I have helped kill her.

[**The following is an excerpt from Loung Ung’s amazing memoir about her experiences as a young girl who survived the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia during the late 70s. Here, young Loung is so weak from starvation and malnutrition that she finally gets a pass to the infirmary. The Khmer Rouge long ago killed all of the nurses and doctors they could find, and the infirmary is now staffed with Khmer villagers assigned as “nurses”. Though the infirmary therefore is more of a place for people to go to die, they sometimes get a larger food ration, and Loung is slowly starting to regain her strength.**] >Though we do not have to work, we are given a ration of rice and salt and sometimes fish. The amount of food is comparable to what I was given while I worked. Though from our shiny faces and swollen bodies, we realize that we are all suffering from something similar symptoms: stomachache, extreme exhaustion, diarrhea, and aching joints. After much discussion, we conclude that we are not so much sick as weak from starvation. >[…] >Even with the daily rations of “medicine” [**a small cube of sugar**] I am always hungry. It is hard for me to walk, but I must scavenge for food. I search the bushes for frogs, crickets, grasshoppers, or anything else that can be eaten. But I am a clumsy predator, moving slowly in my sickness. On my way back to the infirmary one afternoon, I see a rice ball left unguarded beside an old woman. My hand quickly grabs it and puts it in my pocket. My heart pounds rapidly, and I walk away as fast as I can before anyone notices. >Once alone outside the compound, I am wracked with guilt for what I have done. The fist-sized rice ball rests weightily in my pocket as the face of the old woman comes back to me. Her gray oily hair clings to her skull and her chest contracts and expands in shallow breaths beneath her black clothes. Her lids are half-closed, exposing the whites of her eyes. Her helpers will return to find the rice missing and they will have nothing more to give to her. Knowing she will die anyway, they may forget about her. By taking her food I have helped kill her. But I cannot return the rice. I lift it to my lips as salty tears drip into my throat. The hard rice scrapes down in a dry lump, thus I put a marker on the old woman’s grave. ____________________________ **Source:** Ung, Loung. “The Last Gathering, May 1978.” *First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers*. Harper Perennial, 2017. 155-56. Print. __________________________ **Further Reading:** [ខ្មែរក្រហម (Khmer Rouge) / “Red Khmer”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge)