She's Still Waiting

''She is still waiting… at the end of the rice field''

At the end of a vast rice field in a remote village, there was a large old tree standing alone amidst the silence. Under its shade was once a shelter for a young woman named ''Buapan'' whose husband named ''Ai Plan'' was conscripted into the army when the country was torn apart during the war between the nations.

Buapan was heavily pregnant and about to give birth when Ai Plan was sent to the northern border. The young woman did not cry or ask for anything because she understood the duties of a man. But deep down, she was very resentful that the government agency would not let her husband take half a day off work to visit his wife even though she was sick, weak, and about to give birth.

Out of necessity, Buapan took herself to live in a wooden hut at the end of the rice field, separated from her parents because she was afraid that it would be difficult for them to travel to visit. Her parents sold small items at the mouth of the village and could not often find money to pay for transportation for their child.

Every night, Buapan would sit and stare at the abandoned cart path at the edge of the field, hoping that there would be a day when Plan would come back to her, to see how much the baby in her womb had grown.

But it never happened…

A dark night with a dark moon The groaning sound shook the forest.

Bua Phan gave birth alone on a night when the rain poured down like the sky was crying. Her exhausted body, aching to the bones, her uterus torn, and the blood flowed nonstop. She hugged her newborn baby tightly to her chest with tears welling up in her eyes before both mother and child died on that lonely night.

Since then…no one dared to approach the tree at the end of the field again.

Because every moonless night, anyone who traveled by would hear the young woman's sobs and the faint sound of the baby…

Some nights, there would be the sound of nails scraping against the floor of the cart.

Some nights, her body soaked in rain would hang upside down from a large tree, with her eyes glaring at people passing by.

''Plan… Plan…have you come back yet…''

She would crawl through the boat and through the cart to find her, shaking her blood-soaked hair, revealing a pale, eyeless face. One hand was still holding the baby, dry and brittle like a doll's corpse.

The elders said that anyone who accidentally answered her or looked her in the eye would be tricked into getting on the boat, going to the end of the field, and never coming back again…

The story of Plan

Finally, the news of Plan's death reached the village. His body was blown up and could not be sent back. Only a wooden sign and soil from the battlefield were sent back in a small box, along with a letter from a fellow soldier saying, "Plan misses his wife every day, every night."

...But the letter came too late.

Decades later, people avoided the path at the end of the rice field. Even though it was closer, no one dared to use it because Buaphan's spirit still lingered after Plan, with love and longing that would never fade.

She didn't know that "Plan" was dead.

She didn't know that "she" was dead too.

She was still waiting...

Still waiting...at the end of the rice field.

To this day, the legend of the pregnant woman who waited for her husband who didn't return has not ended. The children in the village were always warned by the adults:

"Don't go that way...if you don't want to be asked, 'Are you Plan?'..."

And the sobbing sound under the tree was still heard...every night when the moon went out...