Writer, Publisher, Retired

Category: Musings (Page 1 of 3)

Luck

Perpetual good or bad luck is something that seems to follow some people you meet on the traveler or expat circuit. It is not something all or even many possess, but a few seem to just be gifted or cursed with it.

Bernard was not a lucky man. Maybe not as unlucky as British Steve, but unlucky nevertheless. Nearly everything he did turned to disaster. Now some will say that luck – good or bad is something you make for yourself. And in Bernard’s case this may be true to some extent. Maybe it was his criminality that had an effect on this; maybe it was his belief in how smart he was that had an effect. It was true that Bernard thought he was smarter than most, and that he could always get one over on others. It was not, however, a trait that sprang to mind when others thought of Bernard whoever those others were. But one thing all would agree on, was that Bernard was unlucky.

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Betty / Beauty

The freshly cut coriander roots smelt wonderful infusing the whole house with their virgin freshness as they awaited becoming some addition to a preplanned dish, and by doing so losing the extent of their odour, losing their power to totally overwhelm and becalm, losing their power to demand to be noticed but adding a more subtle hint of flavour, more of an afterthought, or reminder of something not fully known, but stirring in the back of the mind. A distant memory perhaps, or distant event, or maybe not distant, or something, just something that can’t be quite placed.

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Sweeping Up

It is almost two years now, and I suppose it is time to record the actual true events before they fade or my memory decides to exclude such things that don’t fit with preconceived and taught ideas typical of someone raised in the rational and heartless late 60’s and 70’s. It also seems fitting as I sit once more, where I did that day, on the raised dot mypai with a pencil and cheap paper notebook feeling the breeze from the small green fan as the heat of the summer rises once more past body temperature.

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Lita

… there she was again. Maybe thirty meters in front and about to round the corner.

Sudden surge forward. I couldn’t miss her this time. And yet there she was at the next corner about to take a right still thirty meters ahead. I was determined this time I would get level. A sprint and quick right, and where was she? Hold on, maybe to the left just the bottom of her long flowing coat. Another sprint and a left, and yes there thirty meters in front she was. I must be catching her as now; I could again see her. And another sprint but still after the next left, well twenty-five meters maybe. I was going to make it after all. Then she took a right. OK another sprint and this time only twenty meters away. I wanted to call out to her but…

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Cock

So, there was I crawling on all fours around a damp dark smelly room, dressed in rubber boots and rubber gauntlets, looking for cock.

*****

It was a warm sunny day with clear skies except for the occasional tiny white cloud bouncing in the sea of blue. The warmth hit me and a first drip of perspiration rolled down my neck. It was a lovely day to go out and do something worthwhile on – May in England could sometimes but not often be like this. Oh there I go again. Right British. Already going on about the weather. Apologies for that. Let’s get back to the story. So where was I? Oh yes, a lovely day. What could I spend it doing? But I already knew. The local non-league football team had a game at home, and I would take the long 2 mile walk from my parent’s home, where I was visiting, to the ground and enjoy the game. The team were doing well and it should be an easy win.

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The Wedding Party

Ah, release! I glided slowly at first but then warming up nicely behind, and picking up speed. High, high, high above the low clouds, and viewed from above they were as cotton wooled carpet onto which you could step. A temptation. I wanted to take that now and walk and roll and play in that pure white shining mass washed in the intense glow of the sun so warm above me. I wanted to, but I could not stop for my destiny had been decided long ago by others greater than me.

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Cowboy

Manchester Andy, now there is someone to remember from the Cowboy days. He had an art degree, two in fact. He was also a real practicing artist producing paintings and sculptures at a prodigious rate. The styles of these were quite conservative and maybe not to everyone’s taste. Not being an artist, I am far too ignorant to know what label or labels to use to name his art, but all in all it wasn’t bad in my opinion.

Andy came to Thailand after finishing his Master’s degree and if I remember correctly a well paying job not connected with art in the United Kingdom. He arrived in Bangkok. with a fresh tourist visa in hand, an expensive backpack and a nice set of clothes. Andy had plans to do the usual “break from life” tour of Asia – Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India and Nepal. He actually had no plans after that but intended to head back to the UK and do something with his art. He had made a lot of money from his well paying job, which had been added to buy sale of his artworks and a small inheritance from a distant relative. Andy was set.

Sometimes, though, fate has this way of interfering in the best laid plans and creating a new and different destiny for us.

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The Eggman

It was around seven or eight years ago that I first noticed him, this aging man. Quite exactly how old he was, was hard to tell as he had the start of a curved back and looked constantly at the floor with his bewhiskered jowls hanging from each side of his mouth. His hair was white or silver, but not in a distinguished looking way, but more in a mop of short but unkempt hair hanging over his head and flopping down onto his forehead as he shuffled forward with his brown scuffed sandals around his brown feet and his blue fisherman pants swaying with movement and breeze. His arched back inside his plaid long-sleeved shirt was letting out a little perspiration as he lugged the wide basket containing his collection of about thirty boiled eggs. He manoeuvred from table to table along the stretch of seawall at Laem Than where the young people sat and drank and chatted trying to sell an egg or two or three at each table for the drinkers to snack on. Occasionally he was even successful in getting someone to buy three eggs in a little plastic bag with a small sachet of sauce as he manoeuvred surprisingly rapidly between the jovial groups.

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Holding Rice

The sky was darkening by the minute as the clouds turned from white to light grey to a darker shade, to charcoal and now indeed black with a rapidity rarely seen. A wind had suddenly sprung up. Starting as a light breeze with a vague hint of coolness. Then gradually becoming a more noticeable breath of cool on face and exposed skin. A stronger blast. And now strengthening as its power is rediscovered, moving the branches on the trees surrounding the village and sending out a siren of rustles and creaking wood as it further strengthens and trees start to sway and bend. The sound of a branch falling through the foliage to the fine red dry dirt on the ground breaks the whistles of wind now flowing through not only every open space but finding every gap between massed trees, the smattering of houses on the dirt red packed mud road, that they were built along. The red dirt from under the trees, the road and even the rice farmland down the end of the pike now becoming airborne and coating the floors of the rude wooden houses on stilts, passing into the communal areas and under the houses where the farm tools were now coated in red. Visibility falling as the black darkness seemed to descend around all. With the rise of the wind, now a crescendo of whistles, crashing boughs, falling tools and pieces of slamming houses. The air now filled not only with dust in the air but pieces of tree, house, tile and detritus. Doors not fastened blown closed and open, crashing in rhyme to the beat of the wind.

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