Section Four / Time Worn Away

Every corner that Molyda turned, suffering was present. A few days after every single member of her family died, she was forced to go to work. If you didn’t work, you didn’t receive food. She had to continue her work on the roads in mud that was more than a meter deep, she was only about 14 years old. The only rations they workers got was one ladleful of liquid at noon and another at night. As the work on the roads drawled on, Molyda seemed to become blind because of working at night. She was sent home sick, but only for a few days. After seeing her Aunt’s daughter, whom she now called her ‘little sister’, she had to go back to work in order to receive her ration of food and water. Road building was the job she was sent to, again she became blind and was sent home since she was also the thinnest and weakest of the girls. Once she arrived back at her village, a grimacing sight greeted her. Molyda’s ‘little sister’ was showing signs of being beaten up along with a shaved head. All were caused by her abusing neighbor that took care of her when Molyda was out working. Her neighbour lived in the same tent and was just a curtain away. When she was sent back to work, immediately after feeling better, there were news that the patients in the hospital were taking their own lives. Dying was better than suffering, everyone seemed to think. Then Molyda’s job shifted and she ended up where she had started when she first came, harvesting. She would only have two hours of sleep. With the bad conditions at work, Molyda was sent to the hospital in a bad state. Upon her discharge from the hospital, she renders herself unconscious at her ‘little sisters’ hut steps. When she finally awakens, she is greeted with a friendly Mekong face, a very rare sight. She then finds out that she has been sent to the hangars where she would be, supposedly, given to the Vietnamese.





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