Chhuon reached the highest paddy, knelt, scooped a handful of mud. It would be best, he thought, to plant different seed here. He worked the soil in his fingers as he’d not done in a year. He grabbed a second handful and squished the red-brown muck feeling a grittiness the lower paddies did not possess. Without fertilizer, he thought, without organic compost, these paddies...He stopped, hesitated, closed his eyes....Still, he thought. In the muck he could feel a life force. Yes. It’s weak but it’s there. Chhuon opened his eyes. The paddy was empty. The next level up had been deforested for another tier but the work had stopped in order to plant the existing fields. Chhuon walked to the edge. No dikes had been built between the deforested land and the upper paddy. Orange streams cut gullies
