The One Missing It Early and the One With This Afternoon, Over Fish Cake Noodles

Saturday noon. A three-day trip to Quy Nhơn had gone only a day and a half, and I was already counting.

The fish cake noodle place sat right by the sea, a plastic table with a smear of fish sauce on it, a ceiling fan turning slowly. The bowl was still steaming, and I had eaten two mouthfuls. My head, though, had already run ahead to Monday morning: the email I had not opened, the coach on Sunday afternoon, the suitcase not yet packed. Then two voices in me began talking to each other. I wrote it down, afraid I would forget it later.

The-one-missing-it-early: One and a half days left. Count them: this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow morning, and by noon tomorrow the room has to be handed back. Then it is over.

The-one-with-this-afternoon: It is twenty past twelve right now. The noodles are hot. This afternoon is still whole.

The-one-missing-it-early: Whole how. Lunch ends at one, a rest at the guesthouse till three, the beach is glaring by then, seafood at night, sleep, and then it is already Sunday morning. I know how it goes.

The-one-with-this-afternoon: You just ran a whole lap to Sunday while the bowl is barely lower. Did you taste a single piece of fish cake?

I picked one up. Pepper, a faint fishiness, sweet broth. I swallowed it and realized I remembered nothing about it. My mouth was chewing, and my head was elsewhere.

My phone buzzed on the table. Mom had sent a Zalo message: "Is the sea beautiful?", with a smiley sticker. I typed "Beautiful, Mom," deleted it, and typed again: "I have not been to the beach yet, Mom, still eating noodles." Only after sending did it strike me as funny: sitting right beside the sea and answering like someone who had not arrived.

The-one-missing-it-early: Two months of waiting for three days. I only want to appreciate it.

The-one-with-this-afternoon: I am not saying missing is bad. Missing is a sign you like it here. It is just that you are spending the only noon there is on worrying about Sunday, and missing it now does not buy back a single minute.

The-one-missing-it-early: So what then? Pretend the trip is longer?

The-one-with-this-afternoon: No pretending needed. This afternoon has three things: slip on flip-flops and walk to the beach, buy a coffee from the sidewalk stall, sit and watch people fly kites. Do those three and this afternoon is done.

The-one-missing-it-early: And tonight, and tomorrow morning?

The-one-with-this-afternoon: Tonight can wait until tonight. I am only keeping this afternoon.

I set my chopsticks across the rim of the bowl. The owner called out for someone to come get two bowls, and a motorbike revved on the coastal road. By then the first voice spoke again, quieter, no longer in a hurry:

The-one-missing-it-early: I know one thing ahead of time. On the last day I will miss it, no matter how fully I am here today.

The-one-with-this-afternoon: Yes. I know. When that day comes, miss it, and I will sit with you. Just not right now.

The two voices went quiet. I heard the ceiling fan, saw a drop of fish sauce seeping down the table edge. I picked up the second piece of fish cake. This time it had a taste.

I noticed something after that, not right then at the table. Missing it early feels like a kind of love: caring so much about what you have that you are afraid to lose it. But the way it works is the opposite, because it pulls you out of the very thing you fear losing. The more I worried about Sunday, the more absent I was on Saturday. And the Monday morning arrives either way, whether I worry or not.

I am not saying do not miss things. Missing is real, and there is room for it. It just gets its own hour.

Nor should this afternoon turn into a list of things to enjoy in full. The three things are not a quota. If I get to the beach and sit hunched over my phone, that is still this afternoon, and nobody is grading it. On Friday I did exactly that kind of wrong: I took forty sunset photos and, looking back at home, could not remember the smell of the wind when I took them.

The first time I tried it, it seemed almost too simple, and my mind still jumped to tomorrow five or six times in five minutes. After a week, some people find they come back faster, and some still jump as much as before. Both are normal. On a busy day, the whispered "right now" and one long out-breath are enough.

If you are the kind of person who feels heavy from Sunday afternoon onward, why anxiety shows up on Sunday evenings speaks to that more directly than this piece does. And impermanence in the passage of time is also about standing fully inside a moment that is about to pass, from a different scene.

If the fear of losing something you have takes over your whole day, lasts several weeks, or makes it hard to eat or sleep, it is worth talking with someone who has professional training. Not because you are weak. Some fears are more than one afternoon at the beach can untangle.

That afternoon I went to the beach in flip-flops, hot sand slipping between my toes. I bought a coffee from the sidewalk stall and sat watching people fly kites. A kite fell twice, and the people sent it up again. I did all three things, and Saturday afternoon was done.