Indefinite Ocean

It all started on the morning of my eleventh birthday, the eighth day of April in 1975. The day started out very much like any ordinary day. I was in fifth grade attending an all girl catholic school run by a French convent right inside Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam. This morning, I was really excited to pass out candies to my classmates to celebrate my birthday. My mind was full of excitement I could hardly concentrate on the lecture. My math teacher was standing by the black board trying to explain how to find the time two speeding trains would meet, if they started out at two different times going in two different directions at two different speeds. She was a very sweet teacher who was in her third trimester of pregnancy. Her stomach protruded so much that it often blocked my view of the black board, and today was no exception. I gave a deep sigh. As excited as we were about her news of her pregnancy in the beginning of the school year, her new figure had been slowly distracting me from listening to my favorite subject, for I could not even see half of what she was trying to explain when she used the black board. My eyes drifted away from the black board out to the window. I sat on the front row near the window on the left side of the classroom; thus, it was also easy for me to be distracted by the chirping noises of a whole flock of sparrows trying to peck on the dropping dates from a date palm next to the window ledge. The large white Plumeria tree in the middle of our playground bloomed beautifully this year with more buds than I ever remembered, although I was never fond of its sap and fragrance. The sun’s glare that morning was very peculiar with a very dull yellow glow (now that I live in California where we have quite a few wild fires, I understand what that glare was. It was the glare of the sun shining through the smoke of fire.) My teacher was talking away, jogging down numbers on the black board, where her giant stomach was again covering most of my view. I tried to sit up straight and concentrate on the last part of her explanation, hoping to catch the last few phrases to help me understand what I had missed, yet her belly was still in my way again. My mind finally gave up and continued to drift off back to my home where I would have a birthday cake tonight and blow out the eleven colorful candles. I would make a big wish and gulp the biggest gulp of air, to make sure I could blow all eleven candles at the same time…poof… -“VROOOOOOM!” Suddenly, a frighteningly loud roar of an aircraft startled us as it scooped down close to the top of our school; so close we thought it was going to land right on top of our school building. My day dream instantly disappeared. All of us turned our heads toward the window, tried to figure out what was going on. Within a few seconds, and before we could figure out what was going on, we were being attacked with another series of deafening explosion, -“BOOOOM! BOOOOM! BOOOOM! BOOOOM! ” Deafening loud booms exploded, sending all of our papers on the tables in the air. What had happened? Were we all dead? No! We were still sitting here in the classroom. I looked around shocked; and to my surprise, all my classmates had the same stunned look, until fear crept onto their faces. My teacher screamed on the top of her lungs, -“GET DOWN UNDER THE TABLES, CHILDREN!”