I lost one day - TLC 31

Crows sang sunrise.

Lucky opened window blinds at the TLC teachers’ apartment. Riding the blinds sang a metaphorical cryptic railroad life. Hop a fright. Get out of town. Hit the highway. Get down the road.

Ain’t nothin’ but da blues, sweet thing.

When you come to a fork in the road take it, said Zeynep.

Sun streamed to pink-red veined orchids in a brushed silver container. Tibetan incense curled into light. Red gladioli, so glad, petaled beginning. Piano Etudes by Glass tinkled. A handful of dust labeled fear celebrated tonal frequencies. Piano fell silent. Violins picked up the slack hemming garments along life’s loom down at the crossroads making a Faustian deal with the d-evil.

In a new world order all the police are children.

They know how the world works.

Elegant clouds observed pachyderms and Staunton designed pawns, knights, bishops, rooks and queens fighting to control four center squares.

Look at the board. Absorb all the data. Recognize patterns. Analyze. Develop a strategy. Continually revise and develop that strategy as the game progresses, said Bamboo.

A black knight waving a curving scimitar and a 1* red and yellow hammer sickle flag driving a Turbo-bus filled with Russian baboons passed Hanoi beauty salons and full-body soapy massage parlors.

Girls trimming, buffing and painting cuticles greeted 1.5 million neurotic European tourists and swarming Chinese locusts in a fat fucking hurry at Angkor Wats happening?

Bright yellow Turkish taxis idled coughing engines. Arabesque musicians fingered ouds as an operatic Turkish singer in Bursa lamented her melancholic love. Percussionists hammered goatskins.

Singing silver merchants chanted, “Mr. Lucky Foot come here. First sale lucky sale make my day.”

He joined a Jewish and Turkish man drinking tea at the Bursa silk market in an exquisite stone Caravansary.

“I lost today,” said the Jewish man.

“What do you mean, said his friend. “You made 3,000,000 Lira.”

“Yes, but I lost one day.”

Inside a 500-year old hammam, steam rising through rusting metal bars discovered a weak Wi-Fi signal from the Achebadem emergency room staffed by Winter Hawk, Bamboo and heartbroken howling Lone Wolf.

After a sauna Omar and Lucky entered a white marble room with a high vaulted dome. Thirty-two pinpoints of sunlight shafted across blue mosaic tiles. In eight recessed cubicles men soaped, slathered and scrubbed off melting skin in humid heat. A robust masseuse worked sandpaper fibers over a stranger removing dead terrorist cells.

Absorbing musical notes the thermal pool bubbled natural mineral water as the literary outlaws enjoyed a sitting meditation up to their necks. I’ve had it up to here, said Omar clearing his throat.

Renewed revived and rejuvenated after a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice they stepped into crisp spring air below blue sky.

The Language Company

Practice 10,000 times

Zeynep in Bursa taught me how to swim with gigantic sea turtles.

We practice a sitting mediation. We practice a walking meditation. When you walk you become nobody. If your legs get heavy walk with your heart, she said. We meditated on our death.

Everything we do is a meditation. Practice 10,000 times until you’ve got it, she said.

Dive deep exploring coral and underwater life below the surface of appearances.

Let’s have a little adventure, I said to Zeynep.

I wove a magic carpet, she said. Let’s go.

We flew to the Temple of Complete Reality on Qinchengshan Mountain in Sichuan. It is a 2,000-year old series of Taoist temples in red orange yellow green autumn foliage.

Taoism’s home in China is balance and harmony in nature. We climbed for 2.5-hour in green hills, mountains, and clouds knowing us by now, feeling strong cold winds on a clear day. We caressed old stone steps and steep angled paths through old growth.  

We climbed through primal forests with Mountain Girl, ten. She sold tea near a trail fork. We didn’t ask her to guide us. She attached herself to us. She didn’t want anything. She wasn’t hustling anything. She lived on the mountain, not below the mountain.

She diverted us away from whining Chinese. She pointed out medicinal plants and herbs in meadows, showing us delicious wild yellow and red berries. She babbled stories about the forest, plants, trees, rivers and animals. 

She shared a story about mountain spirits. Three men chased her through the forest. She met a snake.

“Please help me escape from men chasing me.”

“It turned into a slim beautiful woman.”  

“Don’t be afraid. I will help you.”  

“She took me down the mountain, saving me from the bad men. Then she turned back into a snake and disappeared into the forest.”  

We climbed through a series of temples. Statues, incense, prayers and spirit energies. Inner and outer visions extended in four directions.   

We shared rice, chicken and bread near the summit.  

Twin turtles with dragonheads guarded the entrance. The main temple was a reddish brown ornate rising sculpture. Large crimson incense smoke curled into sky.

Four Chinese characters reflected light.

Clouds circle this temple.

We circumnavigated levels of experience on narrow wooden steps. On the main level was a gigantic gold statue of a Lao Tzu riding a wild ox. Yin/Yang.

An old woman offered medallions of the cosmic symbol on red thread. Mountain girl and Zeynep selected one. They put it around their necks. We descended. Mountain girl fingered her threaded treasure. She was a treasure for us.

We stopped at a temple for tea. A young nun washed teacups. “I’ve been here fifteen years. I clean, pray, read, meditate, talk with monks and travelers, and do my work. I am focused on my goal.  My goal is to reach the root below the surface.”

Her awareness is direct with heart-mind intention.

In twilight we bought Mountain Girl food to take home and walked to her bike. I gifted her a white khata scarf from Tibet.

Zeynep gave her a poem by Rumi.

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

“Thanks,” said Mountain Girl. She smiled and zoomed away.

Every heartbeat is an eternal rhythm of universal possibilities.

“We went up. We went down,” said Zeynep, after we returned to Bursa, breathing through tribal masks.

“What kind of mask? Is it hand carved from memories?” 

“Masks are symbolic manifestations in primitive cultures,” she said. “Mask dance is a shamanic ritual, a dance trance. Wearing a mask you become the thing you fear the most, your basic human nature. Masks hide a human’s consciousness of fear.

“Dance is about process, becoming. Destroy Time. Shiva symbolizes the union of space and time and destruction. Dance is an ancient form of magic. People wear masks to hide their transformation, seeking to change their dancer into a god or demon. Dance is the incarnation of eternal energy. You see them everyday, everywhere. Have the courage to be natural with your mask. The entire universe is a vast theatre. The two critical elements of intelligence are humor and curiosity. Do you remember James Joyce, how he went into exile with silence and cunning?”

“Yes. He knew how to put seven little words in order. He was a cunning linguist. He said, ‘everything I do is an experiment.’”

“So it is. Your ability to imagine and scheme and deceive is raw instinct,” she said. “It separates you from lower life forms like apes, plankton and sea enemies-anemone (fish eating animals) and androgynous androids in the deep subconscious. Writers lie for a living. Literature is the best way to make fun of people. They treat their mental illness every day. They say what others are afraid to say. Being a writer is like having homework every day.”

“We are the only animals who laugh,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “and we are the only animals who know we are going to die. We imagine our death, our mortality. This fills some with dread, psychological neurosis, lack of purpose. For others it’s a release, a joy, and a dance. Freedom is unconditional. I was born laughing.”

“I was born dead and slowly came to life. Are you a clown? Perhaps a clown fish?” I asked.

“Look in your dream mask mirror,” she said. “Not all the clowns are in the circus.”

“Under this mask, another mask. I will never be finished removing all these faces.”

“Let’s dance. Let’s meditate on the process of death.”

My name is Beauty. Death is my mother. I have no tongue.

Your mask eats your face.

My name is Tam - Erotica

Someone called the bar wanting one or more girls. Miss Tan sent us out.

We went to private homes or hotels. It could be one man or many men. My only rule was no condom, no fuck. Sometimes men would gang-bang me.

The first time this happened I had no idea. I just did what I was told. I was their play toy, their tight little piece of ass and I had a tight little ass. With my legs in the air one man pounded my honey pie with his drumstick, another one sucked my breasts, someone fingered my clit while I gave head to a hot horny stranger.

I loved giving head, licking, tasting the pulsating penis in my mouth, swallowing the blast of hot sticky sperm deep in my throat. Someone finished the business in my wet vagina and another animal climbed on their fuck mama. They enjoyed rolling me over, getting me up on my knees so I could suck off a man below me while they took turns fucking me in the ass.

The first time I took it in my tight sweet little ass was a new sensation. It was tight so he couldn’t ram it home. He had to work it in sweet and slow. I had a hard dick in my mouth and almost gagged feeling his cock penetrate my anus. My ass expanded to accept his penis inside a hot blast of tissue. He grabbed my hips and ass pumping away as I caressed a pair of soft balls licking a penis fast and furious until I tasted sweet milk.

He throbbed in my ass, tight and deep and then wham, I brought the man to orgasm just as the guy behind me blasted his juice. I thought I’d died it felt so good.

One down, one to go. Easy money.

I really enjoyed the fucking show with my best friend. She had deep black eyes, long legs, big tits and loved sex. We’d do a tag team guy fuck. Double the fun double the money. It was always a wild unpredictable performance.

We’d do a slow strip as the guys watched and they couldn’t touch us. Take off your clothes, I said. They did. Eat us with your eyes. Don’t move.

Watch this. I greased her down sweet and slow with oil, tonguing her nipples, rubbing her sweet shaved pubis slow and easy. Come over, she told one guy with a stiff purple hard on. She stood him up straight performing fellatio while I opened her vulva, masturbating the other one until he was primed to give me his high hard one. I slid on him taking him deep in the bucking pony as I ate my girlfriend’s pussy and she’d get fucked from behind. We switched partners, I’d lick dick, she’d fuck me with her finger and the men satisfied their desires.

We made good money doing the team routine. A penis a day keeps the debt collectors away they say.

Sperm in the condom money in the bank.

Some were gentle. Others were drunk animals and beat me. I put up with it because I remembered my mother’s beatings. 

Before fucking a stranger I’d take a shower, come out, drop the towel so he could get an eyeful, throw a condom on the bed, lie down, open my legs close my eyes shut down my feelings and let him have his fun. I dressed their hard sausage in a sock. The rest was easy.

They paid for my time using my body. I gave Miss Tan her a share. I learned about business. I learned how to gamble. Bet big, win big.

For two years I worked hard and saved money. I sent money to my mother every month like a good daughter. I told her I worked in a hotel.

My Name is Tam

Louis the hero - TLC 30

King Louis, a free slave riding a white stallion roared into Bursa from a Turkish dessert. Waving a jeweled sword he scrambled onto a world stage facing ninety million screaming bloodthirsty catatonic maniacs.

“Live and let live. I am a hero. I’ve returned from the mother of all battles. We defeated fear and ignorance. As a bonus we slew greed. We are victorious. We’ve been killing humans for 4,000 years and still no one knows who the king is. See what I brought you,” gesturing past a gateless gate. Red rolling dust clouds obscured chained destitute slaves.

“Oh, shit,” said his twin brother, a shackled slave and former Freon-free refrigerator shyster from Polo Alto singing soprano, “looks like it’s sheer linen damask lace curtains for us.”

“You can say shit again,” sang Leo, an exhausted Chinese prisoner practicing free speech in Braille, a foreign language and Omar’s specialty.

Leo’s memory remembered hauling buckets of night shit to fields near his straw and mud Gobi hovel. It was the price he’d paid for questioning Authority at Beijing Normal U.

- Why do we have to read Mao’s little red book? It’s mush for pigs, he’d asked Authority.

- Because you are a tool of the state, said Authority.

- This shit stinks.

- Here, said Authority, Carry some more.

After that melancholy loss Leo didn’t take shit from anybody. Living in exile with silence and cunning he burned through levels of existence.

A stream-winner, he slept with Ratanakiri shamans in animist cemeteries. He exchanged stories about becoming with Rita, his friend and author of Ice Girl in Banlung.

Using sustainable dry yak-yak manure Leo discovered fire by rubbing precious stones together. Impressed, his tribe anointed him Chief of Cannibals. He wore an alarm clock around his neck demonstrating Power Prestige Status & Esoteric Arcane Prescient Wisdom.

On stage raising his ruby, emerald and diamond mind sword Louis the crime smelter hero approached a line of wage slaves, Soma miners, shrouded widows, seventy imprisoned journalists and cheap coal powered grieving families. “Bend over. Stick your neck out. It’s not about justice. It’s about procedure.”

“Not me! Why Me?” exclaimed millions.

He brought justice down. He decapitated a screaming target. “Take that, idiot.” Heads rolled.

Revenge. Vengeance. Swift. Sweet. Complete.

A clear cheer erupted from Turkish sheep waving ticket stubs.

Louis turned to the masses. “Step right up ladies and gentlemen to The Greatest Show on Earth. Miracles revealed. Have your immediate future told,” he repeated with reported speech.

Slaves with an eyes-only top secret security clearance in deep shadows played espionage chess in the middle game. They focused on position and material. Your move, said Death, Be mindful.

 

Sewing - TLC 29

A sewing woman returned to her Kampot guesthouse. She splashed water on her face, changed clothes and spit into red roses. She kick started her cycle and rode to the local market inside a dirt labyrinth.

At her corner stall she keyed multiple locks. She stacked numbered wooden shutters. She dragged out her Butterfly sewing machine, ironing board and manikins.

Dummies wore exquisite yellow, purple, blue, white shimmering silks decorated with sparkling silver stars, moons and small reflecting balls. Her skill designed fabrics for women needing elaborate sartorial refinement attiring engagements, weddings and cremations.

She stayed busy with serious fittings and adjustments. Her universal process was selecting fabric; measurement, ironing backing, a ruler, white chalk to mark pleats, cutting, pushing her machine treadle, pins, threads, trimming edges, hand sewing clasps, shiny connections and ironing.

Threads inside a slow prism flashed light and shadow as needles danced through cloth in endless conversations. Needles talked about traditional conservative behaviors, attitudes and opportunity-value cost. Thread followed their conversations. Together they measured precise calculations establishing a stop-loss number.

All explanations have to end somewhere.

Sky darkened

Ceremonial tribal drum thunder sang

Vocal intensity

Lonely lost suffering

Foreign faces

In Cambodia

Shuddered with fear

What if I die here?

How will my family and friends realize my intention to witness 1200 years of dancing Angkor laterite stoned history in gnarling jungles revealed by natural strobes? 

Lightning flashed skies

Giant flashbulbs

Illuminated petrified children

Buried inside cement caverns

Floating bamboo homes

Eyes

Eating cartoon images

On plasma screams

Skies opened

Rain lashed human crops

Rice blossomed green

Cloud tears cleaned earth

Sweet dreams baby

Rita, Ice Girl in Banlung smashing blocks of ice inside a blue plastic bag with a blunt instrument created a symphony outside unspoken words as a homeless man with a pair of brown pants thrown over a thin shoulder sat down to rest.

Shy women waiting for Freedom averted black eyes.

Aggressive market women manipulated stacks of government issued denominations trusting an implied value in exchange for meat, fruit, vegetables, gold, cotton and silk.

Counting and arranging denominations inside broken beams above fractured cement and mislaid wooden planks covering sewage channels with debris, feathers, jungles and jangled light particles, financial dealers surveyed commercial landscapes with dispatched dialects near rivers revealing stories with fine stitched embroidery.  

Lucky and Zeynep played a musical interlude.

“I know the music but forgot the words,” said an adult swallowing Xanax.

“Music is the fuel,” said Zeynep spinning her Sufi dervish trance dance.

An Anatolian mother intent on cleaning disorder - afraid of losing control of chaos because nature loves a beautiful mess - on her apartment balcony after shaking out wet underwear, dish towels and frayed family threads, hung them in shameful angry regret and slammed her door on dervish music, It's the devil's music. She loved sitting in dark rapacious self-pity waiting for a jingle jangle phony tone.

“Are you alive?” she said to her cellular daughter.

“I survived,” said a disembodied voice.

“Where are you? When are you coming home?”

“I’m with a tribe of women. We’re breaking down and breaking through old conservative values. They are so narrow we’ll need a crowbar or acetylene torch or C-4. We’re developing personal empowerment and dignity. I’ll be home someday mother. I’m doing my healing work.”

Her voice died. Swallowing ignorance mother lapsed into healthy doubt’s quicksand.

At sunset an imam’s recorded voice twittered from a mosque near Achebadem, “Allah is great and merciful. Buy a ticket.”

Push Play.

The Language Company