ONCE A WEEK

Have you ever seen a dead body? Up close and on the ground?

I went twenty-eight years without seeing one, and then here in Cambodia I saw two within a month.

I was on the back of a moto with a friend heading home late one night, and the moto driver motioned towards the river.

"Dead body there," he said. "Dead body. You go see?"

So we kind of shrugged and said sure, why not. We thought we were going to see the place where the guy died, not the guy himself.

We wrong. A small crowd had gathered by the side of the road, as Cambodians are known to do. As we slowly drove past, we could see somebody on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding his head. He wasn't moving. He was dead.

Okay, fine, that's enough, back home, had a blast, go, now.

And that was that. Five, six seconds was all it was. But enough time to recognize that most human of conditions, the one we all instictively shy away from and are drawn towards, almost against are will. We don't want to think about death, or so we say, but the bootleg videos of those kidnapped hostages in Iraq getting their heads chopped off are doing big business here in Phnom Penh.

Did I want to see a dead guy by the side of the road? I guess I did.

A few weeks later I was out for a run, jogging past the Cal-Tex gas station when I saw, surprise surprise, another small crowd gathering. I slowed my run to a shuffle, and then to a stop. I poked my head through the cluster of moto drivers and mothers.

How old was he? Eight years old. Maybe nine. His body splayed out in a weird, contorted tangle -- left arm up here, right arm down there. His eyes were closed, giving him the gentle look of children who have somehow got themselves all bunched up in their sleep.

Only this kid wasn't waking up. His skin was dirty, his clothes shoddy, his hair a mess. Most likely one of those street kids that always ask me for money when I go to Star Mart, the variety store located next to the gas pumps. Had I met this one before?

Hard to say.

A car must have struck him, but there was no car in sight, no concerned, weeping driver begging for forgiveness. (Did he drive away fast? Did he feel the thump? Did he even glance over his shoulder, or into the rear view mirror?)

I guess it's a cliche to state that life over here is cheap, fragile, blunt.

Shootings happen back home, and kids are hit by cars, and the world moves on.

The thing is, most cliches have at least a sliver of truth to them. Death seems to loom larger here than elsewhere. Life itself here seems to be more, I don't know, susceptible. To what? To everything. If you're shot, guess what? Not many hospitals to take you in. If you're a street kid hit by a car, now what? Not many people are going to pick you up and haul you off for medical care. You're not on your own here, no, but the social structures we take for granted are somewhat...distant.

It's been awhile since I've seen those bodies -- five months, maybe six?

I probably think about them once a week.