 113
12 - Falling from Grace 121
Music 127
13 - Sweet Melody of Life 129
14 - Death Do Us Part 145
Nature 151
15 - Gigantic Joe 153
16 - The Matriarch 161
17 - What Are You Bloody Doing? 167
Crime 171
18 - Bernie Made Off 173
19 - Sybil’s Identity Theft 191
20 - Lost Boys Scheme 209
21 - Deep Closet 223
Mystery 243
22 - Mind’s Eye 245
23 - Father’s Secret 249
Fantasy 263
24 - The Macaw Prince and Sleeping Princess 265
25 - Wolf In the Woods (Not Children Safe) 279
26 - Tom Turkey 283
27 - Talking Dead 291
Superstition 293
28 - Damn Black Cat 295
29 - Cracks 309
Science Fiction 327
30 - Five Flash Fiction Stories 329
31 - Shady Timbers Bigfoot 335
32 - Aberration 355
32 - Unidentical Twins 361
33 - God Playing 375
34 - Project Infinity 377
Erotica 389
35 - Sisters of the Revolution 391
36 - Nia’s Fame (Warning – Erotic) 405
37 - Erotic Companion 415
About the Author 437
Preface
This is my fourth book of short stories. Over the years since I started writing novels in 1998, I would occasionally get an idea for a short story and write it. These stories were usually posted on AuthorsDen.com where they received some favorable reviews by other authors. I sent manuscripts to a few places where short stories were published but received no success publishing that way.
Since I had successfully vanity published my novels through BookLocker.com, by 2008, I had enough stories to publish my first book of short stories: It’s in the Water and Other Stories. And then, as a result of dreams and ideas that came to me as I approached my 70th birthday that was also on the solstice of 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar, I responded. With the predicted pending doom, I feverishly wrote stories that culminated in my second book of short stories: Verge of Apocalypse Tales. Ironically, I was in the hospital at the time of my birthday, and might have died then, except for lung surgery that saved me from pneumonia.
After 2013 with the subsequent growing problems from immigration, global warming, terrorism, economic uncertainty, sexual freedom and the growing divide between conservatives and progressives in our society, I wrote several stories of subjects that are almost guaranteed to cause controversy. In 2017, I published Impolite Stories: Sex, Politics & Religion.
It is 2026, and I have reached the ripe old age of 83. I haven’t stopped writing short stories because I have either become wiser or more demented. Hopefully, you will find that you’ll be enchanted or divided by reading my rambling through many genres that I have carefully separated so that you can go to the genre you like to read first. However, I hope you will read all 37 of them.
Good Karma
Stories of good fortune that changed lives drastically for the better. For those interested in warm, sometimes true, human stories of those blessed by the roll of life’s dice.
1
Small World
“What a wonderful story, one that was easy to follow and kept my interest from beginning to end. Therefore, for the time it took me to read this delightful story, I was there. Thank you for making it happen–this time from the safety of the sidelines.”
– David Thompson
Based on a True Story
But one day, as he followed the others leaving the camp, Quan saw a young woman above the trail smile and wave at him in a motion that told him, “Come here.” Since he was free to roam, he scrambled up the bank to where the woman was. The others did not see him.
L
ike so many, Quan Van Nguyen’s parents fled with their two sons and daughter from Hai Phong in 1954. He was 4, the youngest, and enjoyed the adventure like children do. But the trip wasn’t pleasing for his parents, having left everything they had built behind. Running for their lives.
Taking the long train ride with few possessions to Saigon as Ho Chi Minh began punishing or driving out all the Vietnamese people who sided with the French rather than his communist agenda. A young couple with nothing but their youth and their willingness to work, to fish, to make their way in life, prosper.
By working hard doing menial work for rich Saigon patrons, they saved enough to buy their own fishing boat again they lived on and made a living on while their last child, a girl, was born. Working as a family, they soon were able to buy a small house by the fish market so that Quan, 7, could go to school.
Quan’s older brother and sister stayed on the boat, not wanting to go back to school while making money. Fishing was good in the warm south waters, and they prospered.
Quan excelled in school. He not only loved mathematics, outshining his fellow students, he was interested in language, learning both English and French as well as how to read and write Vietnamese well. When the Americans came, he took every opportunity to talk to soldiers who would put up with his questions. Learning about them and their way of speaking English. He admired their bravado and wanted to be like them, a soldier, too.
From what Quan had learned from his parents, his peers and the news, the Vietcong and the Communists in the north under Ho Chi Minh, needed to be forced back north or they would overtake the whole country. And that would be very bad, very bad, indeed.
At 17, Quan graduated from high school with honors in 1968. At war since 1963, all able men were required to join the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the ARVN. He took a test that the military provided to see whether he was qualified to go to college. The test proved that he was and that he scored the highest in mathematics. Eager to become an officer, Quan was allowed to take the officer training test that earned him a military education at the famed Dalat Officers School, the equivalent of West Point in the United States.
After the Tet Offensive, the war was really ramping up, and the Americans were deep in the fight. From the 22nd class of Dalat in 1965 on, the ARVN were so in need of trained officers, they had two classes, an A class of two years and a B class of four years. The thought among the students and their instructors was, the more training, the less bloodshed. Quan was eager to go to battle with the Americans, so he chose class 25A. making First Lieutenant when he was only 19. He chose to go with the Infantry.
Quan’s older brother had served his time in the ARVN, reaching the rank of corporal and, along with his older sister, returned to the boat and became partners with his parents. His younger sister went to nursing school. Nurses were in high demand with so many war casualties. Fish were needed to feed the Army. Quan’s family on the boat profited, both with fishing and side businesses like ferrying goods and people.
Quan was immediately placed in charge of a platoon of 20 men engaged in the day-to-day skirmishes in villages north of Saigon where they were routinely helicoptered in and out. Finding very few Vietcong in those villages when they arrived. Quan was particularly adept at learning from the tight-mouthed villagers who were often too afraid to help very much. It was hard work, and sometimes, very dangerous.
There were booby-traps and Vietcong disguised as villagers. Worse, children and women indoctrinated to carry a grenade or a larger bomb into a group of soldiers. Quan escaped that kind of surprise more than once by spotting it before it happened.
Quan’s platoon suffered casualties but survived, and he was promoted to more responsibility, at least up until March 1975, when the People’s Army of Vietnam, the PAVN, launched an all-out offensive that couldn’t be stopped. By that time, rapid promotions had made Quan Captain in charge of a company.
Quan’s company retreated to Saigon to regroup. But they didn’t. Command was in disarray. Troops in his charge deserted. They all went to find their families. He found his family ferrying people out to US ships waiting offshore for big money. Saigon was rapidly falling apart during April and finally fell to the Vietcong and PAVN on the 29th. Quan had just left his family’s boat to get back to his company, hoping to bring it back together to make one last stand.
He removed all his captain identification on his uniform that he could and put it in his pockets. Unfortunately, he was still wearing his uniform and was easily spotted by three barefoot Vietcong in the street who weren’t wearing any uniforms.
Quan was carrying his US issued .32 caliber pistol, but they were carrying the preferred AK-47. Amazed at what Saigon was compared to what they had been told.
Saigon was a primitive village of animal-like people in the mud.
Instead, they found a beautiful city with paved boulevards lined with majestic buildings and residences. Markets with more food than they had ever seen in their lives. Seeing their prize hurrying through the street, they grabbed Quan from behind before he could pull his pistol and took him to the PAVN headquarters set up in a confiscated mansion where he was detained with others.
Quan was soon interrogated. And when he couldn’t provide them with any information, they thought useful, they tried some beating and a bit of torture. But they gave up when they found out that he was just a leader of soldiers and not a general. Quan apparently didn’t know anything of any value.
The Commandant in charge of prisoners like him declared that they needed to send them to the North to get “reeducated.” The prisoners were told that it would not take very long and if they were well behaved and learned quickly how to become good communists devoted to Ho Chi Minh, they would be back home, here in the South, within a “week or two.” Quan didn’t believe it.
But, when Quan learned that it would be easy for him to become “part of the victors,” he volunteered to go. It seemed better than other options. While secretly knowing that he would never bow down to Ho Chi Minh or the dogma of the communists. It would just be an easier way for him to avoid being a prisoner for a long time, at least he thought.
Quan was wrong. He was packed with many others on a train headed for Hanoi at a snails’ pace, the track was so damaged from the war and neglect. He and the other prisoners were not given any water or food for a trip that took nearly a week as the cars swayed and bounced along.
Some prisoners died from thirst, starvation, beatings or the heat. Unlike their captors, some of these officers at office jobs had not been hardened by the war to accept being deprived and survive such conditions.
Quan was hardened by his daily work in the field, but even he thought he wasn’t going to make it to that wondrous reeducation camp that the Commandant had told him about.
He feared he would never be able to return to Saigon and his family again. His mouth was parched and dry. His lips cracked and bleeding. The heat was stifling. But the psychological strain was worse than the physical pain. Quan endured.
When the train finally arrived in Hanoi, the Hanoi Hilton was already full of US aviators and so were the other nearby ramshackle prisons and education camps where the Americans held were separated from the Vietnamese.
Quan was given some food and water, mostly just rice with worms in it, and ordered to walk while tied to others by rope far from Hanoi into the mountains where the Vietcong had holed up, fighting the Hmong earlier.
Quan had heard of the minority group, Hmong, but had never seen them. As they passed villages, he saw them with their strange decorative clothing. They looked different, too, more like Chinese. When he was in command, he had learned from the Americans that these people were fierce fighters. Guerrilla fighters in the mountains and deep forests. Helping the Americans put pressure on the Vietcong there.
He was also finding out how different the terrain was, getting higher all the time. With narrow trails and no place to grow food, just vast vistas of other mountains sometimes in clouds. He began to wonder if he would have anything to eat there at all. He ached from hunger and the long walk, but fortunately, there were many streams where they could get cold crystal-clear water.
Sleeping was hard because the jungle around them was filled with wild animal sounds and very frightening in the night. But he knew it was mostly birds from his experience in the jungle in the lowlands. But not as many bugs as there, something he appreciated. But it could get cold some nights. It was hard to stay warm.
When they got to the camp, not far from a monastery, they were put in bamboo cages. The regimen was simple. In the morning, they were rousted out at dawn, forced to sit in the dirt, or mud when it rained, and lectured on the principles of communism and following Ho Chi Minh who they would have to declare allegiance to before ever being declared, “Reeducated.”
The hope of one or two weeks that the Commandant had promised turned into months and years. Those in charge of the camp were starving and had to rely on the monastery and the nearby people for food.
Sometimes, there was plenty with fresh fruit, rice and vegetables, even spices. But mostly, there was just rotting vegetables and rice to be had from the poor people that lived nearby. Mostly, Vietnamese that were forced out of Hanoi in 1954, eking out a meager living. Only able to live in the area because the monastery helped them learn how to farm, forage, and hunt so they could sustain themselves. Secretly dreaming of leaving the country, but there was no feasible way out for them.
The Vietcong Captain in charge of the camp was just as eager to get back to Hanoi as his jailers and prisoners. As time moved on, after about two years with no help from Hanoi, he let the prisoners, after morning indoctrination, go out into the surrounding forest and forage for firewood, fruit, flowers, roots, mushrooms, tubers and other forest food that the local villagers also sought. Quan found he had to go deeper into the forest every day to find anything that others had not already foraged.
But one day, as he followed the others leaving the camp, Quan saw a young woman above the trail smile and wave at him in a motion that told him, “Come here.” Since he was free to roam, he scrambled up the bank to where the woman was. The others did not see him.
###
Xuan Le’s parents, like most of the others, had been forced out of Hanoi like Quan’s parents in 1954. But instead of going south, they had to retreat to the mountains where they found the monastery. The monks saved them from starvation, and they gathered in villages around the monastery for mutual support.
But they could not hold back the fierce Vietcong. Some even collaborated and they had to tolerate Vietcong activity like the reeducation camp in their midst. Her parents were teenagers when they came. They married and had four children, two boys and two girls. Xuan was the youngest.
Mountain living was very hard. Xuan’s parents died at a young age leaving her siblings and her to fend for themselves when she was only 15. The people of the village were a close group. Marrying any of them would cause problems. The few their age were just inadequate. She didn’t want to marry any of the Vietcong or the Hmong either. Who they thought were inferior because of their sometimes violent, wild ways.
Xuan and her sister still dreamed of marrying and having children to help support them one day. Even though some of the monks wanted to have sex, they resisted them. They were not monk chasing prostitutes like some of the girls.
Finally, Xuan hatched a plan that she didn’t even tell her sister about. She had observed the prisoners going by every morning. One was tall and very educated looking. She fell in love with him just by seeing him walk by every day. Finally, she got up enough courage to wave and summon him. To her surprise, he came, climbing up through the brush, to greet her. She felt her heart beating in her chest in anticipation. She blushed.
Quan saw the love in her eyes and rose on her cheeks as Xuan, without saying a word, held out her hand to take his. She led him along the trail to where she had made a bed of grasses for them.
She was wearing a rough woven cloth shirt and pants, but nothing underneath. Quan could not believe how beautiful she was with a little mole on the right side of her cheek – a beauty mark. Her eyes were blazing as she let him remove her top and began touching her all over.
Quan couldn’t even believe what he was doing. He never dreamed of a woman like this. Thoughts of the camp disappeared from his mind. She shuddered under his touch, and he was gentle as he could be, while at the same time, eager. He had a bit of experience with prostitutes in Saigon but had never been in love. This was so different, so pure, he succumbed to his urges.
Xuan cried out and bled when he entered her. And it didn’t take long for him to release his tension. Afterward, he held and kissed her gently while she cried, she was so happy. But he knew he had to come back to the camp with something every day or he would be punished.
So, Quan left her that day while thinking of her all day long, all the way back to camp and all through the night as he tossed and turned until daybreak, and he knew he would see her again.
For about a month, every day, Quan would make sure that he was the last one in the line of those going out into the forest. Each prisoner wanting to be first in line on the trail to find something by being first to find it. Then, he would fall back when he came close to where Xuan was. He would climb up to the higher trail and go to her lair that had become theirs.
And then one morning, the captain of the camp announced that everyone was returning to Hanoi. All the prisoners were declared, “reeducated,” and they would be going back with them. They packed up and left. Quan did not even have time to tell Xuan what happened.
Xuan waited that morning and Quan did not come. She was heartbroken. Hoping against hope, she came again the next morning and found that he didn’t come that day either. But when she returned to the village, she found out that the camp had been evacuated, and all the prisoners had left. She cried for many days after that and told her sister, the only one that knew of her tryst.
Fortunately, part of the reason the camp was evacuated was a Chinese initiative against Ho Chi Minh and he needed all his troops to fight them off from Hanoi. When the Chinese came to the village, they gave the villagers food and allowed them, even helped them, escape north to China with food and passage.
Xuan, her sister and her brothers, along with others, walked many days for two months, helped by many Chinese families along the way. Finally, they reached the coast where they were able to get boat passage to Hong Kong. They arrived at a refugee camp set up by the British there.
Along the way, morning sickness and the older women told Xuan that she was pregnant. She was very happy that she was having Quan’s boy. She knew it was a boy in her heart. Before long, the family learned where they would be able to immigrate to Germany. It wasn’t long after that they were sent to Germany on a plane.
When they got to their assigned city, Berlin, Xuan and her family worked menial jobs until they got tired of the German food. There were few Vietnamese there and no Vietnamese restaurants. Three years after they arrived, they pooled their savings and opened a Pho restaurant.
In the meantime, little Van Quoc Le was born and spoiled by the others who had no children. Xuan’s family had all the Vietnamese in Berlin coming to the restaurant and were surprised how many Germans loved the traditional noodle soup, too.
They prospered and the others got married: Xuan’s sister, to a German businessman and her brothers to Vietnamese women who also joined them working at the restaurant.
They soon were able to buy a larger building. The family lived upstairs in a very large two-story apartment. Little Van Quoc went to school at an early age and learned German, English and Vietnamese. Easily conversing with customers in their languages by the time he was four. Customers enjoyed his friendly antics. Providing them with eating entertainment. He picked up all the latest hit songs and danced while he sang.
Xuan marveled at her son’s intelligence, and she knew one day he would grow to be like his father. She longed to see Quan again but knew it would never be.
It was a difficult birth. The doctor told her that she wouldn’t be able to have any more children. By having a child and running a restaurant, there was little hope that she would ever marry. But she was content with her son and her business. That was enough.
###
After reaching Hanoi, Quan, once again, had to take that train to get home. They were starving and at war in the North and wanted all the prisoners to go south. This time, the trip was a bit easier. The tracks had been repaired, and the train ran faster. There was more food and water.
Quan arrived at a Saigon much different from the one he knew. It looked poorer and ragged around the edges. The once crowded streets of commerce were more barren than before. People stayed indoors and minded their business rather than get caught by the police who are everywhere making sure that people were behaving in the right communist way. After all, they were given free medical care and rice when they needed it,
When Quan got to his parents’ home, squatters occupied it. But when he arrived at the fish market, people who he knew there told him that his parents had been fishing for the communists, while secretly taking people, a few at a time, out of the country as far as the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.
All he had to do, was help in the fish market for food and wait until his parents’ boat arrived. It was a month before they arrived, and he found out that his father had died. Pulled overboard by a huge shark that took his hook. Quan learned that they couldn’t save him because the line got wrapped around his wrist and the shark pulled him under and away from the boat where they never saw him again.
Quan cried for the first time in his life. But his brother told him that they had waited for him to come back, having pretended to be friends with the communists, providing them fish, while plotting to leave the country as soon as Quan returned.
They left the next morning. Throughout the boat that was very seaworthy, the gold that they had received from those they took to safety was hidden carefully in many places inside. Enough gold to make them wealthy.
Quan’s father had already paved the way, by befriending, and bribing, Thai officials, so that they would have proper credentials to go to the United States. When they arrived in Thailand they didn’t go to the refugee camp there. Instead, they went where their father had made the deal and received proper passage, along with Thai passports.
Selling the boat, they gathered up all the gold with each one carrying some so that they wouldn’t be noticed, went to the Chase Manhattan Bank in Bangkok where they were able to sell the gold and set up an account for all the money in US currency, a substantial sum of $1,286,000. They planned for the funds to be transferred to the US once they arrived there. The bank was most happy to accommodate them for a substantial fee. United States citizenship would be waiting for them when they arrived.
With first class tickets, Quan’s family flew to Los Angeles. They thought that bustling Bangkok was a marvel, but upon arriving at Los Angeles they were stunned. The freeways made them dizzy as they took their first cab to a hotel in downtown LA.
From there, they toured the Vietnamese community and determined they didn’t want to live there. All that Quan’s older brother and sister wanted to do was continue a fishing business. So, they continued to a place where there was fishing – Kemah, outside of the city of Houston. Arriving there, they found what they were looking for. And were easily able to buy a home in Friendswood, very near the remarkable NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.
Quan enrolled in the University of Houston and with the transfer of this record from Dalat Officers School, was able to finish a mechanical engineering degree in two years. He was hired by Shell and began his career in the oil business. His younger sister, by the same token, continued her schooling in nursing, and became an RN after two yours. She began working in MD Anderson Cancer Center. She married an American, Ralph Wilson, one of Quan’s coworkers at Shell.
During the oil industry downturn in 1983, Quan, with his brother-in-law, were laid off with little promise of being rehired. Ralph was a licensed professional engineer, so they established their own mechanical engineering firm and were soon, successful in bidding jobs around Houston.
First, they went back to Vietnam to check on old friends. Some, they sponsored to come to the United States. Some, they gave money to so they could start businesses. The communist regime had learned, though full of bribery and corruption, that letting free enterprise run was a good thing for the Vietnamese economy. Even tourism from those who had left and American soldiers coming back helped Saigon start to prosper again.
The family was also growing. Quan’s brothers and sisters had children, but Quan had none. He was just too busy, first going to school, and then, running his engineering business to marry. When they went to Vietnam, he saw many young women. But none of them seemed to measure up to what he remembered of Xuan. He watched for her everywhere he went but never saw anyone as beautiful as he remembered her to be.
In April of 1990, the family planned a trip to Europe, taking a month to do it. First, they flew to London and after touring London, went to some of the historic places in the British Isles. And then, they flew to Paris, touring all the historic places there. They were surprised to find so many Vietnamese there and even found Vietnamese food if they wanted while sampling some of the French food as well.
The Berlin Wall had fallen a few months before, and Quan was intrigued with what was happening to the Soviet Union and Vietnam with communism failing to live up to its promises and the people eager to get back to business.
When they arrived, the family was glad that most Germans spoke English, unlike the French in Paris. Making it slow getting around the city and finding sites. The friendly Germans made it easy to get around in Mercedes taxicabs.
While touring one day near the Brandenburg Gate, they were surprised, while walking down a busy street, to see a familiar sign in Vietnamese for Pho, in big letters above the large, three-story restaurant.
Curious, they decided to go there for lunch. As they approached the door the familiar aroma of the noodle soup reached their noses. They knew they were in the right place. Opening the door, they found it full of noisy Germans enjoying what they knew was a real treat and a substantial food source as well. They couldn’t wait to try it out.
A Vietnamese girl led them to a large table and took their orders, some preferring beef, others chicken. Quan looked around the room and saw a beautiful woman at the cash register that seemed to oversee the place and was strangely familiar for some reason.
While the family was in the midst of eating and slurping, the woman made a round of the tables to greet the customers both in German and in English. There were American tourists there as well. Her voice sounded familiar, too. It was a bit confusing until she came to their table to greet them knowing that they were Vietnamese tourists from America by their clothing and the children talking in English.
For some reason, she looked down to where Quan was sitting first, with her usual welcome, this time in Vietnamese. She was about to ask them if they were enjoying themselves when Quan saw that familiar face and the mole on her lower left cheek. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing!
“Excuse me, could you be Xuan?” He stood up as he asked it, looking intently into the woman’s eyes.
Xuan returned his gaze, and a look of great surprise came over her face. “Quan! is that you! I can’t believe it!”
She started crying and fell into his arms. Both shaking as they both began sobbing together. Not of sorrow, but of great joy. Everyone at the restaurant turned to see the commotion and some of the Germans started cheering. Even though they didn’t know what the couple was saying, from their own experience greeting their relatives from the East the year before, they knew that great joy and joined in the couple’s happy experience.
At first, Quan’s family around the table was rather shocked at what was happening. But then, his brother and sister with them remembered him telling about the girl and looking for her when they were visiting Vietnam. They joined in the celebration and crowded around the couple asking questions.
Xuan told Quan, “Excuse me, but I must show you someone. Can you wait for a minute while I go and get him?”
“Of course. I’d love to meet him. Is he your husband?”
“No.” And she scurried off leaving everyone there, including the Germans, wondering why she left the party that was forming as some of the staff were bringing cake for everyone to share, free of charge.
In the back of the restaurant was the stairs leading upstairs to the residence they had above. It wasn’t long before she came from the back of the restaurant to the crowd gathered around leading a boy by the hand.
When Xuan arrived back at the table, she announced, “Quan.” She pushed her boy closer to him. “This is our son, Van Quoc. Van, this is your father, Quan.”
Quan bent down with his hand out as if to shake his surprised son by the hand, while Van looked up at him shyly, not really knowing what to do until he just reached up and hugged his father, the one his mother had been telling him about. All the other boys he knew had fathers around or had lost them during the wars. Now, he had a real father to tell them about. He couldn’t stop hugging him.
Soon, Xuan put her arms around both and everyone cheered again.
The family stayed in Germany longer than they had planned and plans were made for Xuan and Van to be sponsored to come to the United States, while her brother and sister would stay behind in Berlin with their families because they had established themselves there and didn’t want to come to the United States, although they could, and did, to visit.
Within a year, Xuan and Van arrived in Houston at the Bush airport where they were met with a huge crowd of Vietnamese who had heard the story. The local media was there, and stories were broadcast on television that evening.
Mother and son soon received their citizenship. There was a big wedding that the family from Berlin was able to attend. Van went on to follow in his father’s footsteps, taking ROTC at Texas A&M and becoming a Marine pilot after.
To say that they lived happily ever after would be an understatement. Coincidences like this, half a world away, don’t happen very often. But the story ends here. No one knows how the family fared after that. Many immigrant Vietnamese, although they and their children did very well, longed for home, and eventually returned.
1/19/23
2
Recovering from Brutality
“Really well done. You created vivid, believable characters and kept my interest and attention the entire way. I appreciated that your reporter character is human but struggles to remain as objective as possible under the circumstances.”
– John DeDakis
M
y name is Robert Brook. I’m a Cable World News (CWN.net) reporter assigned to reporting the war in Ukraine. I’ve been here, off and on, since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022. I’m here because of my facility with language – still learning. I have a loft in the Bronx but am rarely there. Working out of Berlin for these assignments. Have been assigned overseas for the past 20 years doing stories, mostly in war zones, with too many close calls to believe. But this is not my story. But of a refugee. One I’m very close to.
###
After following the Ukrainian war in country since last March, the news desk sent me resources by wire to go to Kherson and be the first to get eyewitness stories from those liberated there. I had just arrived when shelling from offshore Russian ships forced me underground.
It was just me with my high-tech equipment in a pack on my back so that I could easily talk to people without huge cameras and camera people around drawing crowds and distraction. I pioneered the process enabling me to get candid stories more easily.
So here I was, following the crowds into a World War II era shelter. It wasn’t crowded because there were other, less nasty, places where the residents could go. As we heard the shells strike nearby in the city, I looked around to see who was there with me.
Not far away amid a group of women, was a woman who stood out. She had that Nordic look of the Vikings who had invaded and left their mark permanently on the people of this region a thousand years ago. She was taller and more regal, naturally blonde with hair that seemed to fall into place beautifully. High cheekbones and a turned-up nose that wasn’t aloof even though her clothing suggested it.
She was wearing a full-length coat with a hood that was off to one side. The coat appeared to be beige cashmere and much richer than the other women’s warm padded and colorful jackets around her. I needed to talk to her. But before I moved in that direction, I saw a young man approach her and talk to her briefly. I saw her open her coat a bit and I saw the man suddenly turn and run away. That was strange. All the more reason to talk to her and get her story. My first in a city of stories.
I approached slowly past the others waiting for the shelling to be over and arrived in front of her with her eyeing me as I did. She seemed to want to smile but had a forlorn look on her face that belied her beauty, evermore obvious the closer I got. Still, she seemed to encourage me to say something.
“Hello,” I spoke to her in Ukrainian with my bad accent. “My name is Robert Brooks. I’m a reporter from Cable World News covering the war. Would you mind talking to me? You can call me Bob, for short.”
She answered in broken English. “Okay Bob, but it’s a long story and like so many others here.” She waved her hand around above the crowd. “You may find mine too shocking to report.” Her beautiful eyes betraying her pain.
Who was this beautiful, intriguing woman, anyway? I knew then I had to know.
“Try me. Why did that young man who just talked to you, turn away and run?”
Her piercing blue eyes narrowed, and she opened her coat a bit for me. She was naked under the coat but terribly disfigured with obvious cuts from a knife including the loss of her right nipple and scarring all the way down to her blonde hair down there where the bright redness of the scarring was still vividly evident.
I was shocked but had seen worse. She closed her coat quickly, and then, looked at me, almost with pleading eyes, obviously needing help. I didn’t run like the young man. I had to know more.
“That was terrible!” I whispered close to her ear. “I understand why that man ran now. Who would do this to you and why? I’ve got to get your story. Can you tell me? I’ll listen. That’s what I do. I listen to people’s stories. Stories of people hurt like you.”
She nodded her head, yes, and I followed her deeper into the tunnel where it got so dark no one wanted to be there except us. I guess better because what she had to tell me she didn’t want others to hear.
I pulled out my camera recorder with a full charge and signaled for her to begin speaking. The camera and sound recording, I told her, would be confidential if she wanted. She shook her head, no.
“No, people have to know how bad it is. I’ve been waiting at the train station nearby to take the train to Poland or Germany. I was hoping that some man going that way would take me with him, even marry me, but as you can see, I’m so badly damaged no man will want me now.”
Her tears began flowing freely and I produced some of the tissues I carried in a pocket for fending off the cold dampness of the climate on my growing red, bulbous nose prone to leaking a bit.
As she wiped her eyes dry again, I asked, “What is your name and where did you learn English? I understand you well.”
“My name is Veronika Kovalenko. I worked for a travel agency here in the city. We had many tourists come through our agency both from Ukraine and all over the world. I had to understand English in order to speak to most of the customers.”
Her eyes lit up a bit as though she liked talking to me. Was even interested in me. I sensed it. Resisted it to stay neutral, but there is something about women this beautiful that scares the average man in me. Never really feeling good enough to get too close. Not liking rejection. I had to remain professional and objective. But it was difficult with this woman, so close
I could feel her warmth.
“Are you…Ahh… were you married?”
“I was… We came from a small town 50 km north of here. Marko and I fell in love in high school. He joined the Army because there were Russian insurgents in the area that were threatening us way back then, ten years ago. He rose in rank to Lieutenant, leading commandos on raids into secessionist group strongholds. It was scary but he loved it. ‘For our freedom,’ he always said. But he worried me every time he left that he wouldn’t come back.
“When our town was overrun by tanks last March, I was seven months pregnant and he decided to protect me by asking me to drive to Kiev or to Poland with our automobile. I’ll never forget what he told me when I left.
“‘I’m going underground right here to help save our people. I’ll see you when this is all over.’
“He looked me in the eyes, we kissed and hugged one last time, and I drove off not knowing if I would make it or not to safety or danger ahead. I was just one of so many wives and children that had to leave ahead of the Russians’ arrival.”
She began to cry again profusely and came to me. So, I held her close feeling the warmth of her body and let her cry on my shoulder until she stopped and looked up at me with those beautiful pleading eyes once more.
“What happened? Did something happen to him?”
“About a week ago, some of our townspeople were in the hospital. I asked them about Marco. They told me that when the Russians came, they quickly realized who he was. They took him into the town square and made everyone watch while they called him a Nazi, slapped him and spit in his face. All the while, spewing other nasty unspeakable names. They cut off his penis first, and then, his balls until he begged to die. And then, they cut off his head dramatically with a sword in front of everyone.
So shocked by the horror before them, the townspeople quickly gave up the names of innocent people to save themselves. It was a brutal warning to everyone watching what would happen if they tried to resist. The Russians then sought out our families and massacred them, too! I have no one left! I’m alone in this terrible world!”
Veronika’s tears flowed again as she uttered a number of epithets against the Russians who she obviously detested so much. Once again, I held her until she calmed down.
“What a terrible thing to learn about your husband and families. I can see why you want to get away. Far away from the Russians as you can. But you have a terrible story, too, don’t you? I’ve heard so much from you already. I can wait if you can’t tell me now.”
“I must tell you. What happened to me should never happen to anyone. I want you to report how terrible the Russians are. They should not be let go from the horrors that they inflicted on me, my family and my country, but should be punished to the fullest that civilized law allows!”
“We’ve got lots of time here before the all clear. My batteries are full. I can get both video and audio. Where do you want to start?”
###
“After I left that day, I drove on until it was night and I had forgotten to get petrol in my frightful departure from home. When I ran out, I left the car and started walking down the road towards a darkened farmhouse that I saw in the headlights ahead. Suddenly, five Russians surrounded me. Apparently, an undercover advance reconnaissance team like my husband’s.
“They came upon me so quickly, I couldn’t run, but I knew who they were immediately because I heard them speaking Russian. They grabbed me and dragged me into the farmhouse. There was no one there. As they ransacked the place for liquor, food and money, they kept eyeing me with more and more lust. One of them came over to me and pulled my coat off, threw it aside, and began tearing away my clothes, ripping them off. I dared not resist.
“The others watched while he tore my clothes off and raped me. I knew it would be better not to struggle and hurt my baby, so I didn’t. And then, each one took a turn. They knew I was pregnant from my bulging belly but didn’t seem to care.
“They got more and more violent, demanding that I tell them where I was from and where I was going and other things as they accused me of everything kind of low behavior like I was some kind of prostitute.
“And then, they began to suspect that I was a spy or courier and began cutting on me. Asking questions, I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know. With each cut I screamed in pain and blood ran. I kept imagining what it was doing to my baby to hear it. Finally, I saw the leader and the one who first raped stand between my legs and violently kick me. Unconsciousness took over and I don’t remember anything else after that.”
“That was terrible!” I whispered as she leaned into me for comfort, sobbing and I had to stop recording. “How? How could you still be alive and here? Are you some kind of ghost? Am I dreaming?”
“They left quickly and left me bleeding unconscious on the floor. Right after they left, the farming couple and their son came out of the woods nearby and back into the house. When they found me and found me still alive, the son happened to be a medic.
“They washed my wounds and wrapped my body tightly in sheets to stop the bleeding. They found my car, added petrol and drove me to the nearby hospital where the young man worked. The father and son had my blood type and donated blood for me on the spot.
“The Russians soon commandeered the hospital. Some of the Russian soldiers even gave me blood. I woke up there about two days after I arrived in great pain from all the cuts that were healing and a tremendous need to urinate but couldn’t.
“Miraculously, I could feel my son still kicking inside me. The unbearable kidney pain of being unable to urinate caused me to go unconscious again.
“My pelvis bone was broken. My urethra was so damaged and covered with scar tissue they had to surgically run a plastic tube to my urethra below my bladder to drain my urine with the tube exiting above my groin muscle on my right side. The baby and I were sustained only by intravenous and liquid soups for the first week as I gained strength.”
I listened and recorded in rapt attention while she continued.
“And then, one night, I started having labor pains. The wounds and my broken pelvis would not allow a normal birth even though I was dilating under great pain. They moved me into the operating room again and did a cesarean section. My boy came out kicking and yelling like a warrior but died within a few minutes because he was too early and malnourished. I cried a long time after that until my eyes dried from all that crying.
“As I lay there, I healed, and gradually, I started to get up, sit in a chair or walk the halls gaining strength, I began thinking of my future. My husband had wanted me to leave the country until it was safe. And I decided that’s what I would do. I didn’t let the hospital staff or our captors know what I was thinking. It was obvious that I wouldn’t get care for my scars in that hospital. Or my broken pelvis corrected, now healing in place.
“Yesterday, there was a lot of fighting we could hear in the streets. Most of the hospital staff left to be with their families. Knowing that I could walk okay with a limp, but couldn’t run, I wanted to leave, too.
“They dropped me off a short walk to where the train station was, so I limped over here this morning. When I got here, I approached several men to help me get on the train and out of the city, but they were all shocked when I showed them how I am. None of them would help me. And then, I heard the sirens that warned of the shelling and I came here.
“That’s my story until tonight talking to you. I need to move on, go west, find a new man and heal like my husband would want me to. That’s why I’m here, to find a man who will help me and continue my story.”
“You are so beautiful and your story is so engaging, I’m sure you will.”
###
Suddenly, she looked me straight in the eye, not five inches away so that I could feel her breath on my face, and asked, “What about you? Are you married?”
I was dumbfounded, so attracted to her, trying to remain professional.
I stammered, “No…never…have been. I got the urge to travel and be a reporter in college. I know I’m not handsome. I never was an athlete and don’t have a very good physique. When I began traveling the world to report, I was always moving and never met anyone who wanted me enough for me to settle down. I hate to admit it, but I’ve never had sex with a woman.”
“But you’re kind. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. You have a good profession. You could provide for me. That’s all you have to do. Accept a damaged woman like me. It’s really not so bad. You would be kind and loving, not like those awful Russian bastards. We can go to a hotel or to the train. It doesn’t matter to me. I want to reward you for listening to and recording my story. Not being horrified by my scars.”
“The hotel is out of the question. I’m on assignment. But I can arrange a train ticket for you to get to Berlin at the address of a friend of mine where I stay when my assignments are in Europe.
“His name is Klaus Bumgardner. I will write down his address and telephone number and tell him to pick you up when you arrive. He will look after you until my eight-day mission here is over and I arrive back in Berlin next week.
“Once I get there, I can line up some top plastic and reconstructive bone surgeons to see if you can be helped and have your urethra restored. I expect the cost will be great, but I have gathered a large retirement fund that I can borrow from to help pay for having it done.
“You know that I am 48 and you are half my age, don’t you, Veronika?”
“I know you are. But I don’t really trust young or even handsome men, anymore. Even though I haven’t been with any men other than my husband, I’ve known others. You are kind and generous. That’s all I need. Already, I want to have your child.”
She shocked me with that. But, before I could object, she suddenly interrupted our long conversation. “I have to pee and I have to right now! Let’s get out of here, too many people around.”
Even though the all clear had not been announced, the shelling had stopped and we headed for the nearby train station. She led me around the side of the station to an alley, out of sight of the deserted street and told me, “I will pee here.”
Veronika pulled back her coat from her right hip and leaning that way against the wall with me holding her up. She removed a plastic cap from the five inches of tubing protruding from her side.
She peed a stream of urine onto the wall. She seemed to have held it a long time because it took a while to empty her bladder and she nearly collapsed after from the exertion doing it. I held her tight to keep her from falling over.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Veronika straightened up and kissed me. Leaning in close, she took my right hand and brought it up over both of her breasts under her coat, asking me, “How do they feel?”
Embarrassed, I told her, “It’s amazing. I can feel the scars, but underneath you are both hard and soft. Lovely to touch.” I found myself saying. I couldn’t believe it!
As she moved my hand down her belly to between her legs, I told her, stuttering, “Your… scars… can be removed…. I… find… your vulva both strong and soft at the same time. I… have… never felt anything like it before!” I was near speechless with emotion.
Veronika nearly swooned in my arms with those words. She slipped her hand under my belt and under the band of my shorts to briefly feel my growing erection before retreating and kissing me again, more deeply than before. I was already in love with this amazing woman and she knew it. We straightened up and I escorted her inside the station. The all clear was on and people were gathering on the streets again.
I bought her some coffee and a meal for the trip. She was very hungry and ate heartily. Also, assured me that she could pee in the toilet on the train on her way to Berlin without anyone else’s help.
When Veronika’s train arrived, before she got on, I kissed her like I was already her husband and wished her luck on the journey. I was worried about seeing her go alone but knowing she would be safe if the Russians mounted another offensive and retook the region.
###
I needed to get her out of Kherson and to the West because I knew that things were very volatile and the Russian plan was unclear except, they continued to send rockets, bomb with planes and drones, and shell cities even while retreating from previously held territories. Veronika had to find someplace safe and I was willing to help her get there.
The next day, I filed her story with CWN with careful cutting of the video I sent to comply with broadcast standards regarding nudity and words. My superiors were pleased with what I sent them.
Fortunately, nothing more happened except continued Ukrainian success recovering territory that the Russians had overrun. During the seven days that followed, I continued recording peoples’ stories like Veronika’s from many who had gone through terrible torture and mistreatment during the brief, terrible Russian occupation.
Most people I interviewed were elated that the Ukraine Army was able to come back and rescue them. They all told me that they had allegiance to Ukraine all along but had to pretend to be loyal to the Russians just to save their lives.
Everywhere I went, the streets were filled with joy, and I videoed with my smart pad some of the residents lavishly kissing and hugging Ukrainian liberators whenever they came into view. It was hard for those soldiers to go about their business with so much adulation.
Seven days later, when I returned to Berlin after my assignment, I arrived at Klaus’s suite and my room to find Veronika greeting me in a light robe and a glass of wine. Apparently, he had helped her acquire it along with some other clothes for going out in public.
She was already filling out from his food. Veronika was so happy to see me she almost smothered me with hugs and kisses. I set about lining her up with reconstructive and plastic surgery appointments with the finest surgeons in town.
###
It’s three years later. We were married in Berlin and Veronika loves our loft in the Bronx. Almost immediately, she got a job in a Manhattan travel agency where she is already valued for her languages and her lovely approach to customers.
They allow our one-year-old, Eric Brooks, to come and stay at the agency with his mama all day. We thought for a moment to name him Robert, but having one Bobby Brooks in the family was enough teasing.
Based on my earnings and savings, I plan to retire when I’m 55 and then go back with Veronika and Eric to all the countries where I’ve made friends over the years and see how everyone is doing… Much better, I think.
And, after a lot more travel, I will write more of my memoirs of all the interesting people I’ve met and worked with through all those years in all those countries. Trying to bring what was happening to life and the world’s attention as best I can.
12/2/22
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