Leaving The Slums

• Samuel Bearup, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

Sothy lived in the slums of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a place where the water is teeming with disease, and the food is scarce. Sothy’s parents could only afford the smallest portions of rice each day, and that was only because of their children’s scavenging in the open rubbish dumps. Sadly, even that wasn’t enough. Sothy’s family began looking through the dumps for not only materials to bring to the collector, but also any leftover food scraps that would be enough to sustain them for another day. Sothy, however, would not accept the scraps.
There were many reasons for why Sothy chose not to eat like the others. For one, he knew that any food they found in the dump was indubitably infested with potentially fatal diseases. However, the prime reason Sothy didn’t eat was because there simply wasn’t enough food to go around. He thought that maybe, if he just didn’t eat any more than was absolutely necessary, his siblings could survive past childhood. Maybe.
After bathing reluctantly within the infectious grasp of Tonlé Sap, the lake that flows past the slums, Sothy came home to find his parents in a tense discussion. He hid behind a corner and listened in to what they were saying.
“— He’s too young!” he heard his mother say.
“Exactly,” his father rebutted, “I will not allow my son to starve while he is still a child.”
“Then how will we pay? We don’t have enough money for food, much less enough to buy a ticket to Australia!”
“We can sell the Chakhe,” his father gestured towards the instrument that was resting on the table.
“Are you certain this is the right thing to do?”
“Sothy must leave. If he stays, he will surely die.”
Blood pounded in Sothy’s ears. His chest hurt with every beat of his heart. He felt as if he were sinking into a black void, where there was an absence of everything but pain. His parents wanted him to leave. Sothy had never been so hopelessly sad in his entire life. What hurt him the most was the terrible acceptance that they were right. With every waking day, it became harder to sate the ravenous monster that was his hunger. It fed on his life force, ripped at his stomach and made him almost too weak to stand. If Sothy didn’t go somewhere with more food soon, the monster would consume his entire being…
The small boat cast a dark and foreboding shadow across the shore. Sothy was packed in with hundreds of others. The boat creaked and shook with every small wave that splashed against it. Sothy’s family was standing at the dock, staring sadly at the vessel that would take their boy away. His mother was crying vigorously, and his father was shaking as if he were colder than the water. Sothy closed his eyes and pictured how things would be for him from now. The boat shuddered and began its journey.