The Rent Collector

by Camron Wright

“Life will not always be so hard or cruel. Our difficulties are but a moment.”

Of course, I don’t really believe the myth. A sky god, horse head or not, would never waste a completely good garbage can on Sopeap Sin.

when I finish and she says nothing, I don’t know what it means. I wait. She continues to think. “Thank you,” she finally answers. “For what?” “For helping a mother to feel like she has raised her child right. Now, as to your little problem, it will take me a day or two to work out, but I may have a solution.”

“When I was a child, my father visited a faraway country on business. When he returned, he presented me with a tin that contained a cake. He told me that it was special because it was the custom of that country to mix a small toy in with the batter and bake the toy into the cake. The toy was supposed to be a surprise, though perhaps he worried that I would bite into it and break a tooth or that I’d swallow it and choke. Either way, knowing the toy was there, I began to pull the cake apart, shoving pieces into my mouth, gulping it down, all the while looking for that silly prize.” “Did you find it?” “I found it near the bottom. It had been baked into one of the corners, but by the time I discovered it, I’d eaten almost the entire cake.” “By yourself?”

“Yes, of course. But that’s not the point. The point is that I ate my cake so quickly and with my heart so intent on finding the toy that, to this day, I can’t tell you the flavor of the cake. I can’t describe the texture. I can’t say if it was delicious or bland. I can’t even remember what country it came from. Do you know why?” “Because . . . you . . . were focused . . . on looking for the toy.” Sopeap sighs again, but this time with relief rather than despair. I bite my tongue to remind my pride to stay seated. “Yes!” she says. “Literature is a cake with many toys baked inside—and even if you find them all, if you don’t enjoy the path that leads you to them, it will be a hollow accomplishment. There

“Sang Ly, we are literature—our lives, our hopes, our desires, our despairs, our passions, our strengths, our weaknesses. Stories express our longing not only to make a difference today but to see what is possible for tomorrow. Literature has been called a handbook for the art of being human. So, yes. It will do that.”

“Fight ignorance with words. Fight evil with your knife. Tell your husband, Ki, that he is right.”

Words provide a voice to our deepest feelings. I tell you, words have started and stopped wars. Words have built and lost fortunes. Words have saved and taken lives. Words have won and lost great kingdoms. Even Buddha said, ‘Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.’ Do you understand?”

“Just when we think we have our own stories figured out,” she says, “heroes arise in the most unexpected places.”

I don’t mean to be a skeptic, to lack hope, or to harbor fear. However, experience has been my diligent teacher. Still, I hate it. I don’t want to raise a child of doubt. I want my son to believe, to hope, to dream that the future holds brighter days. Grandfather, where is the balance between humbly accepting our life’s trials and pleading toward heaven for help, begging for a better tomorrow? And then Sopeap’s lesson drops out of hiding and into my head. “Whether we like it or not, hope is written so deeply into our hearts that we just can’t help ourselves, no matter how hard we try otherwise.

“He would have been proud of you,” the Healer says as I prepare to depart. Perhaps he didn’t listen earlier. “We live in the dump,” I remind him. He nods warmly. “It doesn’t matter where you live, Sang Ly, it is how you live.”

Thank you, Father, for helping your friend decide to become a Healer so that he could be here today to help Nisay. Thank you for not caring where I live. Thank you for being proud of me. Oh, and when you get a moment, tell Grandfather that if he has something to say, he will have to wait in line. You and I have a lot to catch up on.

As my questions swirl, I remember the story I read with Sopeap about Pyramus and Thisbe. It was about two children in love whose homes were separated by a thick wall—and yet they found a crack through which they could sometimes speak. I touch my fingers to the glass as Maly turns down a dirt road that leads to a distant village. I notice her giggle and laugh as she converses with the woman. She doesn’t even realize that I am there. I imagine this is how it must be with our ancestors. They watch us closely, full of love and concern, sometimes whispering encouragement through a crack, but mostly just satisfied to know that we are happy.

even tragedies offer lessons worth repeating.

Sopeap lets go of her final breath, flies away with my words that drift distant in the night to the glorious place where family waits—and it is over. I close the dripping book and place it restfully against her chest. I want to be sad—to wail and lament the passing of my dear teacher and friend, Sopeap Sin—but I do not. Perhaps it is because I don’t want the feeling of peace and love that has swept across my life to leave.

As I near the base of the steps, adjacent to the front door, I find Ki asleep in a chair, still waiting. Of all the stories I have read about heroes, and all that I could ever read, of one thing I’m now certain—he is mine.