A Nail the Evening Hangs On. Monica Sok

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      Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness

      It’s the Water Festival, the city is a crowd. My skin full of sun

      like so many country people who have come to Phnom Penh.

      The Americans hate me and I hate them,

      but they’re the only students with me and maybe I’m American too.

      When I return to my windowless room at the Golden Gate Hotel,

      I order fresh young coconut, a club sandwich, and French fries.

      A woman with a bruised face and a silver tray walks up seven floors,

      knocks on my door. The exchange students order room service too,

      and the same woman walks the flights of stairs nine more times.

      Fireworks crackle and I think, I’ll be back to this same festival with my family.

      In the morning, thirty missed calls. There has been a human stampede

      on the bridge to Koh Pich—347 reported dead, 755 injured.

      Shoes litter the river. The exchange program advises us to stay away

      from Diamond Island. The prime minister’s remarks: This is the worst thing

      to happen since the Khmer Rouge. The Americans agree.

      I grow quiet in my windowless room. I step outside for air.

      The city, a crowd disappearing. The crowd, evacuated to the provinces.

      Cambodia, a perpetual stampede.

      School canceled at the university——a funerary ceremony instead.

      Do the Americans understand the program director when she tells us

      her neighbor’s son has died? Most likely not. Later that evening

      they still don’t understand, but I go with them anyway

      to the Heart of Darkness, the nightclub empty but open.

      We dance with Khmer boys. Strobe lights pull us on the floor. This way.

      That. Our feet grope the shiny, black tiles reflecting the bar

      where old expats sit with Khmer women making money. Yeah, yeah.

      It isn’t expensive to get here or get back. We tuk-a-tuk-tuk and we dance. They laugh.

      Meanwhile my mother calls me. My father calls me. My auntie calls me

      from Prek Eng. My uncle down the street from the hotel.

      My uncle in Kandal. My cousin’s uncle in Siem Reap.