For the Sake of All Living Things Read Online Free Page A

entered the current. To the other side the basin floor rose. Colors, people emerged. They were all there by the side of the river. His entire family, Sok, Vathana, Yani and the boys, all, but much younger, even his father, strong, large, powerful. There too were distant relatives, neighbors, friends from the far reaches of Cambodia, even the Mountaineer, Y Ksar from Plei Srepok, all gathered as if for a great celebration. But the occasion was not happy.
    His worry rose. He felt besieged. People were in small groups, some in the shade beneath the trees, some in the sun at the edge of the road leading back to Phum Sath Din, some at the river’s edge. Only his older brother spoke to him, listened to him, but it was as if he, Cahuom Chhuon, were not really there but only a body like his and that body spoke a foreign tongue. He tried to call his brother, to explain, to warn....He did not know of what. Something. Something very important. Something to be done. The people looked to him, to that body? He felt responsible but he was not there? Why? Why could he not reach them? Why was his brother resisting? He must reach them.
    They milled around behind his brother, milled, not as a mob but more as if guests at a wedding, yet without happiness, without laughter, without the traditional feast. Behind them the river was brown. The sky turned mist green, green from the lush forest growth through which he watched. Dusk was upon them. Chhuon shuddered, stiffened. The waters of the Srepok, swollen by monsoon rains, roared over rapids. To his nose came the rancid aroma of river mud. Then a terrible, foul stench which made him retch. Then, on the river, in the river, all fallen into the quick current, frightened, not fighting the flow, riding the rushing water—Sok, Vathana, whole families fallen into the stream, sucked down current. From one bank tigers slashed mighty claws, from the other crocodiles slithered. Then, in the water, elephants, massive, swimming down upon them, coursing more quickly than water flow, overtaking him, them all, crushing them beneath their immensity, smashing them into rocks, into banks in their frenzy, he popping up like a cork, riding the empty water. Alone.
    Phum Sath Din, Stung Treng Province, Cambodia, 5 August 1968—The sound of a heavy truck struggling through mud woke Cahuom Chhuon from his restless dreaming. He lay on his back on the sleeping mat. It was very dark in the house. Chhuon’s children lay side to side on a second mat. Chhuon listened. The truck was close, just across the river. He raised his arms, crossed his forearms over his face. Every day, he thought. The truck passed. Chhuon brought his arms to his sides, folded his hands over his navel. He thought deeply, meditated, attempting to resee the dream, attempting to sink back into the restless disturbing journey. Later, he thought, if I can recall it, I will tell the khrou , or perhaps the monk. He dozed.
    “ssst,” Samnang hissed to Samay.
    “ssshh,” the older boy hushed his brother.
    “ssst,” Samnang whispered again. Chhuon coughed in his sleep.
    “ssshh,” Mayana whispered to both, “you’ll wake papa.”
    “he talks in his sleep,” Samay said.
    “i know,” Samnang hissed, “i was awake, i never sleep.”
    “ssh!” Vathana’s hiss was quick, terse, “it’s not time to get up.”
    Very quietly, so the girls couldn’t hear, Samnang whispered to his brother, “samay.”
    “eh?”
    “does the devil really have a great ledger for recording all the evil deeds we do?”
    “you think of things like that at this hour, eh? go back to sleep, look how you disturb papa.”
    “samay,” Samnang whispered again, “why can’t a monk and a girl come in contact?”
    “sleep,” Samay ordered, “if you didn’t put bad thoughts into your head, you would sleep like peou.” Again all was silent.
    At six o’clock Chhuon rose quietly, moved to the door of the bamboo, wood and thatch home. His mother snored quietly in her small