Winding roots lift the mangrove trees up from the ground. Olive green marks with black and white bands, a young snake lost in the mangrove forest. The venomous youngster is caught in a burlap sack, led into a glass jar of rice wine. Left there, to drown, soaked for several months to be consumed by men to increase virility. Fate has struck.

***

“Di-Ann, what did you do?” A familiar voice asks her. It’s Nur, lovely Nur. Her voice is often like tempting sweet fruit dangling from a tree, but today her voice is one of rotten disgust at the sight of roadkill.

***

 As a child Di-Ann gets lost on the way to school and forgets her duties on the curb of an unknown road. That evening, Di-Ann gets scolded by her caretaker, her handprint feels warm on Di-Ann’s cheek.

***

Di-Ann tries to find religion, but she ends up here.

***

Today, Di-Ann loves getting lost. Standing on a curb of a busy intersection in the Old Quarter in Hanoi, seeds of dragon eyes look at her from the ground. A gentle scent of sweet and salty fish oil lures in the cat in her. Cut-up ripe jackfruit, basking in the sun makes her jealous of its skin.

***

Indra’s skin is thick and covered in black ink, creating images of flowers of his native country. He is a bouquet wrapped in thorns. Casually, he presses Di-Ann down and indulges in her. Wrapping his left arm garishly around her nape, his 18-karat golden ring imprints on her right cheek. Breathing heavily, he says, “Don’t look so confused, you know you like it.”

Does she? 

Believing is the core of what moves a person. If a belief is a body of water, then we swim, drown and fish in it.

***

Rumbling and clinking of unoiled motors pass by. Di-Ann is surrounded by a swarm of two-wheeled motorized vehicles buzzing, going in different directions. Honking impatiently. 

In her multi-colored hobo bag she carries him with her, on her right shoulder she feels the weight. Purposeless, she stands. Her toes float in the hot air. Catching breezes. Exhaust fumes caress her ankles, bringing her to laughter. A young child with her mother passes by on a rusty blue vehicle. Locking eyes with Di-Ann. The child has not learned yet to ignore the lost. Turning her curious head to see Di-Ann’s laughter turn into a mournful silence.

***

Di-Ann shouldn’t be sad. It isn’t easy, but nothing is - if you try hard enough. She tries. Try. She tries not to harbor these feelings, but instead she indulges in them. Di-Ann strikes back. “Try to understand why this happened, Indra,” she asks him. Of course Indra couldn’t answer. 

She is a perfectly horrible person. It doesn’t matter what day it is. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. She has no god holding her down. 

Silently she sits in seiza next to his body. 

***

They say we attract what we are. Or did they say we attract what we fear? Diann is bad at remembering quotes. She is bad at so many things. But there is one thing she’s good at. 

Four years and thirteen days ago, she served a famous renowned chef, her specialty. A dish. A fish she’d caught herself in the Mekong River. A True Gourami. Almost six kilograms she lifted out of the waters while she was waist deep in the riverbed. Dragging the netting out of the water into the small coracle. Di-Ann tried to be as humane as possible. She took the steel rod from under the loose piece of framework of the coracle, squated next to the fish and drove one end of the rod through its head, killing it instantly. Right there and then she scalded it, accidentally cutting her palm open on its pelvic fin. Mixing their irons together. Its eye glistened in an orange hue of the setting sun. She wrapped it in banana leaves and herbs before she placed it on the red coals. It sizzled and steamed. Spreading its essence. Carefully Di-Ann served it to the hungry judges, making sure it didn’t die in vain. Earning her the appraisal of the chef. Stating that despite her ‘barbaric exquisite techniques’ the fish is most majestic. 

Killing animals in a dignified way is her specialty. Rarely does she let them die like roadkill, slowly, without a purpose.

***

The bedroom is in shades of blue. “I have no regrets, but I am drained,” she whispers in Indra’s ear. 

***

The energy of the roads on the Old Quarter never wavers. Men, women, everything in between move with conviction to their desired destinations. Diann never busied herself with the question of if they actually arrive at their stop. Who is she to wonder on such futile matters if she herself is still just standing there. Unable to even cross this one street. 

The feverish road tells her to move on. Stoplights hang on electricity cables like ornaments, seen but their message ignored. Di-Ann tells her feet to make steps towards the other side, but they are hesitant to disrupt the flow of motorcycles. She urges them to be brave and make the first step. Anticipating to be crushed and pushed away by outside forces, she braces herself. She continues her stride, holding the weight of the shoulder bag. Di-Ann touches the dark wet parts of the bag with her left hand. It’s sticky.

***

Yesterday, he laid there emotionless, still displaying virility, devoured by Di-Ann’s anger. Stiff dicked and sweaty. She placed parts of Indra in burlap sacks and gave him back to the river. There were no Tigerfish here in the Mekong River, but she believed in the river's course. Silence - the fish ignored his sinking flesh. She kept a part of him as a memento, placed him in her pouch and slung it over her shoulder.

***

On her last few steps crossing the street, the strap of her bag gets caught by a passerby and is dragged off her shoulder. Di-Ann feels the release of the weight from her body and looks at the person, cradling her bag in his arms, in the eyes. A young thief on a motorcycle. He eagerly looks into the bag and freezes. Stopping his vehicle. Steps off. Throws it into the crowded road to be trampled by all the rubber of the tires and weary feet. Roadkill. The thief screams something in her direction. She didn’t understand him and it didn’t matter. He stole her weight, her worries away. 

The details of the content of the bag doesn’t concern Di-Ann. Fully knowing why some might stress finding a severed tattooed arm, she takes a seat at a coffee shop nearby. A plastic chair presses into her bottom and back as she places her body in it, uniting her sweat, skin, cotton and the plastic into one. 

From the corners of her eyes, she can see curious bystanders gathering, pointing and gasping upon seeing the content. Creating a thrombosis-like clog on the lively street. Neither the thief nor any bystanders take his golden ring, leaving him flaccid on the ground.

***

Some travel to see beautiful sceneries. Di-Ann travels to let herself go astray. Letting her surroundings swallow her whole. Drown in the unfamiliar scents of culture. 

This place specializes in coffee, Di-Ann would be a fool not to enjoy at least one cup of their cà phê đá. She sighs in relief and peacefully takes a sip of her drink. The only thing missing is Nur.

***

“Di-Ann, what did you do?”