So many warm bodies press against me as the truck hits pothole after pothole headed out of the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I recognize many of the faces around me as those I do business with throughout the city. Well… That is to say I did business with them. The bank manager who cashed my paycheck every other Friday sits halfway in my lap as we bounce onward. I have no idea where I am going. The militant looking man who pulled me out of the holding cell in which I had been thrown days ago would tell me nothing of my future. I knew that the country was in trouble. I knew that people were being taken from their homes and families and not heard from again. I had heard the stories, but it didn’t seem real. I am a teacher… The mastermind of these attacks is a teacher. What have I done to deserve this?
I feel the truck begin to slow and come to a stop. Loud voices drown out my thoughts and guards pull the people near the back of the truck into the white light of the midday sun. The banker is wrenched from my lap. I can hear him asking all the same questions I have been silently asking as he is taken from me. Two men grab me by the armpits and shove me to another holding cell. I am waiting again. What could they possibly have for us here? Outside the truck is nothing but a few shacks in front of a large field filled with gaping holes… It doesn’t look like there is work for me to do here.
“Perhaps they want us to level out the field and plant things… Maybe… I hope so… Plant things that is what they want with us…”
Inside this holding cell the air is thick with the smell of chemicals and dead things as though the smell of decay was being masked with a strong unnatural cleaning agent. My stomach growls as I sit down against the wall.
Looking around at all the faces, I know that no farming is to be done here. No no… This place is a grave. We have been brought here to die for our knowledge and wealth. Lying to myself would not change my fate. The chemical smell turned straight to fear.
Time began to accelerate and drag at the same time. Fear and a glimmer of hope runs through my veins. Perhaps I am the exception. Maybe the guards will miss me. What are the chances I can just slip away. The light coming in from the cracks around the door lessened as evening came. Loud music added to the purr of diesel engines somewhere outside the building. The door opens and people are led out into the darkness. No one is coming back.
The banker and I remain together in the raging noise. I can’t see him, but I know he is there… I can feel his dread… or maybe I feel mine… or both… I think I hear screams…
The light of a flashlight blinds my eyes and hands pull me to my feet. Out the door and down the path I stumble. The guards force me in a kneeling position in front of a desk in a shack a short distance from where I spent the afternoon. A pen is placed in my hand and a confession of crimes I did not commit lay there before me.
The breath of the banker kneeling beside me comes in short shallow waves. I hear him refuse to sign this document. Seconds later warm blood splatters across my shoulders and across my face as his head meets the desk.
“You will sign.”
I pick up my pen and scribble my name. He must have too because he is pulled out of the shack just before me. We follow a path toward the field of holes. No guns were to be seen. All that holds me back is the rope freshly ties around my wrists and the strong hands on my arms. The banker and his captor stop in front of a palm tree.
“This is confusing… Why would they be… Oh God… No… What… Oh God…”
Blood pours from the bankers neck as he backs away from the tree. His captor had slit the bankers throat using the sharp bark on the tree.
Anger and fear fills every cell in my body. All the eyes around me are looking down at the bleeding banker fighting for breath. I make my move. All the might of a man dead-set on not dying lashes out from my body as I throw off the arms holding me back.
I am running…
Running…
Grass under my feet…
Swamp under my feet…
Nothing under my feet…
Light flashes in the darkness…
Every inch of my body is screaming…
Fire fills my lungs…
My feet are gone…
My hands are gone…
I am gone…
The darkness fades away to reveal a man dressed in white…
Blood is dripping from his side and hands. I see his eyes… His eyes remind me of all that I am and all that I have done. I walk towards him.
——————————————————————————————————————————
I went to the killing fields in Phnom Penh where so many people where murdered because of their education and money. I walked the ground where thousands of souls screamed for mercy as the head of a shovel took fragile life from them.
Bullets were not used to commit these crimes on account of being too expensive.
Woman were raped to death. Babies were held by the ankles and swung against a tree until they stopped crying then their lifeless bodies were tossed into a mass grave. Chemicals were poured on the bodies to mask the smell and to kill anyone still living.
The reality of the violence there hit me hard, but so did the respect of the memorial. Terrible terrible things happened in this place and many places like it in that time. Lives were not held as dearly as they should have been… This small piece of historical fiction is a very small taste
