Episode 11 : Those Who No Longer Write
1172 Words
For the first time in months, Nguyen An woke up without needing an alarm.
Morning sunlight filtered gently through the curtains. A few birds chirped by his small balcony. Everything felt like any ordinary day—except for one thing:
He didn’t know what he would write today.
It wasn’t a lack of ideas.
It was the sudden realization that—for the first time—he wasn’t writing to preserve someone else.
He brewed tea. Sat by his desk. Opened his laptop.
In the folder Linh had once handed him, there was a document he’d never opened before.
The file name read:
thosewhonolongerwrite.docx
He hovered his finger above the touchpad.
That title stirred something in his chest—familiar, quiet, almost painful.
He opened it.
It was a list.
No descriptions. No stories. Just names:
Trinh H.
Mai Y.
Duc T.
Thu N.
An N.
At the very bottom, a faint line of text:
“We once wrote. Then one day—we had to stop.”
An brought the document to Linh.
“Did you write this?”
Linh shook her head. “I found it at the library. Slipped inside a copy of Write and Erase.”
“Who are these people?”
“They were part of the club. From before our time.”
An’s eyes landed on the last name: An N.
It wasn’t him—his full name was Nguyen An.
“Do you have any way of contacting them?”
Linh handed him a folded scrap of paper, yellowed and worn.
A single line of faded ink:
“those.no.longer.write@…”
He emailed the address. No expectations. But a few hours later, a reply arrived.
“I know why you write. I used to be like you.
But ask yourself: Are you still writing for yourself—or only for others?”
“I once carried the memories of an entire generation.
But no one remembered me.”
“We are those who no longer write. Not because we ran out of words.
But because there was no one left worth writing to.”
An stared at the screen.
The pain in those lines… it wasn’t anger.
It was a kind of soft, exhausted silence—like someone who had whispered for too long in a room that never listened.
Through Linh, An tracked down Trinh H., the first name on the list.
He had once been the club’s president nearly a decade ago.
Now, he managed a quiet café in District 6.
“You’re An?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
Trinh looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“I used to believe writing could save people.
But one day, when I needed someone to write about me—no one did.”
An didn’t know how to respond.
“I don’t blame anyone.
But I stopped writing.
Words should serve those who are still being heard.”
An moved on to the last person on the list: An N.
He expected someone like himself.
Instead, he met a woman.
Another Nguyen An.
She had once written under her real name, her true voice—before she vanished from the literary world.
She was now a high school literature teacher. No social media. No fanfare.
“Do you know why I stopped writing?” she asked.
“Because no one read your words?”
“No. Because everyone did—but none of them truly understood.”
She smiled sadly.
“I once wrote a piece about the person I loved.
It went viral.
Everyone praised it.
But no one realized—it was real.”
She looked down at her tea.
“I stopped because I realized words no longer held truth.
They became decoration.
And I didn’t want to dress up my pain.”
An returned to the library.
This time, not to be remembered.
But to remember.
He combed through old storage shelves.
At the back of a dusty cabinet, he found a file marked only with a faded label:
“Unfinished – Those Who No Longer Write”
He flipped through its pages.
Each section held a goodbye—unsigned, unread, unacknowledged.
“This will be my last entry. If I keep writing, I’ll never live for myself again.”
“I kept too many people. But no one had the patience to keep me.”
“If you’re reading this, don’t continue the story. Just live it. For us.”
An closed the folder, hands trembling.
They hadn’t stopped writing because they fell out of love with words.
They had stopped because they loved too much—and no one loved them back through writing.
That evening, An sat by the window.
A breeze passed gently through the curtain.
Linh sent him a single message:
“If one day you stop writing—I’ll write for you.
And if I ever stop—promise me you’ll live for me.”
He smiled.
Didn’t reply.
Just opened his laptop.
Created a new file: thosewhostillwrite.docx
And he typed:
“I know I won’t write forever.
But today—I will write to remember those no one else remembered.”
After visiting Trinh H. and the other Nguyen An, An wandered aimlessly through the streets.
He sat alone in a corner café, notebook untouched.
One question kept repeating in his mind:
“If I stop writing—what would remain?”
Not just of his stories.
But of him.
He had written to preserve others.
To gather fragments.
To remember those who couldn’t speak for themselves.
But if every person like him eventually faded…
Was it worth it?
Was it worth being forgotten by the very world he tried so hard to hold on to?
As he walked home, Linh handed him an envelope.
No note. No return address.
Inside was a letter, hand-written in trembling lines:
“The final writer will not be written about.
The final writer… will be the quietest of all.”
“But if you are reading this, then you are still writing.
And if you are still writing, then what you hold is not meaningless.”
An froze.
He recognized the handwriting.
It belonged to his mother.
She had once been an editor for a youth magazine—before quitting, withdrawing, and never writing again.
So she knew.
She understood.
She had once been… one of them.
And now, quietly, she passed that fading torch to her son.
An returned to the library.
He pulled out the anthology again:
“Unfinished – Those Who No Longer Write.”
On the last page—beneath all the parting words—he picked up a pen.
And wrote:
“I am the last to read this. But I won’t be the last to speak.
I’m not here to close this chapter.
I’m here to continue it.
If you couldn’t keep writing,
then I will write for you.
Not to be remembered—
But so that someone, somewhere, dares to live.”
To be continued...
- Writer
