12:44 PM The "Hungry Ghost Incident"

Anh | Sept 5 1998: 1244 ICT | Smooth Jams Cafe: Dining Hall(10.781143390935265, 106.70007406353342) |District 1

“Drive Saito to the Sea.”
“Only Then Will They Have Peace.”

The cantillations of the protestors turned to a fever pitch.

The gunshot came from one of the guards. He fired a shotgun into the air, warning the crowd to stand down.

Corey and I jumped up.
"Shit!" I cried out in shock.

The patrons all stopped what they were doing and turned toward the spectacle outside. It was silent enough to hear the music of the restaurant.

“How Long?” sang the jukebox.
“Lord Have Mercy,” the singer on the music system belted sadly.

The news on the TV interrupted itself to bring live footage of the brewing protest. Helicopter blades whirred and rumbled overhead. Officers on megaphones barked commands in Vietnamese.

The protestors took a step back but were undeterred. The Buddhists continued their chants. The Catholics began chanting their own prayers. A cacophony of clashing Vietnamese prayers echoed from the glass. While the restaurant tried to drown it out with Electric Guitars.

The priests outside were escorted by two guards, each bearing the flag of the Holy Indo-Chinese Empire on their yellow armbands, Italian and Portuguese weapons alongside them. Unlike Saigon Magistrate's forces, which sported sleek Saito weapons, paired with soft pudgy officers.

On one side of the truck were the faithful of Vietnam, holding signs with images of Christ and Mary. On the other side were Buddhist protestors, holding signs with slogans in Vietnamese and Old Chinese. They weren't well dressed. The men in worn out work clothes, and tshirts. They were working class - probably from Districts 4, 5, and 7. Wait...is that my old High School teacher? They continued their chant. Faster. Louder.

The patrons at the bar could no longer ignore what was happening outside. A moment of decision passed through the room. Some pressed themselves toward the back, some retreated to the restrooms, others searched for the back exits. Others pressed themselves against the glass, ignoring the TV, to see the crowds outside.

I tried to extricate myself from the crowd. I felt the shove and push of bodies moving toward the windows. I clasped my purse to my chest.

One by one, insults and jeers drowned out the strangely harmonious chanting of Buddhist mantras mixed with Vietnamese rosaries. Prayers became shouts. The shouts turned to roars, the roars to rotting vegetables, the vegetables to rocks and bricks.

Catholic protestors placed themselves around the truck, attempting to block the others. As the priests struggled to load the golden box onto the truck, a protestor accidentally pushed himself into the procession. A young boy in a black-and-white cassock dropped the relic of the True Cross. The corner of the gold box landed on the truck bed with a thud. It was inaudible on the television, and too far to actually hear - yet somehow I felt it in my chest.

A simultaneous shout rose from the crowd. The Catholic protestors shouted in rage, pushing the Buddhists back with improvised weapons. The priest dove to protect the relic. The congregants shouted in rage. The protestors roared.

“We’ll be right back,” said the newscaster.

The protestors swarmed the truck like ants, stampeding.

The guards threw themselves in defense of the priests and were torn apart by pipes and bricks. The clergy on the truck struggled as the crowd tried to throw them off. One priest, carrying a candle as an improvised quarterstaff, was dragged off the truck into the maw of the crowd. Another grabbed the relic and box and climbed onto the roof of the truck.

The crowd started backing away from the truck with the box. The police turned around.

A loud scream echoed from the truck, crying out like the scream of a small child.

The scream was visceral, primal, and it entered everyone’s ears with a shriek. The TV glitched and fizzled. The lights flickered. Hai Bia Trung Street lit up from a dozen parked headlights.

I heard the simultaneous revving of engines as parked scooters turned themselves on with a crowdlike roar.

Other cars of similar make screamed in unison.

The headlights turned bright green, and then black blood began to fill them as the scream grew louder and more intense. Other cars joined in, each with different pitches—a choir of despair and anguish.

Screams came from the crowd. They collapsed inward as the mass of humanity contracted.

The APC shook off the guards clinging to it, its headlights filled with dark blue ichor. The officers around the APC panicked and pushed themselves out of the way. The line broke as the vacant vehicle, slick with fluid, charged into the crowd. It swerved around the screaming mass before crashing, crying and screaming, into a nearby building, which collapsed on top of it.

The crowd outside fell into a frenzy. Inside the bar, patrons gasped as the TV flickered and screaming poured from every radio and device.

Outside, factions collapsed into violence. Gunshots cracked. Inside, the bar panicked. Tables overturned as herds rushed the bathrooms beneath smiling newscasters and dancing Haiku. A Buddhist threw a brick through the bar window. Glass shattered. My scream was swallowed by guns and sirens.

An electric hum buzzed through the restaurant, blowing out several lights.

“How long!” cried the TV, bubbling with white fluid.

“O Lord!” sang the radio, choking on its own ichor leaking from every crevice.

“How long?”
The soft song of a glitching Mitsuki Haiku carried through the air.
The rest joined in. Including the sound from my table. 

It was my TiBo.

“How long before you judge this worldly people!
How long before you avenge our blood for what they have done to us?”

I jumped up out of my chair, and swatted away the handheld. Where it went I couldn't say, because, the second I realized what I just did, I heard a loud blast like a detonation. 

The sound of an explosion shook the restaurant. I looked down the street toward the procession on the other side of the district.

The truck was on fire. The inferno cascaded from vehicle to vehicle. A line of Saito Corporation trucks combusted spontaneously as the scream intensified. One by one. Until every truck and bike on the street burned. Hai Bia Trung was ringed by colored flame. Then silence. I felt the shoves and pushes around, me but I couldn't look away.

The lights stopped flickering. They came back on.

Rioters armed with weapons began moving into buildings. They were storming the bar. The patrons turned on each other.

I tried to move out of the way. I reached into my purse, searching for cold steel. I found it.

It was warm.