The Lotus Pond
The prisoner kneels beside the lotus-filled pond. Hands tied behind back. Head down. Faded black clothes hang from his body. He is thin, hardened, barely an echo of the young man I remember.
“Rachany, please.” He doesn’t look up. “You know me.”
“Be quiet.”
The jungle forms a wall behind us. I turn away from him and crouch next to the water’s edge. Pink lotus flowers burst like aberrations in this green and brown world.
His unsteady voice reaches me from behind. “What did they do to you?”
“You’re a traitor.” I wash dirt from my hands in the warm water. “To Angkar.”
A leech latches to my skin. I flick it off with my finger. The sun is low, sending its shadows over the land. I’ve always preferred the dark.
The lotuses look prime for eating. Such a rare quality — both beautiful and useful, thriving in the poorest places.
“Rachany, remember the old days. Sneaking you into my room while my parents worked. The hot afternoons.”
A small brown frog hops along the edge of the pond. I imagine my captive’s stomach growling at the sight of such a delicacy.
I’d sent my younger comrades away. It could be easy. Untie his hands. Turn my back. Walk off. No goodbyes.
His voice settles into the rhythms of another time. “I always connect you with the scent of jasmine. The tree grew outside my room. I threaded the flowers into chains you wore around your neck.”
Of course, one of my comrades would probably inform on me. They fear me. But there are others they fear more. What do I owe this stranger from a different life?
“You loved me once,” he says.
“You left.”
“Seems you did too.”
I turn, and the dusk light illumines his eyes — dark, large, unchanged since childhood. Sad and lovely.
He holds my gaze. “What’s it like?”
“What?”
“Killing someone.”
“Strange, at first. But then it just becomes necessary.”
“You think this is necessary?”
I look away, spinning the familiar dogmas in my head. No gain in keeping. No loss in weeding out. Have no love but for Angkar.
The frog settles itself close to my foot, seemingly unaware of its own vulnerability. How easily I could crush it.
I stand behind him and lean down. Close. Breathing him in. He smells not of jasmine but of sweat and dirt. I run my fingers around the outside of his lean arms, down to his bound, calloused hands. His body stills, as if not even a muscle dares move.
There is only one way for this story to end. The way all stories end.
The rock weighs in my hand. I smash his head. It only takes one blow. He falls forward, blood spilling. The frog swims into the pond, fleeing the flow of crimson.
I sit with him until the deep night slips over us, and then walk back to the camp.
Tomorrow, we will harvest lotus flowers.
