| We were extremely excited.
One of the journalists joked, "That deer must have been reincarnated as
Bounkham!" "The villagers think that way. If the
deer was reincarnated as another deer, it probably would get shot again. As I’ve
heard the villagers say over and over, the jungle in this area no longer has any
deer," said Bounkham.
"What a terrible loss," I added, and Bounkham continued
with his story.
"A pregnant woman has to eat a lot in order to nourish the
baby inside her womb. When a pregnant woman sees someone with food, she is seized by
intense hunger, as if she could eat an elephant. A pregnant woman told me this. And if
someone doesn’t offer her a share of the food, that woman will never forget. She will
remain bitter toward the one person who didn’t have compassion for her.
According to my father, my mother felt sorry for the deer that had
been shot. She herself never ate the venison, but she took her share home for her family
so they would have a chance to eat meat. When I was born, my mother loved me especially
dearly. But my mother never had the opportunity to see her grown son’s happy face.
She named me 91Bounkham,’ but she liked to call me 91my beloved’ or 'Mother’s
beloved."’
At this moment, we neared the gate leading to the village. The
trail was rough, and stirred by Bounkham’s story, I glanced back in the direction of
the expectant mother. She had already disappeared into the field, but she remained in my
memory. For the first time, I felt a sense of shared obligation to help a tiny being who
would be born into this world.
The End. |
