“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page, from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s prompt is Hanoi, Vietnam.
Hanoi, Vietnam | © Wonov.com, Google Maps
A big ask
Nguyen Anh Dung was nervous. The table was covered with small dishes of food, spicy prawns, savoury meat, crisp vegetables, tangy fruits. He hoped the American would enjoy it. Perhaps at last his daughter would marry.
The American, Matt, was working in Hanoi despite his memories of imprisonment and torture twenty-five years earlier. He found himself liking the Vietnamese – one of them in particular. Thirty years old, not beautiful but with a quirk to her lips when she smiled that he found irresistible, Nguyen Co^ng won Matt’s heart.
Soon, she took him to her father’s apartment.
The eyes of the two men met; they froze. Then Anh Dung bowed deeply.
“I once did you great wrong,” he said. “Nothing I do now can atone for that. Can you forgive the father’s evil for the sake of his daughter?”
Slowly, Matt unclenched his teeth.
“I guess I can try,” he said.
Autumn Leaves 