The only sense of clarity was found at the end of empty liquor bottles and beer cans that pushed his memories away. But even their effectiveness was no longer working.
She found his loaded handgun discarded on their bed with the safety switched off. The window was wide open and a draft flowed in through the night, filling the room with dread as her mind tried to figure out where her husband went.
Just an hour prior she had poked her head into the room and noticed him tossing and turning on the bed like he always did. But now he was no longer there as the blanket and bedsheets hung disheveled across the floor. She looked out towards the driveway to see if his car was still there but now that was gone also.
Days began to go by — and then weeks — but she didn’t bother to call the cops about his disappearance. There were no photos posted onto milk cartons or grocery store bulletin boards asking for his whereabouts. There was barely any commotion at all, except for the clinking and clacking of empty liquor bottles as his family cleared the house of his belongings.
The way the man became a memory was rather quick. The recycling bin stopped filling up with liquor bottles and beer cans. His unopened bills went directly into the trash along with his work boots by the door. The only thing that lingered was the feint smell of cigarettes on the couch cushions — but even that became barely noticeable.
It took only three months until his wife and children stopped crying altogether, and another three until his absence felt somewhat normal.
When he was still around, he was loved by those around him, all the aunts and uncles who never wavered in their support. The alcohol did enough to keep his childhood memories at bay, instead replacing them with a roaring laughter that dominated the family gatherings.
It was a different story at home though. He was more withdrawn — his past always too close to him — always pulling him away from being there for his wife and kids in the way he would’ve liked.
He would come home after a twelve-hour shift, numb and barely stable from the pack of cigarettes he smoked throughout the day to keep his nerves at bay. His kids had already gone to school when he got home — his wife was already at work.
He spent the next hour on the couch drinking beer and smoking cigarettes while Jerry Springer played on the TV. He would drink enough beer to get drunk, for that was only way he could fall asleep without dreading the dreams that were to come.
The dreams always approached him slowly from the darkness of his closed eyes, materializing like illusions right inside his eyelids. A silhouette of trees would first appear, feint and ghostlike, just swaying in the darkness. And then the figure of a lady would appear, her back turned to him, her strands of white hair made barely discernible by the moonlight. This lady had the warmth and presence of his grandmother from when she was still alive.
He slowly made his way towards her, noticing that she was quietly humming. It was the same lullaby that his grandmother used to sing to him when he couldn’t fall asleep — when his mind was too fixated on the poj ntxoog (female ghost) in the forests.
He finally reached his grandmother and called out to her but she didn’t turn around. Nor did she stop her humming. She just continued, but he now saw that her body was convulsing, and he could hear a feint giggle underneath the humming.
Her convulsions became more intense and erratic until she was jumping off of the ground. Her white hair now falling off of her scalp.
He stood there frozen in fear, watching her strange behavior. His grandmother’s visage becoming clearer and clearer as her hair fell off, until he realized he wasn’t staring at his grandmother’s back at all. He was looking directly into this figure’s eyes now. Her head was completely twisted around, her body convulsing erratically while contorted in the opposite direction.
It was the poj ntxoog and she started chanting like she was performing an ua neeg, leaping closer and closer to him. He attempted to back away but only tripped onto the ground in terror, unable to break away from her gaze.
But right before she reached him, this nightmare would always dissolve into his memories back in Laos.
And it was never this childish nightmare that he dreaded, but rather the constant reliving of his past that made falling asleep so unbearable. Inside his dreams, the wall between his memories and the dream-world would disappear and he was forced to be his younger self again.
Every night was spent lying on the forest floor whenever soldiers were nearby, to avoid detection and any warning shots that they might fire. His parents and siblings would lie right next to him, clinging onto one another in hopes that they wouldn’t be discovered.
The morning provided no sense of ease. The thick fog that laid across the land provided coverage but also blinded them to their surroundings. They would sometimes walk right into bodies strewn across the path, enough so that they became familiar with the task of searching it for any goods: silver, food, opium, weapons — anything to give them a fighting chance of reaching Thailand.
He learned to hold the rifles that they found, the weight bearing down on his back and bending his spine crooked over the countless miles that they walked. He grew accustomed to the weight. He grew accustomed to the strength required in his little fingers to pull the trigger, and he grew accustomed to the memory of the man he killed — gasping for his last few breaths as blood poured out from his stomach.
The man looked just like his father inside these memories, another Hmong man who simply feared for his life, but ended up fighting for the other side in a war that wasn’t his to fight. And in his dream it was always his father lying there on the ground, staring right into his eyes before he died — his father’s blood becoming a river flowing down his arms as he held him one last time.
The smell of blood would stain the air. The land he grew up on would become a burial ground as he watched one relative be buried after another, mourning the end to their journey.
In his own journey, his eyes were always perched up towards the sky, as though he was searching for some God to save him. But his mind had no space for God. There was only space to observe the planes very closely to see where the bombs were going to fall.
And when the bombs did fall towards their direction, they covered their ears and clung onto one another, mourning what seemed like their final moments. The impact of the bomb would send shockwaves and debris flying at them; the Earth seemed to crumble underneath their feet and pull them into their graves. But they found themselves still breathing when they opened up their clenched eyes.
The explosions occurred so often — every day at every hour — but they never got used to them. The fear remained so visceral and always erupted from the pits of their stomach.
Even in his first few waking moments, when he realized that he was back inside his house, the fear would always be there — the explosions fresh in his head. They came from the loud television set as his son watched his shows. They were there in the sound of the blender turning on and off to pulverize the food being prepared for dinner.
It took him a moment to discern between his past and his present life, attempting to work through the fog of memories that overcame him inside his dreams. It was this inescapable fog that followed him everywhere. At every moment he was on edge, attempting to keep his temper at bay whenever his children annoyed him, or whenever he’d misplace his pack of cigarettes and blame it on his wife.
The only sense of clarity was found at the end of empty liquor bottles and beer cans that pushed his memories away. But even their effectiveness was no longer working.
When he awoke he saw his grandmother standing there from across the room with her back turned to him again. Then there was the smell of blood that filled the air. His eyes were fixated on the darkness of the room as the ringing in his ear grew louder and louder until he couldn’t take it anymore. Every time he woke up he was greeted with the same pounding headache and nightmares that followed him from his dreams.
He reached over and unlocked his safe and held the gun onto his head, the thought of pulling the trigger pushing him on. But as his finger began to twitch in anticipation, he spotted his children’s drawings strewn across the floor.
He realized that he didn’t know his children at all; he didn’t know his wife anymore either. He didn’t even know who he was. All of them were nameless apparitions inside his mind, ghosts he just lived with — ghosts like himself. The fog of memory and make-believe was no longer escapable. He was no longer escapable. He lowered the gun and placed it on his bedside.
Kuv twb tuag lawm, He thought to himself. I’m already dead.
He listened for a moment outside his room as his family went about their night — a feeling of repentance coming over him. He then slowly cracked open his window and climbed on through to the lawn, heading towards his car. He sat in his car and watched his family for one last time before driving away, further and further into the night until he became a memory himself—gone from their lives and then gone from his own.
