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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Action & Adventure
- Subject: Miracles / Wonders
- Published: 08/02/2013
Holy Smoke
Born 1977, M, from Singapore, SingaporeIt was the year 1973. A year of hope, a year of promise. The great Nathan Milstein was giving his last and final recital at Carnegie Hall. It was a spell-binding concert. His violinistic talents were unsurpassed, so fluid and supple his melodic line, so dexterous his runs, flourishes and pyrotechnical effects.
Mrs Gladstein, an old lady dressed in her best evening costume, sat at the back of the concert hall. For the unoccupied seats at the back were often offered free to music lovers who could not afford a ticket. The music moved her heart and there were tears on her wrinkled cheeks. Her dark blue satin dress hung lightly over her frail and humble frame.
At the end of the concert, she walked the oft-treaded route, past New York Fifth Avenue back to her small apartment. She breathed in the warm summer night air. A heaviness returned to her heart. It was her son, John, in Vietnam. She had received a letter from him this morning. As soon as she returned home, she went straight to her dressing table and reached for the letter. It was already slightly crumpled, for Mrs Gladstein had read and re-read it many times earlier that day.
Dear Mama,
I am fine. Please do not be anxious about me. We have just arrived in Vietnam. It is hot here. The fighting between the Americans and the Vietcongs is ferocious. However, I have gotten used to the heat and I feel the strength of God in my heart. The Lord grants me the peace to accept this war and courage to win the fight.
I know you will remember me in your prayers, just as I remember you in mine.
Your loving son, John
Mrs Gladstein walked quietly into John's room. Everything laid neatly just as he had left it the early morning that he left for Vietnam. The patchwork blanket of his bed was pulled across the bed and the creases patted out. The books were stacked on the dressing table. A map of the world laid across the dressing table. Mrs Gladstein saw where John had marked with a small red cross over the South-East Asian part of the map. "That must be Vietnam," she thought silently to herself.
* * *
Dusk had settled over the war-torn land. Fallen trees, barren land and destroyed huts told of the devastation that had ravaged over Vietnam. The village of Mengkong was deserted. Most of the huts were destroyed and all that was left of them was wooden planks and splinters strewn dismally on the ground.
One or two chickens were pecking the ground and scratching the dirt. A dog, scrawny and dirty, limped within a damaged hut, searching for something to eat.
Suddenly, there was movement in the green foliage somewhere in the distance. A blade of leaf or two quivered, then gradually the shrubs shuddered and rustled. If you looked carefully, you could just discern the movement of two men in camouflaged uniform, crawling cautiously in the shrubs.
One of them whispered, "Over here, John."
"Yes, Jason," came an equally soft reply. The man who was called John crept over to his comrade and friend Jason. Both men's eyes were carefully searching the dirt for signs of any mines.
"We are near now," said Jason quietly. "Over there, behind the cluster of palm trees." Jason pointed to a clump of palm trees at the base of a hill.
A faint glint of light, the reflection of the evening sun, betrayed something metallic within the palm foliage. John cautiously took out a pair of binoculars. He raised them to his eyes and focused on the metallic glint. At first, the glint of light simply appeared motionless, as if it came from a piece of metal hung onto a tree. However, after a minute, the glint of light disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared.
"It is moving. That bit of light over there," John muttered under his breath.
"Might be the reflection from the barrel or scope of some Charlie's gun," replied Jason in a low tone. Charlie was the American nickname for the Vietcongs.
Jason lifted his M-16 machine gun and aimed carefully at the spot where the light came from. "No, Jason," John said and held up his hand against his friend's gun. "You can't be sure if it is just one guy or a whole bunch of them," John explained.
"A whole bunch of them?" repeated Jason incredulously.
"That's right. This is the only hill as far as the eye can seen from almost every direction. If I was a Charlie, I'd have built an underground base just right smack under it," explained John patiently.
"Look over there! Smoke!" Jason hissed in a loud whisper. A tiny wisp of smoke could be seen rising just behind where the glint of light came from.
"Charlies are cookin’ dinner," muttered John. The smoke ascended in a spiral and was carried off by the wind. A faint aroma of chicken and Asian spices started to hover in the air. It was now clear that the hill was some sort of an enemy base.
"We have to wait till night falls. It’s too dangerous to engage them in combat now, and too early to retreat to camp," reasoned Jason slowly.
The two American men pressed carefully and as noiselessly as they could backwards into the foliage, until a thick wall of shrub formed all around them. They cleared the ground carefully of stones and dry leaves, and laid down their haversacks.
All of a sudden, John felt a strong, heavy feeling in his chest. It was a strange feeling, a hunch, something he had experienced only a few times before. John always thought this feeling was the finger of God touching his chest, as if the Almighty had something important to tell him. And he knew by experience to heed whatever the Almighty had intended at that moment.
"Run." It seemed to say. "Run for your lives." The pressure on his chest was heavier now. The heaviness was now spreading across his whole chest, into his stomach and across his shoulders.
"Jason, we have to leave," John said. "I can't explain it. But it seems we are in some kind of terrible danger."
"Shouldn't we wait for nightfall? It would be safer to make our way back then," Jason was surprised by John's suggestion.
"No, we must leave now. I can't explain why. I just got a strong gut feeling we must leave now," John insisted.
"I won't argue with you," Jason said. He looked about him carefully and tried to make out a way of retreat, a path where the bush is thickest. He noticed that a dense, thick clump of shrub led to a clearing just a stone's throw away. Far enough to be out of range of any enemy gunfire.
"Follow the path formed by those shrubs. It will give us enough cover," Jason pointed.
John inched cautiously forward, on all fours, taking care to disturb the surrounding foliage as little as possible. He reached the shrub that Jason had indicated. Jason crawled along behind. One after the other, they made their way along the contour formed by the base of a few stubby trees and hanging ferns to a clearing sufficiently far from the enemy's hill. Here, they felt a little safer. But they were not out of danger.
* * *
Mrs Gladstein turned off the gas of the kitchen stove. A kettle of water stood boiling on the stove. The steam wafted around the kitchen, making the entire kitchen warm and comforting.
At that instant, Mrs Gladstein felt a sensation in her chest. It was the same, heavy feeling that her son, John had experienced just a moment earlier halfway around the world. It felt very much like hunger pangs, when one had missed a meal, but not in the stomach, but in the heart. It was like a kind of emptiness, but also a kind of assurance and comfort, all at the same time. It was the premonition of something urgent and dangerous, as well as the divine guidance of what to do at that moment. It was the finger of God. Mrs Gladstein had no doubt of that.
She sat down meditatively at the kitchen table. "Tell me what I must do," thought Mrs Gladstein.
"You must be with your son, John, right now," the sensation seemed to be telling her.
"But how is that possible?" thought Mrs Gladstein. "We are thousands of miles apart."
"You must be with John in spirit," came the divine reply.
Mrs Gladstein understood at once. She closed her eyes and relaxed. She breathed in and out, deeply and meditatively.
* * *
Darkness was closing in quickly now. The two American soldiers squatted motionless before the clearing. A tinge of trepidation swept over them. They were not on the same track by which they had came. Open land tended to contain mines.
John resisted inwardly the fear that was coming to him. He knew that they would be guided out of enemy territory.
Just then, a blue shimmering vapor of an apparition appeared beside them. It was nebulous at first, but slowly the ghostly vapor took on the form of a frail woman.
"Mama! " John gasped in recognition.
"Follow me!" Mrs Gladstein's voice came from the pale blue vapor without hesitation. Instead of crossing the open ground, the blue figure of Mrs Gladstein headed nimbly towards the surrounding vegetation. John quickly followed.
"Come on now," John hissed to Jason, who was gasping in astonishment. John kept his eyes on the feet of the blue figure. They were the dainty feet of Mrs Galdstein, treading past twigs, tropical soil, broken branches and dead leaves. The men followed the lead of the frail blue figure, who meandered left and right, deftly between the bushes and trees.
A small clearing emerged and a torn hut appeared. Mrs Gladstein’s figure moved into the run-down hut. John and Jason followed breathlessly. They felt almost like they were little boys following mummy shopping.
Jason turned around and looked into the far horizon, he could just make out the outline of the hill they had just left behind. Sihouettes of men, with the distinctive shapes of the AK 47 barrel appeared to descend down the hill, like ants from a mount.
“Rest now for a moment,” said the apparition of Mrs Gladstein. John peered over a splintered window sill and followed Jasons’s gaze to the enemy’s hill. The dark sihouettes moved slowly and methodically.
“Now, we must go,” said Mrs Gladstein’s spirit firmly. And off they went again. First, the blue vapor of Mrs Gladstein drifted off, followed by John and Jason, going deep into the bushes. The leaves brushed against the faces of the two American soldiers, the moist air swirled past their perspiration-drenched faces.
Then gradually, the men felt the ground descending and the soil getting soft. A soft rippling sound of water told them they were near a stream.
The blue vapor hovered above the water. “Come on in now. Don’t be afraid,” Mrs Gladstein’s spirit urged them on. The two men waded into the water, knee deep at first, then waist deep. It was a shallow stream.
John and Jason squatted in the water, so that the water touched their chests. They held their M-16s high so they would not lose them in the water. A gentle current was pushing them along. They waded forward in the direction of the current. All the time, the blue, misty vapor of Mrs Gladstein was before them. She seemed to glow in the darkness, almost like a shining neon lamp.
John and Jason felt the soft mud beneath their boots. Sometimes, they would step past stones and small rocks. The warm water surrounded them in a comforting embrace. Their eyes were kept fixed on the blue neon glow before them.
After some time, which seemed like an eternity to the men, they found themselves before a bridge. The bridge was wooden and sturdy, and seemed rather familiar. The blue spirit of Mrs Galdstein moved out of the water onto the bank, next to the bridge.
The two American men treaded out of the water and stood for a moment as the water fell out of their rucksacks and dripped off their clothes. Jason recognized the bridge. “We are only one mile from base. This bridge leads to the south entrance of the ammunition building,” Jason pointed along the road leading from the bridge.
John turned to the blue apparition. “Thank you Mama,” he stammered in absolute awe and gratitude.
The blue spirit of Mrs Gladstein smiled tenderly, waved a hand, and said, “I shall be waiting for you boys to come home.” Just then, the blue vapor vanished just as mysteriously as it first appeared.
* * *
Dear reader, you shall be glad to know that on the next morning, the two brave American soldiers revealed to their commander the location of that treacherous enemy hill. Two airplanes, laden with bombs, were sent immediately to destroy the hill.
Our heros, John and Jason, returned safely to American soil eight months later.
Holy Smoke(Andrew Chan)
It was the year 1973. A year of hope, a year of promise. The great Nathan Milstein was giving his last and final recital at Carnegie Hall. It was a spell-binding concert. His violinistic talents were unsurpassed, so fluid and supple his melodic line, so dexterous his runs, flourishes and pyrotechnical effects.
Mrs Gladstein, an old lady dressed in her best evening costume, sat at the back of the concert hall. For the unoccupied seats at the back were often offered free to music lovers who could not afford a ticket. The music moved her heart and there were tears on her wrinkled cheeks. Her dark blue satin dress hung lightly over her frail and humble frame.
At the end of the concert, she walked the oft-treaded route, past New York Fifth Avenue back to her small apartment. She breathed in the warm summer night air. A heaviness returned to her heart. It was her son, John, in Vietnam. She had received a letter from him this morning. As soon as she returned home, she went straight to her dressing table and reached for the letter. It was already slightly crumpled, for Mrs Gladstein had read and re-read it many times earlier that day.
Dear Mama,
I am fine. Please do not be anxious about me. We have just arrived in Vietnam. It is hot here. The fighting between the Americans and the Vietcongs is ferocious. However, I have gotten used to the heat and I feel the strength of God in my heart. The Lord grants me the peace to accept this war and courage to win the fight.
I know you will remember me in your prayers, just as I remember you in mine.
Your loving son, John
Mrs Gladstein walked quietly into John's room. Everything laid neatly just as he had left it the early morning that he left for Vietnam. The patchwork blanket of his bed was pulled across the bed and the creases patted out. The books were stacked on the dressing table. A map of the world laid across the dressing table. Mrs Gladstein saw where John had marked with a small red cross over the South-East Asian part of the map. "That must be Vietnam," she thought silently to herself.
* * *
Dusk had settled over the war-torn land. Fallen trees, barren land and destroyed huts told of the devastation that had ravaged over Vietnam. The village of Mengkong was deserted. Most of the huts were destroyed and all that was left of them was wooden planks and splinters strewn dismally on the ground.
One or two chickens were pecking the ground and scratching the dirt. A dog, scrawny and dirty, limped within a damaged hut, searching for something to eat.
Suddenly, there was movement in the green foliage somewhere in the distance. A blade of leaf or two quivered, then gradually the shrubs shuddered and rustled. If you looked carefully, you could just discern the movement of two men in camouflaged uniform, crawling cautiously in the shrubs.
One of them whispered, "Over here, John."
"Yes, Jason," came an equally soft reply. The man who was called John crept over to his comrade and friend Jason. Both men's eyes were carefully searching the dirt for signs of any mines.
"We are near now," said Jason quietly. "Over there, behind the cluster of palm trees." Jason pointed to a clump of palm trees at the base of a hill.
A faint glint of light, the reflection of the evening sun, betrayed something metallic within the palm foliage. John cautiously took out a pair of binoculars. He raised them to his eyes and focused on the metallic glint. At first, the glint of light simply appeared motionless, as if it came from a piece of metal hung onto a tree. However, after a minute, the glint of light disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared.
"It is moving. That bit of light over there," John muttered under his breath.
"Might be the reflection from the barrel or scope of some Charlie's gun," replied Jason in a low tone. Charlie was the American nickname for the Vietcongs.
Jason lifted his M-16 machine gun and aimed carefully at the spot where the light came from. "No, Jason," John said and held up his hand against his friend's gun. "You can't be sure if it is just one guy or a whole bunch of them," John explained.
"A whole bunch of them?" repeated Jason incredulously.
"That's right. This is the only hill as far as the eye can seen from almost every direction. If I was a Charlie, I'd have built an underground base just right smack under it," explained John patiently.
"Look over there! Smoke!" Jason hissed in a loud whisper. A tiny wisp of smoke could be seen rising just behind where the glint of light came from.
"Charlies are cookin’ dinner," muttered John. The smoke ascended in a spiral and was carried off by the wind. A faint aroma of chicken and Asian spices started to hover in the air. It was now clear that the hill was some sort of an enemy base.
"We have to wait till night falls. It’s too dangerous to engage them in combat now, and too early to retreat to camp," reasoned Jason slowly.
The two American men pressed carefully and as noiselessly as they could backwards into the foliage, until a thick wall of shrub formed all around them. They cleared the ground carefully of stones and dry leaves, and laid down their haversacks.
All of a sudden, John felt a strong, heavy feeling in his chest. It was a strange feeling, a hunch, something he had experienced only a few times before. John always thought this feeling was the finger of God touching his chest, as if the Almighty had something important to tell him. And he knew by experience to heed whatever the Almighty had intended at that moment.
"Run." It seemed to say. "Run for your lives." The pressure on his chest was heavier now. The heaviness was now spreading across his whole chest, into his stomach and across his shoulders.
"Jason, we have to leave," John said. "I can't explain it. But it seems we are in some kind of terrible danger."
"Shouldn't we wait for nightfall? It would be safer to make our way back then," Jason was surprised by John's suggestion.
"No, we must leave now. I can't explain why. I just got a strong gut feeling we must leave now," John insisted.
"I won't argue with you," Jason said. He looked about him carefully and tried to make out a way of retreat, a path where the bush is thickest. He noticed that a dense, thick clump of shrub led to a clearing just a stone's throw away. Far enough to be out of range of any enemy gunfire.
"Follow the path formed by those shrubs. It will give us enough cover," Jason pointed.
John inched cautiously forward, on all fours, taking care to disturb the surrounding foliage as little as possible. He reached the shrub that Jason had indicated. Jason crawled along behind. One after the other, they made their way along the contour formed by the base of a few stubby trees and hanging ferns to a clearing sufficiently far from the enemy's hill. Here, they felt a little safer. But they were not out of danger.
* * *
Mrs Gladstein turned off the gas of the kitchen stove. A kettle of water stood boiling on the stove. The steam wafted around the kitchen, making the entire kitchen warm and comforting.
At that instant, Mrs Gladstein felt a sensation in her chest. It was the same, heavy feeling that her son, John had experienced just a moment earlier halfway around the world. It felt very much like hunger pangs, when one had missed a meal, but not in the stomach, but in the heart. It was like a kind of emptiness, but also a kind of assurance and comfort, all at the same time. It was the premonition of something urgent and dangerous, as well as the divine guidance of what to do at that moment. It was the finger of God. Mrs Gladstein had no doubt of that.
She sat down meditatively at the kitchen table. "Tell me what I must do," thought Mrs Gladstein.
"You must be with your son, John, right now," the sensation seemed to be telling her.
"But how is that possible?" thought Mrs Gladstein. "We are thousands of miles apart."
"You must be with John in spirit," came the divine reply.
Mrs Gladstein understood at once. She closed her eyes and relaxed. She breathed in and out, deeply and meditatively.
* * *
Darkness was closing in quickly now. The two American soldiers squatted motionless before the clearing. A tinge of trepidation swept over them. They were not on the same track by which they had came. Open land tended to contain mines.
John resisted inwardly the fear that was coming to him. He knew that they would be guided out of enemy territory.
Just then, a blue shimmering vapor of an apparition appeared beside them. It was nebulous at first, but slowly the ghostly vapor took on the form of a frail woman.
"Mama! " John gasped in recognition.
"Follow me!" Mrs Gladstein's voice came from the pale blue vapor without hesitation. Instead of crossing the open ground, the blue figure of Mrs Gladstein headed nimbly towards the surrounding vegetation. John quickly followed.
"Come on now," John hissed to Jason, who was gasping in astonishment. John kept his eyes on the feet of the blue figure. They were the dainty feet of Mrs Galdstein, treading past twigs, tropical soil, broken branches and dead leaves. The men followed the lead of the frail blue figure, who meandered left and right, deftly between the bushes and trees.
A small clearing emerged and a torn hut appeared. Mrs Gladstein’s figure moved into the run-down hut. John and Jason followed breathlessly. They felt almost like they were little boys following mummy shopping.
Jason turned around and looked into the far horizon, he could just make out the outline of the hill they had just left behind. Sihouettes of men, with the distinctive shapes of the AK 47 barrel appeared to descend down the hill, like ants from a mount.
“Rest now for a moment,” said the apparition of Mrs Gladstein. John peered over a splintered window sill and followed Jasons’s gaze to the enemy’s hill. The dark sihouettes moved slowly and methodically.
“Now, we must go,” said Mrs Gladstein’s spirit firmly. And off they went again. First, the blue vapor of Mrs Gladstein drifted off, followed by John and Jason, going deep into the bushes. The leaves brushed against the faces of the two American soldiers, the moist air swirled past their perspiration-drenched faces.
Then gradually, the men felt the ground descending and the soil getting soft. A soft rippling sound of water told them they were near a stream.
The blue vapor hovered above the water. “Come on in now. Don’t be afraid,” Mrs Gladstein’s spirit urged them on. The two men waded into the water, knee deep at first, then waist deep. It was a shallow stream.
John and Jason squatted in the water, so that the water touched their chests. They held their M-16s high so they would not lose them in the water. A gentle current was pushing them along. They waded forward in the direction of the current. All the time, the blue, misty vapor of Mrs Gladstein was before them. She seemed to glow in the darkness, almost like a shining neon lamp.
John and Jason felt the soft mud beneath their boots. Sometimes, they would step past stones and small rocks. The warm water surrounded them in a comforting embrace. Their eyes were kept fixed on the blue neon glow before them.
After some time, which seemed like an eternity to the men, they found themselves before a bridge. The bridge was wooden and sturdy, and seemed rather familiar. The blue spirit of Mrs Galdstein moved out of the water onto the bank, next to the bridge.
The two American men treaded out of the water and stood for a moment as the water fell out of their rucksacks and dripped off their clothes. Jason recognized the bridge. “We are only one mile from base. This bridge leads to the south entrance of the ammunition building,” Jason pointed along the road leading from the bridge.
John turned to the blue apparition. “Thank you Mama,” he stammered in absolute awe and gratitude.
The blue spirit of Mrs Gladstein smiled tenderly, waved a hand, and said, “I shall be waiting for you boys to come home.” Just then, the blue vapor vanished just as mysteriously as it first appeared.
* * *
Dear reader, you shall be glad to know that on the next morning, the two brave American soldiers revealed to their commander the location of that treacherous enemy hill. Two airplanes, laden with bombs, were sent immediately to destroy the hill.
Our heros, John and Jason, returned safely to American soil eight months later.
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