“Our truck inches on in the streets,
allowing us a safe view of the scene. Everywhere, people scream their
good-byes to those who choose to stay behind; tears pour from their
eyes. Little children cry for their mothers, snot dripping from their
noses into their open mouths. Farmers harshly whip their cows and oxen
to pull the wagons faster. Women and men carry their belongings in cloth
bags on their backs and their heads. They walk with short, brisk steps,
yelling for their kids to stay together, to hold each other’s hands, to
not get left behind. I squeeze my body closer to Keav as the world
moves in hurried confusion from the city. The soldiers are everywhere.
There are so many of them around, yelling into their bullhorns, no
longer smiling as I saw them before. Now they shout loud, angry words at
us while cradling rifles in their arms. They holler for the people to
close their shops, to gather all guns and weapons, to surrender the
weapons to them” (First They Killed My Father by LUONG UNG, p. 21).
