Chapter 5
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra? What are you doing here?”
Hli Nra: “You’re not real. Just disperse my imagination." She continues to stare at him but he was still there.
Nuj Tsim: “Why are you so dust up, Hli Nra?” He tries to approach her but she took a step back.
Hli Nra: “If it’s not my imagination then…” She began to get scared. “Heavens, I had not done anything wrong please don’t haunt me like this.” She closed her eyes and prayed at the person infront of her.
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra, it’s it me.” He puts his hands on her shoulders to shake her a little.
Hli Nra: “I’m just minding my own business I didn’t bother you in any way.” She pulled away and begun shake uncontrollably. “Please don’t spook me like this.”
Nuj Tsim: “It’s just me, Nuj Nraim. I’m not a ghost.” She wouldn’t open her eyes. “Listen to my voice” He cups her face. “Trust me. Open your eyes to look at me.”
His hands were so warm, he couldn’t be a ghost. Hli Nra was hesitant but eventually gradually open her eyes and bit by bit raise her head to look at him. She was still unable to believe it.
Hli Nra: “….” She felt fainted causing her to stumble a bit.
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra? What’s wrong? Hli Nra?”
He slightly smacks her cheeks keep her awake. He put his palm over her head and could feel that it was very hot, he helps her walk to her hut and sat her on the bed.
Nuj Tsim: “My dear Hli Nra.” She dazed into reality again when hearing his voice. Nuj Tsim helped her sit up. “You must be tired, lean down and sleep for a bit.”
Hli Nra: “Nuj Nraim, is this real?”
Nuj Tsim: “If you don’t believe, let me pinch you.” He was going to reach over and pinch her.
Hli Nra: “Stop…okay I believe.” She didn’t want to feel the pain. “Nuj Nraim, what’s really going on? Why are you here and dress up like that?” Nuj Tsim had just realized he was in his real status at the moment.
Nuj Tsim: “Um…” He was uncertain if it was the right time to tell her.
Hli Nra: “What is it?”
Nuj Tsim: “Nuj Nraim, he’s just a person I use to hide my reason identity. My real name is Nuj Tsim.”
Hli Nra: “I don’t understand.”
Nuj Tsim: “When I was young my parents were having marriage problems. To prevent me from seeing the negativity, I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle in your village. They told me people would take advantage of me because of my real status, the son of a rich person, so I should dress and act like an ordinary person.”
Hli Nra: “If you’re rich, why do you go back and forth to the city finding jobs?”
Nuj Tsim: “The truth is…I go back to the city to return documents and land rental money to my father.”
Hli Nra: “Uh…” She couldn’t put the puzzle together.
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra, I’m the son of the mayor of your village.” Hli Nra was surprised and unable to utter a word. But she snapped out of it.
Hli Nra: “I would like to be alone.”
Nuj Tsim: “What did you say? Please understand me.”
Hli Nra: “Oh, I do understand. I understand you very well. Rich people like yourself, night and day the only thing they’re concern about is that poor people will reach into their pockets and snatch their money.”
Nuj Tsim: “It isn’t like that; it’s just that when we first met as kids you met me as ordinary person. You’re only comfortable with that side of me. Over the years I didn’t know how to reveal it to you, afraid of your reaction.”
Hli Nra: “Please take your leave, Mister.” She looks away avoiding him.
Nuj Tsim: “Don’t think like this. Please don’t be silent toward me.”
Hli Nra: “Why can’t I be silent. There’s nothing wrong with being silent toward a person I don’t know, a person name Nuj Tsim.”
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra, you’re going to throw away our friendship of almost fifteen years because of this lie of mines.” She wouldn’t speak to him. “Hli Nra…” He puts his hand over hers and she quickly pulled away and got off the bed. She tries to get out but he blocks her way. “It’s alright if you’re angry with me. You’re probably in a state of shock. I just would like you to go back, lie down, and rest. We’ll speak of it again when you calm down.”
Hli Nra: “I’m busy, I don’t have time.” She took a step aside and he did as well. “Don’t block my way.”
Nuj Tsim: “I will move out of the way, but not until you rest first.”
Hli Nra: “Mister.”
Nuj Tsim: “Can you just call me by my name other than, mister, I feel like such a stranger.” He hears a commotion outside and knew it was the workers coming in for lunch.
Niam Lwm Xeeb: “Hli Nra. Why did you just leave the rice near the fire place, why didn’t you put it on the table? And the pots and pans you need to wash those too. Don’t think that you finish cooking and your job is finish…” She stops nagging when she walked in seeing Nuj Tsim inside with Hli Nra.
Nuj Tsim: “Hello Tsab’s mother.”
Niam Lwm Xeeb: “Oh Nuj Tsim, why are you in here?”
Nuj Tsim: “It’s just that Hli Nra wasn’t feeling too well, so I brought her inside.”
Niam Lwm Xeeb: “She’s sick?”
Nuj Tsim: “It seem like she has a fever.”
Niam Lwm Xeeb: “Really, are you sick Hli Nra?”
Hli Nra: “I’m well, very well.” She walks around Nuj Tsim.
Nuj Tsim: “Hli Nra.” He calls after her. Naim Lwm Xeeb stops him by asking him what reason he had for coming there.
Hli Nra had wondered way off from the shelter area. She didn’t care if he lied to her because there are white lies and black lies. However, through the years they knew each other Hli Nra had been an honest and truthful person to him, she told him everything about herself. Yet he didn’t have enough trust in her to let her know about who he really was. It was heart wrenching to know that over the years Nuj Nraim or should she call Nuj Tsim didn’t trust her enough to tell him he was rich, was he so afraid that she’ll keep nagging him for money? Afraid that she’ll force him to marry him, just like…like “Muaj Tsheeb.” So many angry thoughts circulated her mind how rich people are all the same, they can be so inconsiderate. Hli Nra trips over a rock and falls in the middle of the main road of rice plantation. Her hair tie falls off causing her hair to sway and rested on one side of her shoulder.
Muaj Tseeb beeps at the crazy person who just fell infront of the road where he was heading, lucky she saw her in time and stopped his car a few inches from running her over. He got out of his car to see who it was.
Muaj Tseeb: “It seems you have a set of eyes, how come you just…” Hli Nra glared at him with him fierce eyes like she wanted to tear him apart. He can see her dirty face that smoke fume stains. He chuckle a bit before squatting before her. “Oh my. Who made you angry?” He teased. “Everyone’s so busy yet you have time to build up rage.” She was silent toward him. “If that’s your angry face it’s so hideous.” She gets up immediately and he did so as well.
Hli Nra: “I ask you, am I even human in your eyes, why do you guys treat me like an animal that has no heart and no feelings as though you can fooled around with it and it won’t be able to talk nor fight back with you.”
Muaj Tseeb: “You guys? Are you actually referring to me or just venting your anger on me? He was right the actual anger she had for Nuj Tsim she was attacking Muaj Tsheeb with it. “Someone else made you angry, you couldn’t take it on them so you put it out on me, you wronged me didn’t you?”
Hli Nra: “Not true.”
Muaj Tsheeb: “Not true?”
Hli Nra: “Well…” She tries to get her thoughts together. “I was and wasn’t…” The next line she thought to herself. “It’s both of you who made me so infuriated.”
Muaj Tseeb: “Listen to yourself you sound like a drunk garble your words around. Let’s see.” He leans in to smell her breath. She took a step back. “It doesn’t smell like you’re drunk. Did you eat some sort of pill or drug to make you act that way?” Seeing that he was just going to speak nonsense she turns around to leave but he had grip her wrist and swirl her around toward him again. It just made her dizzy. “Hey, I’m not through with you. You haven’t answered me.” Her head was throbbing so much that everything just blacked out on her. “You should apologize before…”
She faints slouching into his embrace, he held her to her feet. He uses the back of his hand and pressed it against her forehead and then to her cheek, her skin was burning. He slid a hand under her arms and another under her legs and carried her back to the shelter area. He was worried about her but somehow he didn’t feel like rushing there, he had walked calmly toward the place.
Hli Nra mumbles in his chest. “Why does everyone wants torment me, make me shed tears, yet not a single person cared to comfort me.” She cuddles against him.
When Muaj Tsheeb reaches the shelter area, everyone had already finish lunch and was leaving so he couldn’t catch a person to look after Hli Nra. He enter’s Hli Nra’s hut and laid her on her bed. Seeing a bowl and a wash towel near the bedside he took it outside and filled the bowl with cold water before carrying it back inside. He put the bowl by the bedside table then sat down next to Hli Nra. He took off his suit jacket and hung it by the bed stand then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt before soaking the wash cloth in the water. He twisted the wash cloth and had the water dripped back into the bowl. When he tap the wash cloth on the cheek she shudder a bit. Carefully he wipes the dust off her forehead, down to the tip of her nose, around her cheeks and jaw line.
Muaj Tsheeb: “Her beauty is undeniable.” He leans down stares at her closely with admiration. “She sleeps so soundlessly.” He move a strand of bang that was covering her face, sliding the strand over her ear to keep it tucked. “She looks adorable when she’s sleeping, probably because she doesn’t talk back to me.” He forgets himself and slides his index finger across her lip. “What the heck are you doing Muaj Tsheeb? “He declines to sits up straight and act casually. “What’s so attracting about her that’s tempting you so?” He gazed at her. “Are you regretting throwing away your chances with her?”
As Hli Nra napped, she remembers her uncle’s words.
Uncle Xais Tuam: “Often times people will feel like no one needs them in this world, like if they just disappeared, no one would even notice. If you think this way, don’t, because whether you know it or not, someone loves you. Anyone can give up; it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”
Hli Nra slowly flutter her eyes open to see Muaj Tsheeb sitting next to her bedside. She sat herself up and slouch on the wall behind her bed.
Hli Nra: “Why didn’t you just leave me on the side of the road? I would eventually find my way back here.”
Muaj Tsheeb: “I don’t want to risk having a dead person on my farm.”
Hli Nra: “Don’t worry. A person like me won’t die easily. I have to pay you off first I don’t want to owe you in the next life time.”
Muaj Tsheeb: “What if I do want you to owe me in the next life time?” Hli Nra quickly stares at him. Muaj Tsheeb didn’t know why he just said that. Was it because he still wanted to meet her in the next life time?
A girl walks in on them and tells Hli Nra, Niam Lwm Xeeb and a man was looking for her. She yells out the door and Nuj Tsim rushed in. Muaj Tsheeb quickly stood to his feet.