Violence and destruction abounds in thee world today. All one needs to do is open ones eyes to see it.
In the early seventies, I traveled to Cambodia. The cities while full of life could turn violent within seconds. As a candle flickers in the wind, moving to and from surviving each new gust of wind that desires to ex-tinguish its flame, so it was with this county and its people. There was sense of anxiousness of living everyday to its fullest, excitement flickered in the air.

While In Cambodia, on the outskirts of a small town, I noticed a group of children playing. They were running, laughing, like children anywhere do. The only exception was the torn and faded clothes that hung like a ships sail battered from a storm on thin brown frames weathered by war. The area they were playing in was a beautiful meadow surrounded by forest. The grass, with its shades of green and blue waved and rolled like a gentle ocean, like the calm before the storm. The forest was a dark green, and so overgrown with vines it was a wonder animals could move through it. It was a blissful, beautiful scene. One might have thought they had found Shangri-La. Suddenly, without warning gunfire bursts rang-out. Fire the color of brilliant orange like that over the ocean at sunset could de seen coming from the top of an old withered tree.

It rose from the forest floor like a Goliath above its Philistines, with its past wounds it was a veteran of many past conflicts. Here is where the the gunfire originated. The children were scrambling, but not in the un--controlled manner one might have imagined. Each child looked as if he had rehearsed this scene before. The children made easy targets for the sniper's bullets. As we returned fire, I saw several children hit. Finally, the sniper was hit and fell from the tree. Even through the commotion, we could hear the sound of his body as it struck the ground with a deafening 'thump'. The body lay there, a mess of broken dreams and ideals.

The scene now a bloodbath, the children arose from their prone positions and continued to play in the meadow. The children may have learned to deal with death, but they were still children. In ways that will probably never be known, they were able to face it. Whether the scars would surface in later years or the depth of pain lay so deep as to be buried forever, I do not know.

Many people would interpret the children's action as cold and without feeling because they showed no emotion towards their fallen playmates. While removing the lifeless shells that were once laughing and running around with so many years to explore, I realized that the long black cloud of death could engulf anyone at anytime. And when I picked up one little girl's body, gone limp from death, and looked in her eyes still open from the pain of death, I saw myself 'through a child's eye'.


Copyright (c) 2000 by Jann Campbell

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