Kampong Cham, January 12, 2020

I walk in the streets of the town in the damp air, magnetized by the tropism of the river that can be sensed. As I pass a child yells “Hello!” fit to tear his throat. The scooters zigzag like bicycles, avoid the pedestrians by a hair, cut the shortest way, fill the gaps, go gliding, bounding, make of the street a liquid thing.

It’s evening on the promenade above the Mekong in the little town of Kampong Cham. Kids armed with lighters set off firecrackers. Swarms of teenagers people the place, taste the joy of doing nothing, of simply flâner, outside home and school. Farang haunt the restaurants made for them – the Smile or the Mekong Crossing –, order beers and burgers, curries, pizzas.

The river walks slowly under the concrete bridge buttressed against the banks. It has crossed countries, rough banks, jungles and villages, to arrive here – it doesn’t arrive, it passes. It has felt hundreds of hulls slide over it. Has had itself sliced like a cheese by the thread of fishing lines. Has kissed the rostrum of the last Irrawaddy dolphins. On certain October nights, it has released balls of fire, they say, the balls of the Nagas, mystery floating above the waters.

It is old now. It carries its course like a fatigue. It doesn’t even have a glance for Kampong Cham, bindi above the two islands – Koh Samraong and Koh Pen – that watch us. One sees neither the dolphins nor the Nagas. Only the headlights of the cars that climb onto the bridge, blink between the bars of the railing, rise above the river. They come from the concrete and the steel, from the iron, from the road, from the world without beyond.

Leaning on the guardrail of the promenade, I spend a long moment watching them. They are our will-o’-the-wisps, our terrestrial phenomena. The mystery on this side – in matter.