Sweet - Forgotten letter

Bamboo

I've been wanting to write about this for a long time.

However, I have too many office tasks to keep me busy.

I haven't written much because of this, and only now have I had the opportunity to write.

I told my close friends about the incident. But my story, as I told it, seemed like a fairy tale to those who heard it. No one really believed it. The only evidence they had to believe was two letters sent by the people concerned and my brother who lived in Myaung Mya. Even when I showed them those two letters to convince them, they still didn't believe it. In fact, my own mysterious story, let alone other people like them, sometimes even I, the person who was involved, had a vague suspicion of the incident in my mind - like a dream.

But....but what really happened is obvious.

As the Western proverb says, "Reality is stranger than fiction," I would like to leave the reader to decide whether to believe or not, or whether it is possible or impossible, about the strange and unexpected events that happened on the double-decker Irrawaddy boat named Wa Boe that I was traveling on.

Therefore, I must present a strange personal experience from my recent past, from beginning to end.

In June last year, one of my brothers, Maung Soe Myint, joined the CID in Myaung Myaung and met a woman from that town. They fell in love and got married in Myaung Myaung.

As Christmas was approaching, I had to attend my brother's wedding on behalf of my parents, who were busy.

That is something I will never forget for the rest of my life.

It was created to meet an event. Nowadays, whether you are traveling by ship or train, you can only get the room you want if you book in advance. Otherwise, it is very difficult to get a room easily.

So I arrived at the Maw Tin Pier, where the ship bound for Yangon and Pathein was due to dock, the day before. Although it was only about 11 o'clock when I arrived at the pier, the third-class passengers' sleeping bags and luggage had already been laid out much earlier than I, U Aung.

They are living in a way that is so good that I can't even walk.

Finally, after a difficult journey to meet the ship's clerk, I went to meet him. After meeting the clerk, I took a seat in the first row and gave him half of the money as a deposit. When I returned, I saw a young woman with a beautiful figure and a handsome man. The man's appearance was similar to that of a Chinese woman, while the woman had the body of a theater actress, Myint Myint Htay, and her face was a face that was rarely seen in Burmese women. I stared at the woman for a few seconds, then I regained my composure and left them.

For some reason, after seeing that woman, I felt an indescribable pain inside me. In the end, I had to try very hard to suppress this sudden and extraordinary pain.

At around 5pm, I took my sleeping bag and wedding supplies and went down to the port. The ship was supposed to leave at 6am the next morning, but the morning buses in the area where I live didn't catch the ship, so I deliberately got on the ship early and slept on the ship.

(At the time of writing this novel, the southern and northern Okkalapa regions had not yet emerged as they are today, so buses did not run all night. Therefore, passengers who wanted to take the trains and ships that would depart in the morning had to get off at the station or the port and sleep. This is a foreword.)

In fact, I knew that Myaung Mya and Yangon could be reached in an hour by plane, but in Wa Khema - I still wanted to meet my relatives who had been separated for many years, and the number of wedding invitations sent was so overwhelming that I deliberately took the boat.

When I got on the ship, I found the ship's clerk, asked him for the key to the first-class cabin, and brought the bed and things and set them up. After the things had settled in, I felt a little tired, so I turned over on the iron bed in the room to rest for a while. I was listening to the sound of the door opening in the room opposite me. After the sound of the door opening, I heard a young woman's voice speaking indistinctly, and I remembered the young woman I had seen that morning, which I had forgotten for a moment. Therefore, I wanted to know who the woman who spoke was, so I got up from my bed and looked outside the room. I saw the woman and man I had seen that morning. They had also seen me.

However, they and I were both so pale that we didn't even smile or greet each other. Then I changed clothes and went outside the ship to have dinner.

I had to go out for dinner, but I couldn't decide whether to eat at a Chinese restaurant, a Burmese restaurant, or even a Chinese restaurant. So I left from Maw Tin Street and walked along Dalhousie Street, looking around, until I finally arrived at the Wu Qi Kee Chinese Restaurant next to the Independence Company. When I arrived at the restaurant, I decided to stop walking and eat at that restaurant. Although I did go in, I didn't go very far. I sat down at a stone table near the entrance of the shop, facing the street. I ordered my next meal, and since it was still chilly due to the rain that had fallen a little earlier, I ordered a shot of whiskey and mixed it with soda before eating. Then, while I was eating the food and rice that had arrived on the table, I was surprised to see that the men and women I had seen on the ship had arrived at the shop where I was eating as if they had made an appointment. This time, when they saw me, they immediately started to greet me with a friendly smile. “Ah... you haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”

The man started by asking, "Yes, I haven't eaten yet. My friends here also think so." (I replied with a cheerful smile.) At the end of my words, he said..

"Yes... we haven't experienced it either. Let us eat at this table," I replied, and for the sake of culture, they asked to eat at the same table as me.

"Oh.. I can eat it."

"Thank you."

After I gave him permission to eat, he thanked me and they sat down on either side of me, facing each other.

Soon the waiter arrived, Chinese, and I

"Now... now... what are you going to eat? Let me feed you tonight," the others said, "Oh... oh... stay here, let us be kind to you."

The young woman, who had been listening to me and her companion talk with a smile since we arrived, spoke for the first time in a clear, sweet voice, and when she looked at me with a shy look, I felt like I was speechless under the impact of her strong, powerful eyes, which were like a cloud of blue, and I also felt like I was nodding my head involuntarily.

"Don't think it's even more rude, what's your friend's name?"

After ordering and eating the rice, and breaking it in half, the man asked,

"But yeah, they're just talking so much and we don't even know each other's names yet," I said, laughing.

“My name is Myint Win, what are your friends’ names here?” (11) “I am Thein Han, and my sister here is Tint Tint Wai, but most people call her Wai.”

"What if these two are siblings? Then I have a good chance of getting infected. Will I still get infected if I don't get separated from each other all the way?" I thought to myself, and as I was so happy, the virus spread to my face, causing a big smile to appear on my face.

"What are you thinking that makes you smile?" Ko Thein Han asked, looking at my face.

"No, I don't know what life you two siblings and I have together is because of the water. We were on the same ship, we had the same room, we faced each other, and when we had dinner, we met at the same restaurant as arranged, and we sat at the same table."

I cut the conversation short and answered, "I know. You smiled while eating, so I thought I would like to ask. But, Ko Myint Win, will you go to Pathein?"

“No, I’m from Myaung Mya. I’m going to deliver handmade items for my younger brother’s wedding.”

“Oh... I don’t know, I wonder if I should go to Pathein like we did.”