Catfish and Mandala Read Online Free

the forest. A boy in faded black shorts stood, feet apart, in a fighting stance, ankle-deep in a puddle. Tanned skin a shade lighter than the soil molded around his slim muscles, defining the thinness of his body. One raised arm held a long bamboo stick like a javelin with the sharpened end canted at an angle to the ground. Water plastered straight black hair against his sharp face, young but all edges without a hint of softness. Slanted black eyes riveted on the ground blinking away the water streaming down his face. He stood frozen. At his feet, the rain pockmarked the puddle like pebbles.
    A flash of motion, the bamboo stick speared into the water. He thrust his face at the torrential sky and barked a cry of victory. An impaled frog jerked its death throes on the spear tip. He taunted the sky with his prize before stashing it in the burlap pouch at his waist. Thong felt a brief rush of joy, a touch of pride at the boy’s success, remembering the simple pleasures of his youth, remembering his first son.

    The boy looked at Thong looking at him, then turned away and left the road in long, limber, barefoot strides, heading toward the rice paddies. The curtain of rain closed over the boy and all was silent save sky-water drumming the earth and old men hacking the jungle.
    A revolution—everything shifted and nothing changed. Thong flailed at the weeds, a boy speared frogs barefoot in the rain.
    When the rain stopped, they ate lunch, two fists of rice in a tin of vegetable broth. Because the cut trees were drenched and would not burn, they were marched back to the garrison to clear land mines.
    The prison had been a Nationalist garrison during the war, a country outpost far behind the fighting front. It was deep in South Vietnam, but it was viciously fortified. A hundred yards of no-man’s-land ringed the garrison, thoroughly infested with land mines, studded with claymore mine posts, laced with miles of barbed wire, and scarred with concentric trenches, all cloaked in thick grass, vines, and small brush.
    Given shovels which they dared not use, the prisoners began from the sandbagged walls and worked their way outward. They had already cleared the mines and trimmed the vegetation of the first twenty yards, but everyone still treaded lightly to the outer markers. The VC waited behind the walls with their guns trained on the prison crew. No one spoke save the VC, who wagered on the outcome of today’s session.
    Thong was to clear a straight path for the log team. He hunched down low and began parting the grass one cluster at a time, searching for the black trigger rods of the canister and ball mines. He probed the ground with his fingers, praying to the gods he didn’t believe existed that there were no pan mines in his path. These were completely buried and nearly impossible to find without metal detectors. The soft earth played tricks on his mind, giving under his knees.
    He found two canister mines and marked two parallel paths, fifteen yards apart, with ropes. It was the loggers’ turn. Everyone else took cover.
    Six men pulled on two ropes tied to opposite ends of a log. The team divided and walked on the parallel paths, dragging the log on the ground between them. Eyes quivering on the edge of hysteria,
the loggers trembled, looking like overworked nags strung out by the scent of slaughterhouse blood. One young man in his early twenties cried as he put his back to the task.
    Thong lay flat on the ground, shielding his head, listening. The log rustled the grass. Loggers traded nervous words. An explosion rent the air.
    Screams. A man clutched a raw gash in his thigh. Blood spewed out, reminding Thong of a butchered pig—making him hungry. Dirt and wood splinters filtered down. A bitter piquancy of gunpowder. Another man sat on the ground, childlike surprise on his face, holding his red squirting wrist, hand blown off.
    The VC replaced them with two others and a new log. The work went on until