Free Alive in the Killing Fields by Nawuth Keat

was made of pliable plastic, and it had designs in squares pictured on it. Little square-shaped holes lined each edge.
    I had no idea the holes were for holding the film onto a projector. If a projector had ever been there, it was long gone. The room was empty except for the rows of canisters. For Ang and me, it was a treasure chest of toys. I held the film up to the light and saw pictures on it, eachone almost the same as the next. I slid it between my fingers and saw the scenes slowly change.
    “This is a moving picture!” I said.
    “Let’s really make it move,” said Ang.
    He pulled the film, foot by foot, from the canister. Then he flung his arm out, and the movie became a curly streamer.
    “Let’s get up high where we can really let a streamer fly,” I said.
    We each grabbed a canister and went outside. We spotted a stairway on the back of the building and climbed it to the roof. We sat down and opened our canisters, and then we unwound the film. It was really, really long. As we pulled the film out, it zigged and zagged and curled and seemed alive. I stood up and ran around the roof, holding the film like a kite behind me.
    “Over the edge,” I yelled.
    We whipped our wrists, and the streamers careened from the roof to the lot below. We wiggled our hands and the film danced, twirling from our perch down to the ground.
    “Mine’s a vine!” Ang said.
    “Mine’s a snake!” I said.
    We shook the film, laughing and yelling. Nobody who watched those movies in the theater could have enjoyed them more than we did that afternoon.
    But having fun on one afternoon could not make me forget the reality of my family’s situation. We were all torn apart. We did not know where my oldest sisterChanya was, or what might have happened to her. Was she still in Pursat? And what about Lee? As a student, he had been living with her. Where was he now? Then one day Chanya appeared in Battambang looking for us. I saw her riding a bicycle. I recognized her right away, but she was not the same sister I remembered. When the Khmer Rouge took over Pursat, Lee disappeared. We think they tortured and killed him because he was a student. They also killed Chanya’s husband because he was a police officer. Their son died of disease. She suffered an emotional breakdown. When we asked her questions, she barely responded. Speechless with grief for all she had lost, her wits gone, she had somehow managed to find us, but she could barely function. She moved in with us, but the sister I knew had disappeared forever, her mind and spirit broken.
    To survive in the city, we needed to find a consistent way to make money. The Vietnamese allowed Cambodians to ride on the Vietnamese soldiers’ supply trains for free, as long as they stayed on the roof. Bunna and I rode the train to areas in the countryside that the Khmer Rouge no longer controlled. There, we bought clothing from peasants who made it. Bunna and I sat on the roof of the trains and carried the clothing to Phnom Penh. We sold it there at a profit, and then we brought our earnings back to the family in Battambang. But our business was risky.
    Sometimes the Khmer Rouge in the jungle shot at the passing train. When wounded or killed people fell off, the Khmer Rouge took whatever they were carrying. Duringone ambush, bullets landed all around me, one bouncing off the roof between me and the person crouching next to me. Nothing but luck saved me from getting hit. Van Lan told me the danger was too great, and he told us to stop going. The next week, dozens of people were killed doing just what Bunna and I had done.
    My younger brothers and I found a way to earn a little money without riding the train. We made a cart and pushed it into the countryside. With Ang, we picked vegetables and cut sugarcane that had been planted when the Khmer Rouge controlled the area. The Vietnamese had forced the Khmer Rouge out, and now the food was ready to be harvested. Nobody was taking care of the land