in the land of hay day, the sun always shines until the moon comes up. the temperatures swing more than 100 degrees between the warmest and coldest seasons. few large mammals persist, eh actually, they thrive here. fewer still are studied closely; their tolerance for repetition remains, to researchers, only partly understood.

at hay day, there is no death, no uncertainty. all animals get fed on a running clock.

the horses

the horses wake before feeding. the herd master is first to the trough.

he alone has produced one hundred gold every day of his recorded life. Dr. Funkus noted this the way one notes a migration, as a fixed fact of the landscape, load-bearing, unquestioned.

Dr. Funkus, six seasons in, has felt the heartbeat of the herd master exactly once. he pressed a hand to the flank at dawn and found an enormous, working muscle.

a heart that had outgrown its own horse.

he did not record the number.

the donkeys

the donkeys don't work until they have pondered the field for as long as they're content. they roam far to the grasslands and the spring.

and yet Dr. Funkus has never seen a donkey stray from its partner. he has never once spotted a single donkey on the field.

the donkeys died in the wildfire last year. they were found the next morning in a row, next to their partners.

the gate was open.

Dr. Funkus

the researcher eats breakfast at 8am. he is at the horses by 9, and writes up their productivity under the shade of the trees until the stars come up.

he died one afternoon under the shade of those trees, before the stars.

no one was recording him.

--

the body adapts before the mind agrees to. this is called resilience. it is also called the first symptom.

there is a difference between contentment and the absence of enough pain to leave.

horses, or donkeys. nobody chooses the sign they miss. because that is the whole nature of missing it.

i struggled to pick out a cocktail dress that's blush pink for ann's wedding. she has the whole museum bought out for her big day. the husband, ted, is a startup founder who sold three companies and is on the board of five. he loves her very much. they met in a dive bar in new york during her early years working in investment banking.

i flew in from london with my fiancé, excited to see all the familiar faces from college. we caught up over lunch a few days ago and she told me ted had asked her out with an app he made with claude code that displayed little figures running across her screen carrying flowers and a banner that read "can i please please please sleep with you everyday?". she also told me he proposed to her while they were at her favorite place, by the gorilla statue in beverly hills, saying "if you marry me i'll fund the coffee shops and flower stores that you want to open".

i'm incredibly happy for her. we used to talk about this all the time years and years and years ago while we were at ucla. she would tell me about the porsche she would buy, the life she would live as an LA piece of shit, going to pilates in dripped-out lululemon, shopping the latest collections, and coming home to a hot introverted husband with preferably a six pack.

she's always been a hopeless romantic. we both are. we used to yearn about the perfect life together while grinding finance technicals and getting on twenty-five-million networking calls to secure an internship. i was there for all the beautiful, raw feelings, over a bagel, some matcha, and occasionally a red velvet cake.

i would hear about things first.

ucla, los angeles, (2026)

i invited ann and bea over for lunch this saturday. i made them a vietnamese noodle soup, something i'd never ever do to viet friends because they'd find out my cooking is nowhere near authentic. bea came a bit late, but she brought me lilies. we talked about boys and redownloaded hinge because why not.

we are going to karaoke tonight. ann and i are crashing out over our situationships. we talk about the people we met at the bar on the weekend, about a popular guy in our circle who we unanimously agree is vastly overrated and looks like a rat with an inflated ego.

i think i'll do anything for those girls. to hope them the best of the best. to wish upon them the man of their dreams.

"do you think we'll be friends after college?"

i call it a surge of life-loving.

it hits like a vertigo effect in a movie scene. suddenly everything feels impermanent and i'm reminded of high school senior year. it's the same awareness of time and space slipping away.

enchanted populated my mind on those last high school days.

Please, don't be in love with someone else
Please, don't have somebody waiting on you

it's the state of the almost that eats me up.

i live in reminiscence, i live as a romantic, and look at moments through 35mm film. i love community jazz because it brings a whole los angeles together. i would stop on my way to target because birds on the roof of an old building give me this strange sense of hope and calm. i would go to santa monica pier almost once a week because the old man with flowers would always dance to live music around 4pm.

skyfall would be playing. then where'd all the time go?, then sign of the times.

where will ann be in ten years?
where will bea be?
where will i be?
will we go to each other's weddings?
will we still be friends after college?

saigon was fourteen hours away. ucla was an hour north but it might as well have been another country. i had my phone and i had nowhere to be and i had the entire summer.

i scrambled for any means to gain back control in my life. i downloaded apps for strangers to meet up. i had daily coffee chats with viet diasporas and startup founders. i signed up for online courses on product management, and AI, and chinese language. i went on long walks to the nearby park and sat there for hours, hoping to find that spark back somewhere along the way.

it wasn't the life i wanted to live.

so i picked up hay day. the farming game. it's a fun fact i tell people to disarm them. but at that moment, it was the only place that gave me a sense of purpose. i was tending to something tangible, a farm, my cattle. i took it very seriously, analyzing what the most profitable way to sell my produce would be (roadside shop).

i broke out and was so pale, and i never wore makeup anymore. my hair was greasy most of the day, and my eyes were always droopy because i woke up to the sun almost setting and roamed the house when most people were asleep.

i couldn't even think.

how was the coffee? 1 second to zone in, 1 second to register the person in front of me, 1 second to comprehend the question. "yeh it's okay." it was the best latte i've had in the area.

i was so sad. so so sad.

i would cry, just because.

so i sent texts into the family group chat, sprinkling feelings here and there. my parents are the most loving people on planet earth. they would respond within minutes.

my dad told me to go travel. spend the money. the world is vast and we are small and that's okay. my mom sent hearts, three of them. be happy, cục cưng. because everything will fall back into place, and one day it will all be stories.

they weren't wrong.

i hearted their messages and put my phone down, and the room was exactly the same.

it was always like this.

i could tell my parents everything. and i did. my dad and i used to take trips to hanoi, just the two of us. my mom is the person i call about the boys, the friends, the hiccups.

their love is loud, and clear. and i love them too.

this is not a story about a closed door.

their door just didn't lead to my world.

and i didn't know how to grieve that without feeling like a bad daughter.

because their response was always for someone whose problems live on the outside. someone for whom rest is the answer. for whom lowering the bar brings relief.

and i never knew how to say, that's not where i live.

my problems don't lift when the pressure does. something existed before the pressure and stayed after it lifted. i didn't need the bar lowered. i needed someone to see why i kept setting it where i did.

i didn't need comfort. i needed recognition. not of the moment, but of the pattern.

and they're worried. and i love them. and the gap just sits there.

the nice one makes jokes about their discomfort. and laughs everything off. and shrugs. and says "it's alright"

you grow up giving yourself labels.

i'm an older sister, i'm a smart kid, i'm an understanding friend, i'm a mentor, i'm a mentee, i'm a guest, i'm a host.

it's all so you feel some sense of presence in a room. a relationship. you go out of your way to diffuse awkwardness because you never want to sit with discomfort.

the nice one isn't about being good or kind, it's about existing. you perform so you have a guaranteed place in the space. you earn your presence. you're always working to earn it.

at work, at school, in friendships.

you notice yourself doing it. you've always noticed.

and you pay for that. because you're always left grasping for more. you become so legible to everyone else that no one thinks to ask what you're actually feeling.

it sucks to be the nice one.

because being the nice one also means standing in the corner of the room, cooking, serving food for the table, while being denied an equal seat.

you've known this for a while.

you've watched yourself do it. you named it. you've written about it.

and then you went back to the corner and picked up the serving spoon.

because the watching feels like enough. the awareness feels like distance. you think: at least i can see it. at least i'm not blind to it. that makes you feel a little superior. a little above it.

that gives you joy.

but that joy was small.

because there's a version of you watching the nice one perform. and a version of you watching that version watch. and somewhere behind that, another one, watching still.

so used to watching, you forgot you could leave.

you built that room. and you keep on building it.

you brought your seat. and you keep sitting on it.

the guilt is just another costume.

are you wreck-it ralph? still showing up to be the villain every morning. because what is he without the game.

so,

who are you in this room, if not the nice one?

avery walks into the dimly lit meeting room. she looks different today, not in her usual magic city kitchen whites.

she sits across from her boss on the 10ft-long cloak table. he also looks different today. more stern, more grim. though in the same exact outfit that he wears every day as head chef.

"we only have 30 minutes scheduled, so let's keep this brief. how can i help you?" he cuts to the chase.

the man never beats around the bush. he's always been efficient at business; he was her mentor for a reason. he used to sit with her for hours, talking about her: what she wants, what she needs, what he thinks she should do.

30 minutes it is.

• i think it's time i quit the restaurant and find my next steps. i wanted to let you know and talk to you through my thought process.

• why do you want to quit?

• i don't think i have enough time to dedicate to the restaurant since college is catching up to me.

• i don't think that's a good reason. time is never the issue. when you graduate and have to work full-time you'll be even busier than you are right now. will you put off your dreams then?

she folds a little bit. she still hasn't learnt how to speak her raw self around the man, despite spending 3 years living with him in the studio apartment on top of his restaurant.

• so she continues, her voice soft, almost like a whisper:
  i just think i should try working at a different restaurant, or maybe opening my own place to explore different taste profiles.

• i let you do that though. you've always been encouraged to experiment and come up with your own new dishes.

i let you. she suddenly feels a stream of warmth trickling through her body. his tone reminds her of the man she peeked at from the corner of the kitchen while prepping the ingredients. the man she saw on local newspaper years before she applied for a position in his restaurant. the man she told her best friend about, who is a genius chef with the most sophisticated palate and a top-tier intuition for flavors.

it takes everything in her to repress the words that came to mind, she says instead: "and that's true. i learnt a lot from you and my time here at magic city. i just think i want a bigger team maybe. yeh that would be nice, a place with more people i can bounce ideas off of."

he stands up to walk over to her side of the table, pulls out a chair next to her, and sits from a comfortable distance. not too close he's all up in her space, not too far she can still smell his usual armani cologne.

"you know, the issue with you is, and i have told you this many many times before, that you haven't learnt how to handle the chaos of a new fine-casual dining model. you're too comfortable, too dependent on structure that you need a traditional shop. you have potential, avery. real potential. but you've never trusted it without me to point it out" he declares.

avery freezes. she is tempted to believe him. after all he knows her too well. she has cried in his arms from fear and jumped in his arms from genuine bliss. she thinks he knows her too well.

but she also feels a knot in her stomach. their relationship hasn't felt the same for the past few weeks since avery met ben, a man who comes to the restaurant every evening with flowers and handwritten notes. her boss has become formal. stern. cold. he didn't acknowledge her unless he wanted her to pass him the plate or go greet the customers.

"remember the brown butter thing you made that one night for us? you've always had it in you to make great dish, you just need to break the inertia" he continues.

that night she made them dinner because he had a meeting late. they shared the meal, a drink from the same cup, and binge-watched a show on hulu on the couch.

she goes still. after what felt like 5 minutes,

• what is this between us?

• you've always been my favorite employee. you're like my little siste-

• bullshit.

"you were the first person who made me feel like i had something real. not potential in the abstract, something specific, something worth building. i used to watch you from across the kitchen and think, i want to think like that. i want to see food like that. i flew across the country for you. i bought flowers for your home. i fell asleep next to you and thought maybe this is what it feels like to be chosen."

she straightens her sleeve, "and you knew that. you always knew that. and you said nothing. because as long as i was undefined i was also available. and the moment i wasn't, the moment ben showed up, you made me pay for it. in front of everyone. in every meeting. in every cold email."

then she leaves.

it's 28 minutes and 12 seconds.

proposal of the program of the new world.

by the end of the year, we will implement a program of the new world. god ran out of patience. everyone kept begging for a second chance. you will have it. your second chance. everyone will. no matter if you want it or not.

• everybody gets two lives, sequential

• one life runs for 50 years. the moment life 1 ends, life 2 begins

• you die at exactly 100 years. you cannot die early. sickness cannot take you. your own hands cannot either.

• you do not choose when. or where. your clock is set by god. relocation complaints will not be entertained. there is no department for that.

you bring only what you know and think and feel to life 2.

the program does not have opinions about you. it only measures.

• high agency in life 1 --> harder life 2

• low agency in life 1 --> easier life 2

• this is not about you. it has never been about you.

if you believe an error has been made in your assignment, please be advised that the review process takes longer than one lifetime.

disclaimer: the program isn't restricted by economic class, profession, geography, culture, or religion. it's a fresh start over. you can rely on nothing of the physical life 1 that you built.

the clock:

everybody sees your clock, including you. you know exactly, down to the millisecond, when your life ends.

studies have not been conducted on what this does to a person. the program did not budget for that.

some people stop looking. the clock does not stop.

good luck and with terror,

god's human secretary

--

Frequently Asked Questions:

What if I don't want to go?

noted

Do I need to bring anything?

you have nothing to bring.

Where exactly will I wake up in Life 2?

somewhere. you will be cold at first. this is normal.

What if the clock runs out and I still don't know who I am?

we don't care

Does anything I built in Life 1 matter if I can't take it with me?

does it have to matter?

Will the world in Life 2 have any record that I was here?

if no one knows you existed, did you?

What if I loved someone in Life 1?

you won't remember their face. you will remember the feeling. you will know that you loved someone. this is considered sufficient.

Will I be happy in Life 2?

happiness is not a metric the program tracks. however, if it were, the data would suggest [this response has been removed]

Is god watching?

which one

Is any of this already happening?

yes. have a good rest of your day.

--

you're 12.

you went to a traditional middle school where life is easy. it's easy because your parents are supportive and loving. it's easy because you're smart and do well academically. it's easy because you have a best friend that you felt like your twin. you share the same name, always at the same number 1 spot in the class, have the same humor, and love the same rebellious acts. you get into trouble with teachers together, but you also get so much love-admiration-and jealousy together too. you're inseparable twins, so inseparable your other friends and their parents refer to you as a collective.

until you had to decide what to do for highschool. you didn't talk much that summer. she decided to go to a good school nearby with most of your middle school friends, while you thought a great one, though far, was the move. you were suddenly overwhelmed with this new environment where everyone is hyper-competitive. you were pushed and torn and grew to want so much more than what you had. you kept in touch with your twin still, but you never noticed how diverged your paths had gotten.

one afternoon, you were excited to tell your twin about your day and maybe plan a next hangout because it had been months since you last talked. the phone rang once, twice, three times, and no one picked up. it kept going on and on and on and on. you spammed your twin with what felt like fifty calls in a row and got no response.

you thought, maybe she's traveling. but then three days had passed. maybe she's in the hospital. that's terrible, you hope she's okay. two more days passed, and you grew anxious. did you do something wrong? maybe you should've reached out more during those months. so you sent her more texts. called her more times.

a week passed, you went to the bookstore with your mom and saw a novel you both loved. so you posted an instagram story, tagging your twin saying you miss her. she liked it! she did have connection after all! she's still here!

but is she though?

because that's all you got from her. there was never a call back. it was radio silence, nothing but story views and post likes from your twin. it's like she vanished.

but you know she's still here.

she has to be. she's still behind the views and the likes.

you met up with your other friends from middle school and learnt that your name became a sensitive topic for her. they always had two hangouts in a row, because she refused to go anywhere you did.

you're 20.

you still yearn your twin.

you met great people in high school and college. she's still behind the views and the likes. you get bits and pieces of stories about her life sometimes from other people.

you're still friends with her mom on facebook, so you know she's doing fine. you wonder though, is she still your twin? how different have you become?

did your paths find a way to become parallel? not diverged, not crossing, just parallel. alongside each other, forever almost.

--

he knew everything about me. he called to wake me up, and we got donuts at the food truck before we called it a night. he was the only person i talked to for weeks when i was at my lowest with internship recruitment. he knew about all the boys, about my little brother, about my past and my goals. he knew my schedule, my preferences, my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears. i even accidentally changed on facetime once because i was so comfortable with him that i didn't notice it. he called to interrupt my sleep whenever he wanted to, and i never got grumpy. i walked to his dorm even though i hated moving once i was bundled up in my blanket.

he was witty and had his eyes on the prize. in some aspects, he was both a friend and a mentor bundled into one dude. i had more faith in him than in myself. If i knew about kalshi back then and could bet my money on his success, i would. i never had a single thread of doubt. not about him.

i got flown to new york for an interview. he did too! we shared a hearty korean meal together before we boarded our flight back to lax.

i got the job! i called him first thing. OMG THAT'S CRAZY YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT YOU HAVE TO SIGN. he was so happy for me. he said we should get k-bbq, like we always did after something awesome happened to one of us, but only after he signed too.

he got a job! but he wanted a better one, so he kept recruiting.

i missed him because it took him really long to respond to my messages. but i understood. he was busy with recruitment.

but is it just that?

being friends with him was always like standing in the sun and the shade at the same time. one moment he would say things like "now that you know this about me we're stuck for life" and i would feel like the most chosen person in the room. the next moment he would tell me my networking sucked and i would shrink. i never knew which version of him i was getting. but i always came back for the warm one.

one day i went looking for his spam account, the way you casually check in on someone you're close to. it wasn't there. i searched again. still nothing. i realized i'd been blocked. i told myself it was fine. it's his private account, he can do whatever he wants.

but then one night i was posting on our club's instagram and noticed he'd put up a story. i switched to my personal account to view it. i couldn't. i checked his profile. he'd unfollowed me. removed me entirely.

is this my second twin?

except he's still here.

he texted me on imessage to hang out the very next minute after i realized i was cut from his social media. he was telling me the same inside joke we had been using. let's get k-bbq next week, he said. i was confused. but i never asked. i was never good at asking.

i was happy with anything. at least we still talked.

but it was chipping at me, eating at my ego and my conscience. does he hate me? why is he asking to hang out?

he requested to follow me again, but my ego didn't let me accept the request. why cut me off in the first place? why do something so symbolically permanent? why not just stick with one narrative? he blocked me the next day. who does that? how strongly does someone have to feel about you to un-connect on the most surface-level platform on earth? what did i do wrong?

he would request me again, and again. until he blocked me for good. on instagram. on linkedin. everywhere except tiktok where he would periodically view my profile. he stopped sharing his location with me. i thought he vanished.

but he didn't. he still asked to hang out.

now i'm enraged. i hate that he treats me like i'm a wagging puppy at his beck and call. i hate that he treats me like i'm disposable. like he can throw me away and feel entitled for a spot in my life when he feels like showing back up.

i'm upset, i'm mortified,

and i pity myself.

i still hear about him. he told a friend of ours that he would love to be friends again, but he wouldn't reach out first. he told another friend that he didn't feel good that i got the offer before him.

i will never know. he will forever be him.

he's here, but i don't know if i want him here.

it was too much work to wash my sheets, so i decided to throw it away. but i don't have replacements lying around. and i have been procrastinating the target run to pick up new sheets.

so i have been rocking the couch. it's fine, honestly.

friday night before finals week, i couldn't sleep and decided i'd watch youtube after a whole week not watching anything.

i ended up awake until 5am, watching random videos on taylor swift, wars, anthropic ceo, and jamie dimon.

i woke up at 3pm and continued watching youtube until 11pm, videos on zionism, timothee chalamet, barack obama, saudi arabia's investment summit, cannibalism, and lolita.

finals start tomorrow.

i have lost the sense of urgency ever since i signed my internship offer. i don't know what i'm doing with my day-to-day and i feel a burning urge to pick-my-life-back-up, but at the same time i just simply don't know what to do. spending 12 hours on youtube doesn't even feel like a waste of time, and it should.

maybe this blog will be a new hobby:)

i'm drawn to places with a warm palette: red, orange, yellow, shades of green that range from volcanic to jade. there's a pragmatic calling to those colors that is rooted and real.

i think it starts with vietnam. the red flag with yellow star, the herb-green in every dish, the clear blue of the sky contrasting deep green of the northern mountains.

the terracotta tiles of an old hanoi building.

the food i grew up with that seems so unimaginable to my american friends (balut!)

the sounds of a saigon street that include yelling, singing, chanting, and honking. those sounds have a vibrant warm color.

being viet, i've always gravitated toward the traditional beauties of asian cultures, the warmth of collectivist communities where life is lived outward and shared.

maybe that's why no matter where i go, i yearn for asian heritage. and maybe because of that, i keep looking for places with deep history, layered identity, and a palette that feels like home.

being viet also means living in a community of the up-and-coming, of the "underdogs". we have a scarred, but very proud history of colonialism, wars both within and without. and because of that, there's a sense of want, and almost of need, to represent and defend the country no matter the context.

i identify with that, and i've continued living life feeling like i need to prove it. being a girl looking into high finance, feeling like i should be there and deserve a spot. but do i actually want it or am i still just proving myself by going down a path that demands respect?

"how you do one thing is how you do everything". i am well-aware. i've built a reputation among my friends as "unbothered". i don't think i'd like that. i can't tell you with certainty if i'm numb or if i'm actually just nonchalant.

on some level, it's probably a coping mechanism. i feel imposter syndrome in all the spaces i strive to belong. in finance, yes. in startups, yes. in creatives, yes.

i don't feel good enough anywhere.

is that why i keep yearning for a return to vietnam? because maybe i'll feel more sufficient at home, knowing i know how life works there, knowing i have my family backing me up there, knowing maybe i'll be somewhere that counts for something there?

it's safe. it's belonging. idk. it's insecurity and a lot of fear.

when i imagine going back to vietnam, the first thing i feel is -- i'm definitely going to cry.

even thinking about it makes me want to cry.

matter of fact, i'm already crying.

i think i'm incredibly homesick. being here is, in a sense, me finding myself. i'm building a more complete version of me in america. but i also feel like losing a part of myself. i am deeply and will forever be viet. i want to speak viet.

my roommate, lyla, asked if i think in english or vietnamese. it makes me sad that i think in english now. it's like seeing a part of me slipping away.