The following is a story I wrote that was published in the latest issue of a Siem Reap literary magazine called The Siem Reader. 

As Fast as I Can Pedal

By: Travis Thompson

My bike chain screeches.  I’ve forgotten to oil it.  I pedal the final kilometers from Siem Reap to my house in Puok with sweat on my forehead which is threatening to drip into my eyes. This Sunday afternoon ride is strenuous.  I spent Saturday night in the city drinking with friends.

I glide past rainy season, green rice fields, and mango sellers who are in their hammocks, dazed by the afternoon heat.  A naked child in front of his house waves at me.  I ring my bike bell and wave back.

I pass water buffaloes that are up to their necks in water.  A motorcycle repair shop, a boat builder sawing wood, and a group of boys playing volleyball line the rest of my route.  I recognize a lot of people—most are my English students.  They call, “Teacher!”  I yell, “Hello!”

This is a world of small things, a world I’d forgotten in my years of college and career-climbing.  I’d raced into adulthood, getting lost in goals that weren’t enough.  I needed to see more.

In America, I’d seen a world spinning at break-neck speed.   A TV reporter on the run, I was focused on my next deadline, my next breaking news story, every minute, every day.  For years my world was one of cameras, microphones, murders, fires, crashes and crying victims.  I saw life through the despair of those who told me their stories.  I saw flashes of beauty, but the flashes were as fast as lightning as I rushed to the next tragedy.

As I left that life, I cried.  I’d used my cell phone for the last time in the United States to call my parents, sister, and three best friends from the airport gate.  None of us really knew what I was getting into.  But, my wanderlust carried me through the steps—selling my car, ditching my possessions, quitting my career, leaving everyone I knew.  My wanderlust carried me onto the plane with hopes of understanding the world differently.

“Bong pro!” Nuut, the five-year-old boy who lives next door to me in Puok shouts, “Big brother!” as I ride into the driveway of my house.  I park my bike and walk over to him.  He puts his hand up for a high five and smiles, revealing his missing tooth.  I give him a high five.  Then, he runs toward the side of his house.  I wait.  I know what he’s doing because he does it every time he sees me.

He returns carrying a handful of red and yellow flowers he picked from his family’s garden.  He hands them to me.  I say in English, “Thank you,” and shake his hand.

He repeats me, continuing to call me big brother.  He says, “Thank you, bong pro.”

I put the flowers in my pocket.  Even after a year, I’m still taken aback by the warmth of my neighbors.  The flowers feel like a gift from another time—a Cambodia where people lined the streets of Phnom Penh to sell flowers in the 1960s, a Cambodia that never knew a blinding darkness.

But, these flowers are a gift from today.  They’re as bright as the rice fields, coconut trees, and sky were through the window of my plane as it approached Pochentong International a year and a half ago.  The language, the heat, the polite bow of a stranger greeting me—Cambodia seemed foreign during those first moments on the ground.  But, the brightness has always felt familiar, like a voice from my youth calling, “Open your eyes.”

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To check out this entire issue of The Siem Reader, click here.

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