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“Where do we keep chalk?” Pa murmurs to himself. “Where is it?”

“Pa…”

I want to tell him where the chalk is, but he disappears into the house. We’ve only left it for a few minutes and already it feels abandoned.

Pa reappears wearing wrinkles on his forehead. He leaps onto the deck and begins to scrawl Uncle Surg’s name in huge strokes on the wall of the house. Then Than’s name is marked in place, followed by a message for them to meet us in Year Piar. In the wall note he tells Uncle Surg not to worry about his wife and two children—that he’s caring for them, taking them with us to Year Piar. They’ll be fine and he’ll see them soon.

“Let’s go, koon,” Pa says softly as he steps off the deck.

The exodus resumes. Main streets are closed, patrolled by the Khmer Rouge. Our family walks in a tight cluster, joining a slow trickle of people that becomes a tide. Around me, people move sluggishly, as if slogging through thick mud. Everybody carries something, except the littlest children. Pa walks the scooter, its tires squashed under the weight of suitcases and bags strapped to the backseat. Map and Vin stand at the front of the scooter, on the footrail. Chea and Ra walk bicycles with cooking ware and blankets strapped to them. Underneath Chea’s, Ra’s, and Ry’s blouses are three cloth belts containing our money. Mak and Ry carry cooked foodstuffs. Aunt Heak carries a handbag of baby clothes on her shoulder, her infant son in one arm, her older son’s hand with the other. She frowns as she stares into space, transfixed by the invisible.

Out of the heart of the city, along the roads and streets, everywhere there are Khmer Rouge. They police everyone, tell us where to go. Merging onto a main thoroughfare, my family joins a chaotic mass of humanity. More people than I have ever seen, stuffed onto a paved street never meant to absorb these numbers. We are among a throng of about 2 million Cambodians who are forced from the city in a matter of days. Lines collect at the Sturng Mean Chey Bridge like solid matter jamming the neck of a bottle. From the mouth of the bridge stretches a massive river of humans with their belongings strapped to motorcycles, bikes, pedicabs, cars, carts, anything they’ve got. It is too crowded to drive. Anything motorized must be pushed. The human river flows on, as far as the eye can see. Around me I see city people, country people, recent refugees. Outsiders who fled here only weeks ago have little. Those who don’t have vehicles to transport their belongings carry them, baskets and bundles of possessions tied to both ends of a long stick and balanced on their shoulders. To me the scene seems like a page out of history, though schoolbooks and lessons seem worlds away right now.

Intermingled with the humans are a group of frenzied pigs, dogs, and chickens. I can hear the fear in the incessant squeals of pigs, the protest of chickens carried under arms and tied into baskets. Stationed on shoulders of the street, and on military trucks along the route, are young Khmer Rouge soldiers, mostly men. All dressed in black uniforms with dark blue-checked scarves tied on their heads or wrapped around their necks. Around their waists are loose belts of grenades and bullets. And in their hands and on their shoulders are machine guns. They point them at us, ordering us to move forward, to keep on moving, toward the bridge, not back into the city. There is only out, no in.

Amid this mass of people is a little boy, about three, in gray shorts and a shirt. He cries at the top of his lungs. He is being moved along by the crowd while his little hands are raised in the air, shielding himself from the people passing. As we move forward, I no longer see him. But his cry still pierces the air, and I think of him and his little bare feet.

I notice a sobbing couple fighting against the crowd, trying to wrestle their way back into the city. They look dressed up, as if they’ve just come from an office. But they’re stopped short by Khmer Rouge soldiers on the street. Rifles point toward them like accusing fingers. The couple quickly