A short story in Vietnamese by Nguyễn Văn Thiện
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Art: Đinh Trường Chinh
Published first on litviet.net

We consume words

We were very hungry, starving from the year of the wood rooster to the year of the wood rabbit followed by the hungry year of the wood goat. We were thin, and our hunger was for fame, we craved words. We consumed words by Du words by Trãi words by Giáng and swallowed whole words by Viên.

We gnawed on each page before rolling over on our back and exposing our bulging bellies as we waited for the words to digest, we waited, and we waited.

Indeed, in consuming the words, chewing on the vowels, swallowing whole the consonants and peeing out the signs and bars, shitting out the words, and phrases, sometimes we were so full, we end…