Chapter 7 — After the Rushing Water

"Let's end here. Tomorrow I will arrange a team to survey the field." He collected the chart, stood up and prepared to leave. "Rest early, see you tomorrow." "See you tomorrow." The door closed, the room restored its quietness. I continue to organize my computer documents, conveniently cleaning up old files in the cloud. This computer has been with me for many years, containing a lot of early discarded footage and redundant data. In the trash recovery station, I accidentally saw a missed voice message from a year ago. The sender is Co Tu. I pressed the play button. From the speaker, there was a loud, ear-splitting sound of running water. That is a dangerous, fast-flowing river section where boat accidents have occurred before. Co Tu's voice mixed with the resounding sound of water. "Nim Niem, I'm back here." He shouted loudly, his voice cut to pieces by the water. "The water here is really fast. I was in the water at that time, how scared I was." In the voice message came the sound of his heavy breathing. "I regret it every day. I shouldn't have removed your safety lock, I shouldn't have locked that door." Co Tu's voice gradually lowered. "If there is an next life, I hope I can learn to respect a person, even if I can only watch from afar, I am willing to volunteer." After the voice message ended, there was only the sound of ocean waves in the room. I don't playback, nor stop, directly hover over the delete button. An apology that came too late, other than proving that he was finally starting to hurt, couldn't change anything. I hovered my mouse, clicked “Empty entire trash.” The system opens a confirmation window. I didn't hesitate to press the confirm button. The recovery page is empty. Gu Tu's voice was finally erased from my world, along with those discarded scenes. I closed the computer and went to the window. Outside the window, calm ocean waves and starlight spread across the sea surface, illuminating the sea ahead. Tomorrow is another new day. I turned around and walked towards the bedroom, taking in the vast sky that belonged only to me. End of story.