(This is just my imagination in 2024… but strangely I almost did the same thing that I wrote in this piece of fiction in 2025, alone. Things like quitted my job, woke up early, and spent sometime no phone just me and my notebook)
We woke up quite late.
The night before, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there reading what people said about themselves and about the world, in those rambling confessions scattered across social media. I learnt that a painter friend of mine had just opened an exhibition, and in the happiness mixed with bitterness he discovered that it isn’t the first stumble in life that hurts the most, but the failures that come when you think you’ve already grown that leave you restless without end. I learnt that a girl I once knew in the same days as mine now had a husband, then parted from him, found a new job, a new house, a new passion — yet no new happiness. The pain of a child they could not have had pulled them apart, seemingly beyond repair. I no longer felt the presence of an old acquaintance I once recognised in her writing. She posted many pictures, yet none of herself, never a single caption. She travelled to many places, saw many things, and seemed to feel that keeping her thoughts to herself was joy enough, with no need to let others look upon them.
And then I turned off the phone, facing the night with streetlights glimmering against the wall through the curtain’s faint stirring. I listened to music, an entire list of songs I always turn to whenever I feel empty. Each lyric and melody cut into the heart, then gently soothed it again. In that endless loop without escape, at last I fell into sleep.
I dreamt of a future not too far away, yet out of reach in the present. The person I had refused to meet over and over finally came to me in my dream. I did not run, did not hide, but deep down I wanted it all to end quickly.
As always.
That morning, we woke late.
No coffee, no avocado, no strong tea, no sausage and fried eggs, we hurriedly prepared to go to work. Then the electrician came. I told Kris to go ahead to make it to the meeting on time; I would stay to wait for the electrician to finish, and in the meantime I opened my laptop to finish the work left undone from yesterday. The sunlight slanted across the corner of the desk, making the screen glare. I stopped, reflecting for a moment. Even in such a rush, I still dreamed of luxuries, wanting a little private time to enjoy a morning in peace. But I could never wake early, because I never managed to sleep early. The tangled life of study and work, circling around with jobs big and small, kept me spinning. And when at last I lay down exhausted, my eyes stayed wide open, weary but unable to sleep. Because I still had to breathe, to draw in the last bits of air left from the day before the morning could take them away.
Another winter had passed, and with it the changes of the old year came to a close. On the last Friday of the year I took a day off, on purpose leaving my phone, earphones and all electronics at home. Kris dropped me in the middle of the city, kissed me goodbye, then turned back to work. I walked, breathed, had breakfast, wrote, painted a picture, quietly giving thanks for a year so unusual, filled with change and growth. Then I dozed off, over unfinished words, at the corner table of a familiar café, where soft jazz played and the scent of coffee lingered. And when I awoke, Kris was already sitting there, looking up at me with a smile.
That morning, I woke early.
Kris woke just after, wrapping the blanket and an arm around me. We watched the sun rise, our hearts filled with rare luxury. Kris kissed my forehead. We took Mochi out for a walk, made breakfast together with tea and coffee, then stepped onto the leafy balcony, welcoming the first light of the New Year.
Lam Hà 