At night, when the city had fallen into silence, Linh remained awake. The soft glow of the night lamp was like a solitary drop of light in the room, casting gentle, swaying shadows on the wall—like fragments of memories drifting through her mind. She lay on her side, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, unsure how many nights had passed without a deep sleep.
Then the dream came, like an incomplete film—flickering, fragmented, filled with blurred images.
In the dream, Linh was a little girl again, standing in the middle of an endless rice field. The wind blew fiercely, sweeping her hair like lost ribbons. In the distance, her mother stood, waving and calling her name with a distant, distorted voice. But as Linh ran toward her, the figure kept fading, further and further… until it disappeared. Panicked, she cried out, "Mom!"—but only the whistling wind replied, cold to the bone.
She jolted awake, heart pounding, her back drenched in sweat. That dream had returned so many times, each time more vivid, clearer—like a silent reminder that something within her remained unresolved.
The next morning, Linh didn't go to work. She wandered the old streets, those familiar places tied to childhood memories. Her shoes quietly touched each tile on the pavement, every step echoing with the rhythm of the past. At a small corner of the park, where she used to read as a student, Linh saw an elderly man playing chess alone.
"Are you searching for something?" he asked gently.
Linh flinched slightly, unaccustomed to the unexpected conversation.
"I'm just taking a walk," she replied, a bit hesitant.
He smiled, saying nothing more. But in his eyes, Linh felt something strangely familiar—a silent understanding. As if he had seen through her gaze all that she was trying to hide.
She sat on the stone bench across from him, quietly watching the unfinished chessboard.
"There are games we know we'll lose," he spoke again, still looking at the worn wooden pieces, "but we play them anyway, because in those games… we learn the most important thing—how not to be afraid of losing."
Linh didn't respond, but something deep inside her stirred. His words weren't pretentious or moralizing—they touched a place within her she hadn't dared acknowledge.
When Linh left the park, the sun was high. She walked slowly, her heart filled with drifting thoughts. Perhaps what she needed now wasn't to forget the past, but to learn how to live with it—as a part of the game of life she was still playing, one move at a time, even if some of those moves had already ended in loss.