Kou: Takmau, April 975

First, I tell you story about day our lives change forever. Hot, dusty day, a month before the rains swell Tonle Sap, fill all Cambodia rivers. Perhaps you remember?

Midday outside our house. Mae sleeping in hammock and you laughing, running circles with Amonk. So so hot I cook clams on ground; they just blister in sun.

“You hungry?” I ask Mae. She shake her head no. Too hot to eat.

I always hungry. I watch you play, eat rice and clams. But oh I ache, miss my husband. Kuan not coming home. Two days ago his friend stop by to tell me.

“Something terrible about to happen,” he say. “Kuan want me give you this.” He hands me $20 and Kuan’s army uniform. “Not safe for him here, he leave country.”

What I thinking anyway. Not like no signs. Every night, Kuan and I lie beside each other in bed, listening to battle sounds under covers.

My world so small. Kuan all I think about. I so crazy in love with him. What could be more terrible than this? I scheming how to meet in City. Yesterday, we heard that airport close. Maybe he still here. Maybe not too late.

I jump to my feet, hear bombs and gunfire. Noise too close.

“Gee, what’s going on?”

Across lake see smoke and people running. Mae sit up in hammock. You stop playing, grab at my skirt. More gunshots, bombs. In seconds, Highway just beyond front yard is crowded with people rushing towards Phnom Phen.

Everywhere stench of gunpowder. Things happening so fast, camera going snap, snap, snap, only each picture frozen in slow motion like trapped in nightmare where you scream and no sound.

Gunfire, explosions, smoke closer and closer. Friends and neighbors speed past on motorcycles and trucks.
“Leave, leave!”.

Ba arrive on his bicycle.

“Get in house,” he yell. “Khmer Rouge attack. Hide, hide.”
I grab you and we run upstairs.

“We go to Phnom Phen,” I say. “Why we stay here? Everyone leaving.”

Ba not listen. “We safe here. Enough food for three months.”

I o angry. Want to go with everyone else to City. Maybe Kuan still there. We stay with his family.

But Ba in charge and so we stay.

We lock all doors, close windows. People running by just outside, pounding on the door “Get out! Get out!” Instead, we hide under the bed in the back room.
We here for long time. You want your favorite toy. I run toward front room to fetch it,suddenly hear loud noise. Scramble back under bed. Knock on door downstairs, friend of Ba’s calling up: “Are you still there? A bomb has fallen on your house. Is anyone in there?”

Sun setting. We still under bed when we hear someone kicking open downstairs door. We so quiet, even Amonk know no make noise. We hear people knocking things off shelves, throwing things around rooms. Now they climb stairs. Three pair shoes enter. Rubber shoes made from tires. Khmer Rouge. We so quiet as they move through room, throwing open cabinets, scattering everything on floor.

But Ba too tall. One of soldiers see his feet.

“Get out, get out from under there,” he order. We crawl out. We so frightened. I hold you in my arms so tight.

Three rifles point at us.

“Do you have guns here? Any army hiding in house?”

You sit on floor, playing with roll toilet paper while Ba talks.

"No, no, we not army. Just let us stay here. No problem."

Soldiers say we have to leave. No time to take anything with us. We not safe here. Americans going to bomb city. We leave now. In three days things safe, we return.

Out. Out. So quick we wrap clothing in sarongs, Ba stuffs big suitcase. We pushed at gunpoint out onto street. Soldiers everywhere. Now everyone rush away from Phnom Phen – cars, trucks, tuk-tuks overflowing with people, bicycles and motos carry whole family. Gunshots. Small boys in big black clothing scarves wrapped around heads carry guns as big as they are. Their eyes crazy with power. Bombs explode, gun battles rage. Fear so heavy you can smell it.

“Go, go, go.” Armed soldiers alongside road urge us onward, only allowing us to stop to drink from large buckets of water sitting along road.


We walk all night. Hundreds seeking shelter under trees when bullets come too close.

Ba, Mae and I take turn carrying you, your little feet tire so quickly. I so angry at Ba. Why he not see this? Why he not take us away sooner?

Finally, morning. Rest in small farm. Farmer come over with food for you. Banana leaf wrapped around sbrown rice and tiny dried fish.

Do you remember that morning, Shrey Mom, that tiny offering food? It meal for four of us.

I still haunted by way that farmer look at us. He know what in store for us. He sorry. Oh, how I hate that man because when I look at him I know. I know old life over. Life never again be normal. I know this, but I no idea three days really mean four years.

In that moment it just like they say happen before you die. My whole life flash fast before my eyes, like star shoot across sky. Like that for you, Shrey Mom? When you die, your star not have long to travel. Only five year. In my death moment, path 24 year long. My life slip away in second, not enough time even for me to reach out and capture even tiniest picture. It all gone before I finish one breath.