Andrew Clark

“My last image of Cambodia was of darkness, it was the sound of nearly forty mute wanderers, of silent prayers. I closed my eyes.

My father told my Hanuman had crossed the ocean, how he had gone into another life. Look back, my mother said, one last time. I follwed through our twilit apartment, walked in the shade of my father, past bare walls and open windows, the noise of the street pouring in. Between us, she said, I had known love, I had lived a childhood that might sustain me.

I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorize it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter. I felt her in the persistent drumming of water against the boat's hull.

Guard the ones you love, she told me. Carry us with you into the next life.”
― Madeleine Thien, Dogs at the Perimeter