Story 2

THE OLD MAN AND THE MYSTERIOUS HILL

This is the story about my encounter with an old man, who lived on a mysterious hill, who taught me about life.

My childhood memories connect with the green hill, with the kites flying in the wind. It is near my house. When we were born, the hill had existed for a long time. There were a lot of emotional stories and strange people surrounding that hill. The hill is very mysterious

I remember when I was a child, my friends and I often invited each other to go to the hill to play. In fact, that hill did not have any games but we still liked going there because of our curiosity. In our view, everything there was very special and weird so every weekend we flocked to the hill. Each time we went, we discovered many strange things. Sometimes, we heard a soft voice vaguely from a distance. We also saw a very old blockhouse, whose walls were covered by layers of green mosses. We walked through large rocks and nameless tombs. All these things made the hill very mysterious.

There was a small cottage on the hillside which belonged to an old man. He lived alone and apart from our town. I still remember the first time we saw his face which was filled with a lot of long scars. We were so scared that we shouted and ran away.

Then one day, I could not find anyone to go to the hill to fly a kite with me. So I carried my kite and went to the hill alone. However, there was not enough wind so my kite could not fly. I just sat on a flagstone on the top of the hill and looked down at our little town. I heard a warm voice behind me: “What happened with your kite? Let me help you!”. I turned back feeling afraid. It was that frigtful old man whom my friends and I saw last time. I shouted and pushed him away from me. The old man just kept quiet turned to go down the hill. At that moment, I saw a tear rolling down from the corner of his eye. I ran home but I could not forget his poor face in my mind. Then instead of feeling frightful I felt remorseful. I regretted chasing away that lonely old man.

Something tragic hapenened, my father had suddenly passed away. I felt very lonely and cold. I did not come to the hill for a long time. One day, I heard my uncle talk about that old man. My uncle said that he was a very generous and patriotic person. His wife and daughter had died in a bombing by American troopa. At that time he was given the important duty from Vietnam’s army forces, so he could not protect his family. The long scar on his face was the evidence of fighting at close quarters in the war to protect his teammates. Those scars always reminded him about the pain of the death of his wife and his daughter. I felt that my pain and loneliness was incomparable to his pain.

Then I decided to come backt to the hill to find that old man. I saw him sitting with his dog and looking into the sky. I did not dare to talk to him but he exclaimed when he saw me, “Hey baby girl! You are not scared of  me, are you? I knew you would come back. Welcome to my cottage!”. I hugged the poor old man and cried. I said, “I’m so sorry for chasing you away! I’m so sorry!” His tears rolled down his wrinkled face. He then helped me to connect the wires of my kite. Since then, I often came to his small cottage to play. He told a lot of stories which happened in the hill. There was one day, I asked him a silly question: “Do those scars make you get hurt?” He just smiled, pointed to his scars and said, “I’m not hurt here but in my soul.” Then he whispered with me, “Do you know? As time passes over, things will change, some wounds will be healed but the scars will always be there in our souls.”

I left there and thought naively that one day I would find a special kind of medicine to treat his scars, and he would not be hurt anymore. Until when I grew up and stood in front of his tomb, I said to him softly, “Maybe now your scars were treated and you are living happily with your family.”