Lucky Child by Loung Ung

to mind. But Chou does not like to think about those times. Chou does not like to remember Keav sick and dying in her mess, smelling of feces and mold. Her eyes begin to sting again but she does not rub them. Instead, she runs her hand over her arms to wipe the chill off her skin.
    “Chou! Are you working or dreaming?” Cheung yells out.
    Chou turns to look at Cheung, who stares back at her with dark eyes. Cheung and Keav were great friends, but whereas Chou’s sister was known for her beauty, her cousin is known for her ability to work hard. At seventeen, Cheung is slender and pretty, but the war, their poverty, and their busy lives do not allow her the free time to think about romance. Chou wonders how Keav would have adjusted to a life like this. In Phnom Penh, Keav was always dreaming of falling in love with a handsome boy who would treat her like a princess. Kim and Khouy thought her brain was uselessly muddled by romance.
    “Keav,” Khouy would call out to her as she sat in front of the mirror, pinning yet another new colorful barrette in her hair. “Don’t primp so much. You know you’re only going to grow up to marry a cyclo driver.”
    “Do you think so?” Keav scrunched her face with worry. Khouy and Kim would laugh at her readiness to believe them.
    Chou often wonders if Khouy ever thinks about Keav and their sad times under the Khmer Rouge. Whenever Chou hears him talk about the war, he entertains his audience with gory details and humor. As he acts out his stories, his voice booms with drama and bravado but never sadness. When she listens to him, sometimes she forgets her sadness and laughs along. But when his stories are over, she is left with her memories of Geak’s hunger and Keav’s death.
    If she were alive, thinks Chou, Keav would be seventeen years old. And without doubt she would be the most beautiful girl in the village. Chou does not know which one makes her drop more tears, the dream of Keav’s life or the nightmare of her death. Shaking her head, Chou walks to the edge of the forest and picks up a dead branch from the thick brush. The brush holds on to the branch with its webs of vines and shoots, but they are no match for Chou’s rusty ax as it crashes down on them, chopping off their hold. For the next few hours, Chou pulls, chops, and shaves as her woodpile grows. Her arms, which were like pliant, strong bamboo in the morning, are now stiff and weak like deadwood. Under her dark blue clothes, her body aches and burns, but Chou stops only to wipe the sweat off her face, her calloused hand dragging dirt and grime from her forehead to her cheeks. Her old shirt sticks to her skin and smells of sweat.
    In the sky, the sun passes over her head, changing her shadows fromshort and stout to long and lean. The sun grows weaker, but the humidity doesn’t lose any of its strength. By the time they have collected enough wood, Chou’s hair is damp and oily and Cheung’s is plastered to her skull. Together, the cousins wrap their ropes around their piles. Then they sit on the ground facing each other, with a pile of wood in between them. They push their bare feet against the wood and, while pulling at the rope, they rock the pile back and forth until the rope is taut before Chou double-knots it. As they rise, they plant their axes and more branches in their bundles of wood and are ready to go. Chou then takes her tattered black-and-white checkered krama scarf off her shoulders, pulls both ends tightly, and rolls it into a spiral circle. She places the scarf on top of her head and bends her knees for Cheung to put the woodpile gingerly on her krama. After she’s helped Chou, Cheung heaves her own pile onto her shoulder. Then with another push she lifts it off her shoulder and onto her head. With heavy woodpiles on their steady heads, the cousins look forward and march in single file back to the village.
    As they approach their village and then their home, Chou’s neck throbs painfully, her lower