Stay Golden

   Take me home

…they were building another city perhaps, a perfect one, free from child labour, sex tourists and bad things.

It was a February evening, 2011 around 7 0’clock and she was standing at the corner of a bustling street in the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The sun was about to leave the day. She stood and watched the orange rays of dusky sunlight cut through the brown hue of the mighty Mekong River. A gentle baby breeze held the humidity to ransom. The aroma of spicy street food reminded her that she had forgotten to eat dinner. The place hummed around her at brake neck speed, elephants, robe clad monks, taxis, motorbikes, travellers and children; so many children, all occupying their space in time and tide.

 

Within eyeshot a group of little boys sat on a dusty footpath taking a break from their evening shift of selling books. They beckoned her over- smiles with blackened teeth and waves with blackened palms. She knew these children now and they knew her. They knew she was not a tourist and could converse a little, they had seen her ordering her food in the market each morning, attempting small talk with the vendors. She wanted to go to them, to sit and laugh and play their old fashioned games but she couldn’t move, she was empty, so she smiled instead and just said hello.

They propped and stacked their raggedy old books up in towering piles, they looked to be making some sort of fort with them. Complete with old rubbish bags, scraps of old tyres and bottle tops, they were building another city perhaps, a perfect one, free from child labour, sex tourists and bad things. They were in their moment and she was in hers. As she studied, for one last time, their beautiful little faces, she felt the warm trickle of a salty tear race down her face.

The city then lit up before her eyes, flashing neon lights, signs for ‘live girls’ and ‘cold beer’ replaced the innocence of daylight. The Asian night arrives in quickly, without delay. Everyone and everything seemed to be in its rightful place. “This is life”, she thought- part beauty, part beast. 

“Bong Srey, your taxi is here”, came a voice waking her from herself.  “We go to airport now, time to go home. “Thank you”, she smiled politely. “You come back to Cambodia sometime?” he quizzed as he lifted her bag into the boot; the very bag that had brought her on so many other adventures around the world but this one felt vastly unrelated. She managed to exhale out the words, “I hope so” before the wave of an enormous sob crashed into her soul; big tears flowed and she was helpless to stop them so she did what her wise mother had taught her to do, lean into the pain and it will pass. She cried like a baby.

   The taxi melted in to the night and she was gone.