Excerpt from my novel Once--
Khine Khine lies in bed in the early morning and listens to the garbage truck doing its work.
First she hears the clank of a chain, and realizes that someone is unlocking the dumpster. Even the dumpster is locked in this unsafe neighborhood in West Philadelphia in the Northeast of America , to prevent the homeless from rummaging in it.
Then she hears the dumpster being upended, the truck closing its hatch, driving away. She thinks of the necessity of throwing useless things away, yet her room is full of mementos
and pieces of paper that are there solely to help her remember.
She decides that when she has finished writing up the old stories, she will dedicate them to her cousin or her son, both named Mongoose.
Copyright Kyi May Kaung--
1-7-2016
