I am swallowed by a huge chunk of coal, devoured in the very act of awakening. I breath like a mummy in endless black silence.

Familiar sounds filter through; my spirit has left my body and gazes into this thick cocoon. I surrender into peacefulness, maybe this at last is my death.

A tiny lavendar butterfly brushes lightly against the dark cocoon. Her near transparent wings whish as she lightly lands atop the darkness, just off center to the right. Her wings flitter in miniscule movements up and down. I imagine that she must have a bee’s stinger because it appears as if she is driving a thin sharp drill into the darkness.

Behind my eyes a brilliant yellow disk, with rivets like the margins of songs on a vinyl record. Strands and small pebbles of black

“Kim, Wake up!”

I open my eyes. Sister is sitting beside me on the bamboosl slats. Her face appears distorted, as if I am viewing her through asilly waved mirror. It expands, shrinks, stretches taut, bends ... impossibly grotesque.

“I thought I was dead,” I whisper. “Everything was black.”

“Chicken blindness,” she says. Night blindness.”

Her voice is total fear. What is it, I wonder. She worries that now she has to take care of me? She worries that I am getting too sick and won’t be able to work? But I see no worry in her eyes. Only frustration, maybe anger.

I sit up quickly and try to stand. I have to show her I can take care of myself.

The room spins around me like I am caught inside a small tornado. I reach for the wall to support me. Even before I feel the earth settle still beneath my feet, she is already out the door.

“Don’t be late,” she calls back. “We don’t want any trouble.”

Chicken blindness soon becomes almost comforting. Most days, my vision clears with the growing sunlight as we walk to the fields. I begin looking forward to these sightless hours; it feels safe inside my black cocoon, far away from the horrors of life around me. Even my memories are lost. I feel free. Everyone acts as if I am not even there.

My chicken eyes have not been with me long as I rush one evening back from the pond, so angry that there is not enough water left to even wash myself. The sun is setting, already darkness swells behind my eyes. Maybe I have a fever, maybe I am possessed by some wicked spirit. Because when I see my neighbor with his two children, I loose my head.

“They say they make our country better,” I say, as I approach them. “The country is not better! Now we have no water to take a bath. How can they do this?”

Right away, I know this is a mistake, their silence is so loud. My neighbor turns away as if he doesn't recognize me. Then I notice the young man standing with them. Some stranger. Whatever, I think. Just someone new to the camp.

Two weeks go by. I am sitting in front of my house. Two Khmer officers walk from the dining tent.

“Oh, somebody is in trouble,” I think. “Somebody else will disappear today.”

The Army officers are getting closer. Hut by hut, everyone looks so happy as they pass by, realizing they are safe. But now they are right in front of my home. My blood turns to ice. Big grasshoppers bounce in heart. My teeth click click click.
Two big shadows stop in front of me. I can feel my eyes roll back in my head in horror.

“You come to Kamatoo right now,” one of them says. I look up. He is so ugly, a big broken nose, a face pocked like plucked chicken.A big, big belly.

“Nothing is wrong.” The other solder is tall and skinny, not like me, more normal skinny and he smiles as he reaches down and grabs my arm.

“Major just wants to talk to you about school.”

I dig my feet into the brittle soil. Struggle against this man so hard. Where does this energy come from?

“No school for me. I do not want to die.” I scream and my sisters run outside and grab onto each other. I fight these horrible men. Fight for my life. All this time, I think I do not want to go on, I want to leave this body, I pray that my eyes do not open. Why do I want to live so bad now? So strange, I think. So strange that you fight so hard. What for? You are only going to die anyway.

“You don’t want me, Big mistake. Please. Who will take care of my little sister?”

“Go with them,” big sister cries. “Just a couple of days and you'll come home. You have to go.”

I know she doesn't believe this. She is trying to comfort me, to comfort herself.

***

We walk, rice field after rice field, single file, one in front, one in back. The sun sinks in the sky. Oh, how I want Mae. Where is she now? I m so tired, my legs are so weak. I stumble, fall to the ground. Need rest.
“Go, go.” The soldier behind me is very impatient. He wants me to walk faster.

I fall again and grab onto weeds but he rip me up and pushes me forward with the butt of his rifle.

Now finally my tears, too, are frightened away.

“Don’t hurt me, please. Don’t hurt me.”

We walk maybe half a day before arriving at a giant temple. A rush of hope, of happy childhood days enlivens me. Maybe it is not so bad, I think. Maybe it is some kind of school after all.

They push me up the steps and through the large door. All I can think about is water.

The smell of stale rotten air gags me as we enter. Nothing in my life could have prepared me for this.

Line after line of college students sit on the floor, legs in front of them. Long chains stretch from one end of the temple to the other, binding their cuffed feet together, like small dried fish rotting in a can, packed tight against each other.

Death faces. Hundreds and hundreds of death faces.

Tortured screams cut through the air from behind a huge Buddha near the back of the temple. The death faces do no change as behind them a man is dragged outside still screaming.

The soldiers push me down at the end of a row near the middle of the room. They do not chain my feet.

Oh, I do not know how I can sit here with this terror, just waiting for death. I pray. I call out to Mae, "Take me away, Come back for me, Mae."

This is a mistake. When mayor sees me he will know. He will be angry with the guardds for wasting his time. He'll send me home. Oh, my sisters will be so happy. They will teat me the best. Share more of their food with me. Everyone in the camp will be so happy.

It is night when the guards finally bring us rice and dried fish. I fall asleep and wake up later when something hits me in the back. I sit up and feel around in the darkness until my fingers curl aroud the familiar shape of a mango.
In the morning I eat mango with rice. No one else eating, though. They are all too sick. Close to dying. Do I have death face, too? How would I know this? I have not seen my face in years.

When they finally come for me, I know where they are taking me; back behind the Buddha, into the torture room. A big man stands in front of me.

“Uncle, please don’t hurt me. Please.” I place my hands under my chin. “Whatever I said, I didn't mean anything. I am just so hungry, so starving.”

He doesn't care what I say. He only wants to ask me about my life before the camps.
“My husband was a rhickshaw man.” I just repeat and repeat this, time after time as e tries to trip me up in my story.

‘I sold fruit, sometimes clothes.”

They ask so many questions. I know they want to hit me. But they know I am going to die soon. Why bother?

Finally, the big man waves me away.

We leave the torture room and the guards let me go outside to the bathroom. I see two naked men whose arms and legs are chained to the temple wall. And then I see that man, that man from the camp who had been with my neighbor. He smiles at me. He is a spy. He told them about me. Oh, I am so stupid.

Next day the guards take me again behind the Buddha.

“Mut,” the mayor says. “You are going to tell us the truth or you will die like the others.”
“No truth to tell, uncle. This is a big mistake. Please, don’t hurt me.”

They wrap my head in plastic bag and stretch it tight across my face, "Tell the truth or you die."

My hands tear at the plastic. My breath sucks the fabric deep into my throat.


I look out behind mask, everything is so slow. Why are they screaming at me? Why are they twisting my fingers, kicking my legs with their filthy feet? Suddenly I feel so peaceful inside. I Just want to sleep now. No pain. My eyes are closing.

I dream about Mae. She is right beside me. My finger hurts so bad and she comes and blows on it.

I hear someone calling me and open my eyes. I am back among the death faces in the temple.

“I thought you were dead.” A ghost-girl is sitting beside me. Where is Mae? I look down at my finger, feel her breath. Then I close my eyes again, go home to my mother.

They come for me one more time. Ask the same questions but they don't use the plastic bag again. The Mayor tell me to take buckets of shit and dump them outside. Two buckets, but I am so weak I need two hands for each bucket.

The big man is gone when I return. A guard yells “Wash your hands. Come with me.”

We are on a bicycle now.

“Where are you taking me? Where are we going?” He doesn't answer, just keeps pedaling.

“Where you think you going?” he finally ask. I look and look around me. I am so frightened I have no idea where I am. Time goes by and I just flop back and forth on the back of that bike, like an old rag doll.

“Oh, look at that tree there. It looks like we are near my house. Are we near my camp?”

The guard thinks I am crazy because we are right next to my house and I don't even recognize things.


the guard takes me to the leader's house. I lam ucky, he say. From now on be careful. Next time I will not be so lucky.

I walk home. Oh so many people are happy to see me, so many tears and hugs. I didn't realize how many people even know me.

I pull away from these strangers, They scare me. They look like monkeys. They turned into monkeys while I was gone. What happened? Maybe I do not belong here anymore.

“You don't know me, Dong? I am your sister.”

One of the monkeys takes my arm, she is crying so hard. “We thought we'd never see you again.”

I am so confused.

“Where's Mae? I want to see Mae.”

“Mae is dead. Don't you remember?"

What does she know, my sister? How could she know that Mae visited me? I will just keep my secret. Pretend I am really coming home. I remember this place but it is from so long ago, almost as far away as Takmou. Rememebering is as difficult as using a tiny thread to pull a huge fish from a bottomless river.