RAVANNA DANCES

In the almost imperceptible distance of the freshly flooded fields, Lon could hear his father calling from afar. Squinting his eyes to see his father waving while he rode the flat-board over the rain drenched fields of mud; Lon wasted not a second more. He left his mother and sister, racing to his father’s beckoning calls for assistance. He was nearly halfway the distance from the peaceful and now awakening village, when he witnessed his father and the oxen fly straight up into the air in a column of mud, water, and smoke. Lon halted in mid-flight to the unknown horror with which his father and the oxen had been ripped apart, and heaved into the air seven to ten feet high like stuffed dolls. Out of instinct, Lon turned around, fleeing to the village as fast as his legs could carry him where his mother and sister were. His mother too was now running towards him, his sister in her arms. To Lon, everything happened so fast.  How remarkable! Lon could see very clearly the terror and despair on his mother’s contorted face as they ran to each other. Yet, it seemed to take an eternity before the two of them would ever gain the ground between each other. He didn’t exactly know what the whistles were overhead. He only knew he had to reach his now hysterical mother. In her arms his sister wearing the GI helmet on her small petite head flopping unnaturally because of the helmet. In the distance, small grass and palm thatched huts on the outskirts of Kompong Chnang erupted in clouds of palm frond bits where Lon could hear the screams of fright, pain, and most of all the loud explosions in the foreground. The village of his peaceful boyhood went up in plumes of smoke, ash and most of all he witnessed the decimation of his people. Then the whistling stopped as he and his mother neared each other. Only columns of muddy water rose out of the earth’s sodden paddies, magically some hidden force punched at the surface from down deep below. Without warning, a column of water and mud rose up in between the three of them. At the last moment, he saw his dearly beloved mother reaching for him with her left arm, making the effort to take hold of her son and save him from this malicious evil. Tears streamed down her beautiful face. His young, innocent and helpless sister wailed in fright to the unknown invisible nightmare of aggressiveness. When it was all over, the column of death slowly receded. At first, nothing! Nothing, nothing, at all, except the continuous explosions in the background. At about twenty-five yards farther away from where they had originally been, Lon could only bear witness to the twisted decapitated body of his mother and the body of his naked sister, still farther away floating in the reddish mud filled water. Feeling a warm stream of water on his face, Lon felt sick. So sick, he wanted to vomit. Gently, he wiped the water from his forehead and out of his eyes, but it didn’t help one bit. The world suddenly started to spin, whirling too fast before his eyes. For some reason, Lon had to look at his right hand and when he did, a world of blinking haziness barely gave him the time to make out what it actually was. It was blood. And then, the world began spinning faster in sheer blackness, leaving him to fall backwards into the muddy death pool.

The area of Tonle Sap had been asleep in peace since 1978. Now, on June 26, 1989, eleven years of peace had been broken by a new civil war with new players and old alike. A civil war will soon spread like a famished, uncontrollable disease.  A disease of passion that mankind has never known since humans stopped being the hunters and gatherers they once were. It is a learned passion that man cannot get rid of, nor control, for his species will forever have to conquer and dominate the other.

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The electrical storm by now had moved upon the tiny island of Bermuda and the rain came down harder, with flashes of lightning occurring spontaneously. A loud crack followed by the sound of a thousand steel drums being thrown across the hotel roof, coinciding with the next flash and crack of lightning. As Ernst was opening the door to make his getaway as quickly as possible, the large overweight woman came charging in at Ernst. He stepped to the left in a split second to avoid her large mass. He gave the woman a karate chop to the back of the neck, making her fall against the desk. Ernst came forward using his right leg in a roundhouse kick, but only his heel was to come down between the woman’s shoulder blades. Howling in pain, she hefted herself immediately off the desk, charging Ernst’s exposed right side. Ernst almost made a complete spin, but still he could not avoid her grasp. Both of them collapsed to the floor intertwined. Before Ernst could pull away, the huge woman clasped her arms around his neck and her legs intertwining with his. He could not struggle being against the bed and wall, so he used his right arm to force an elbow strike into her ribs, only to receive a grunt from the woman with no physical result. Ernst tried a second time. The same thing, a third time, a fourth and a fifth still only to have no effect. Having little success, Ernst started to blackout. Desperately, Ernst reached out for anything he could get his hands on. There must be something. His middle finger brushed a cord. Having a glimpse of hope, he strained himself even more. He snagged it!!

Yanking the cord with all of his remaining strength, the lamp on top of the nightstand fell down in front of his hands with a loud crash! The cover went flying off in the opposite direction of their struggle. Seeing what Ernst was trying to do, the woman tried to hold Ernst in his place, to keep his hands from reaching the lamp. Ernst and the woman struggled more, only to gasp and grunt in a frustrated macabre of pure hate. With a last effort of determination, Ernst stretched even more, only to grab the base of the lamp with his left hand. Lifting the lamp, he brought the bulb down upon the floor, smashing it. The fine wires were still intact. The woman used her free right hand to try and grasp the lamp out of Ernst’s hand. Waving the lamp to antagonize and frustrate his assailant, Ernst managed to push the switch on with his fingers. He then quickly turned the lamp into her left arm that was crushing t