My favorite story was a gruesome tale told by my father when I was around 5-6 years old. It’s good to note that I’m a first gen citizen and my family immigrated from a very rural and superstitious village in Vietnam during the border wars between the surrounding Southeastern countries. After the Northern Vietnamese government seized over 100 acres of their farmland, my family moved. They were extremely poor when they settled in the U.S. but they never forgot their love language: food.
I was a picky eater as a kid and as an Asian family, we ate a lot of rice. After not finishing my bowl of rice for x amount times that week my dad sat me down and explained why it wasn’t okay to waste food:
“When I was a kid, I went to my friend’s house all the time. He was my age and he had two brothers, one older and one younger. His mom was nice and always made sure the kids had full bellies. It didn’t matter who was at her house, she made sure they were fed. One day, at the dinner table, the youngest brother didn’t want to finish his rice. He said the food wasn’t good and he wanted to go play outside. His mother told him that he should be grateful for having food on the table in the first place, and that God does not take it lightly when we are ungrateful for the gifts we are given. The youngest brother ignored his mom’s sentiment and went to go outside. The rest of us sat quietly and finished our meals. After dinner, it began to get dark and my friend’s brother had not returned home yet.
Worried, my friend’s mom told us older boys to go out and look for him. This was during the monsoon season and a storm loomed over the village soon after the sun set. Without streetlights or paved walkways, it was extremely hard to see farther than a few feet in front of you. My line of vision was shortened to only what my hands could reach due to the heavy rain. After hours of calling out to him and running aimlessly through the village, my friend and his brother decided to give up on the search. We figured the young boy found shelter and holed up for the night.
The next morning, I went to my friend’s house again to see if his brother returned home. The home was empty. A neighbor told me that they saw the entire family leave early morning to start their search again. I began to walk around to see if I could catch up with them and help out. They were like a second family to me, and there was an obligation to be a good family member.
As I was crossing the river that separated the village, I heard a woman start to cry. The cries turned into wailing, and the wailing turned into screams. I rushed towards the direction of her voice and found my friend’s mom, knee-deep in the river holding her youngest son in her arms.
As I approached them, I noticed how big the boy grew. As the youngest child, we always made fun of him for his bone-thin structure. He was their tiny brother, he was an easy target. But seeing him that day, I couldn’t believe the changes his body went through overnight.
His hair had grown to five feet long. Black, tangled locks wrapped around his mother’s hands. His fingernails were long, yellowed, and curled into loops. Cracked at the tips and caked in mud. His skin looked like it was about to fall off of his skeleton. It looked almost transparent, I could almost see through its thin film. I traced the outlines of his blue and red veins, seeing how they all connected throughout his body.
But what stood out the most was his torso. His stomach was extremely bloated, as if he was carrying a baby. Black and purple stretch marks branched out from his sides. Dark blue bruises slowly grew as the stretch marks crawled closer to the front of his belly. The skin tightened around his mid section and sagged everywhere else. At one point, it looked like something in his stomach was trying to claw its way out as sharp waves rippled around his belly button.
I couldn’t help but stare at him as his mom continued screaming. My friend and his older brother eventually caught up to the scene, following the cries of their mother. They pulled her away from her son’s body, doing their best to keep calm as to not further upset her.
As she let go of her youngest child, his body sank into the river. Just before his head went under, his lips parted slightly. The mother grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up immediately, thinking he was about to take a breath. When she finally got his body to sit upright, his jaw fell open and out came maggots. Thousands of white, wriggling maggots pouring off of his tongue plopping into the water below us.
The boy’s family wailed with terror, watching the horror that consumed their beloved son and brother. I couldn’t say anything. I was frozen there, noticing how similar the maggots were to grains of rice.”
After 20 something years, I now know that this was a scare tactic to get me to finish my food. But I can’t help but to only take small portions and lick my bowl clean.
And while washing the dishes tonight, I noticed that the leftover grains of rice stuck on the bottom of my kid’s bowl began to wriggle. I think it’s time to tell her a story.