One day I went to the market with my brother and grandmother. We scavenged for food. She looked for money. My stomach comes first. I found a rope. It smelled like food. It tasted sweet. My brother found a piece of sugar cane. He is older, smarter and faster and needs the energy.
My grandmother sat down at life's intersection. She held out her begging bowl.
At dark we went home.
Thank you for your attention.
once upon a time in a place
with dark mysterious scared eyes
sharp knives
and no money
poor lost blind people
from a poor lost blind village
came to a poor lost blind town
carrying their curiosity
empty stomachs
empty pockets
and cheerful childlike stolidity
ignorance
inside teeming markets
spilling vegetables, clothing, steaming food
invisible naked predatory children circle, hover near smells
watching eaters eat
the quick and dead
blind people laugh
hearing gold workers hammer
ruby, diamond, sapphire, emerald jewels
scattering gem sound seeds
Greetings,
Have you ever seen a fish that can do massage?
Our shop has amazing and unique fish that can do massage.
This fish eat our dead skin and make our hard skin softly.
So we call this fish as "Doctor Fish."
Please come and enjoy special massage by lovely fish!
Hundreds fish will kiss your toes and suck up all your dead skin!
Wonderful! Exciting! Funny!
New country! New Experience!
Metta.
Greetings,
Once upon a time there was a little river town. Zak was recharging his laptop and noticed the wires from the power unit attached to the unit attached to the plug processing energy from the Nebula galaxy was exposed, open and subject to disintegration. Like humanoids. It needed replacing if he was to maintain warp speed through the universe in his space ship.
He went to a taxi stand. It wasn't a taxi stand. It was a place to practice patience as drivers ran around flagging down cycles with passengers yelling "Pen, Going to Pen!"
When the car was full they left. To make more profit the driver, a dark thin man in a frayed t-shirt gave Zak shotgun. The driver arranged yellow pillows in the middle to sit while driving, operating the gas, brake and steering. A woman slept in the driver's seat.
They escaped river city and discovered the one single road under construction.
They bounced, shuddered and sped along red dust roads in waves of tropical heat. The road was holding a convention of road graders, dump trucks, steam rollers, gravel, crushed silver rocks, ruts, canyons, pot holes, detours and red dust. Earthmoving equipment dusted red pressure.
Impatient black glass tinted 4-wheel drivers blasted impatient horns to alleviate boredom and abundance of red dust. Drivers remembered swallowing dust when they were poor, hustling any and all possible economic resources to improve their quality of life.
Red dust obscured Earth. Zak imagined traversing central Africa following herds of zebras and gazelles across the savanna. It was thrilling, this sensation of movement through billowing red dust.
The city was Pen and filled with ink. It's famous for a massive killing field, a museum with photographs of 2.5 million murdered humans and lonely bar hostesses filing their nails waiting for a rich hammer. A miniature Saigon. Groups of cycle men hustled taxi passengers. "Yeah, yeah," they yelled.
He found iOne, a derivation of a fruit called Apple. The young sky shy lady helped him select a new 60W power adapter. It came in a hermetically sealed black box. "This is perfect for my space ship and universal explorations. Thanks."
He paid her in Leaves, a well known and universally accepted form of currency. He went to a used bookstore. The owner was asleep. His son played a virtual reality computer game behind stacks of dusty leaves.
He found three tomes, Lolita, The Orient Express and an unofficial autobiography of Bruce Chatwin, a travel writer. Pen had gleaming pagodas, parks, wide open plazas and historical triumphs in the form of cement people conquering land, sea, and hunger.
He tried to visualize Pen being empty of life. Humans were not allowed to stay in 1975 when a military group invaded. They forced the entire population, maybe a million, to vacate the city. To become peasants. To practice the art of socialism. Nine years before 1984.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Everyone ran away from the city into the countryside to escape terror, famine, death and execution. He tried to wrap his mind around this historical reality and comprehend the totality. The entire city was deserted and very quiet leaving ghosts and memories. Year Zero!
He saw a very expensive white U.N. jeep on a Pen street. It had a secured flag on its front bumper. The driver wore a bush hat and clean pressed khaki clothing. On the rear of the jeep it said, "World Food Program." Zak didn't see any food. Where's all the food, he wondered.
He went to the fancy Lucky Market supplying the massive N.G.O. population.
"We Have Everything You Need, Want or Desire," sang advertising. Endless aisles of food products waited for foreigner customers. Zak left after 30 seconds and returned to the taxi stand.
The driver hustled passengers. It was a challenge because the cheaper mini-van taxi business was nearby.
The driver sat on his yellow pillows blasting south through red dust, creating a fake orange sunset near wild mountain waterfalls and dense jungles passing emaciated pure white oxen dragging primitive wooden wheeled carts filled with lumber, bamboo, watermelons, red bricks made of red dust, and human cargo wearing colorful red, green, blue, purple Kroma scarves filtering dust from their respiratory system.
Inside the river galaxy he recharged his space craft.
Metta.
Greetings,
At dusk as an orange flaming ball of gas drifts toward blue mountains, setting trees on fire, painting the sky red, the Kampot river drive comes alive. I sit across the street with an iced coffee at a rolling stall. It costs 1500 Real or 75 sense.
The woman is friendly because I am Mr. Lucky Foot and bring her good fortune. People are curious about the stranger so they visit her and buy something cool and refreshing. They stare. They drink. They mill around. They pay. They leave.
She's been here since dawn. She stakes out the corner across from the Post Office every day. She has everything she needs; a hammock for a mid-day nap, sugar cane grinders, apples, oranges, dragon fruit, mangoes, bananas, java, tea, umbrellas, plastic chairs, folding tables and a fine view. Her husband and two sons help her in late afternoon.
Fifteen fishing boats return south from up river, chugging through wake reflections of sky. A woman with her daughter perched on the running board of a motorcycle putts past. Men and wives with their kids pass. A man with his dog blowing white hair cruises along.
Blue vans serve as a local buses. They're crammed with millions of humans and their market shopping. The roof is covered with lashed bamboo baskets, boxes, tires, and assorted packages. The open back door exposes material threatening to explode and spill into the road.
Heavy-duty construction dump trucks filled with labor boys blast their horns and spit gravel.
Chattering Muslim girls in colorful scarves, having finished their day shift at the local P.T.C. weaving center for 200 disadvantaged youngsters from rural areas pedal home. Teams of young chattering cycle boys prowl for girls. Prim girls in blue school uniforms pedal bikes, ride scooters. Blond fat Europeans walk the front as serious local women on a weight-loss program of infinite proportions march along, swinging their gaited arms like puppets in a play.
A man with his rolling cart near the curb pulverizes ingredients with a mortar and pestle. He serves dinner noodles, vegetables and spices to sidewalk lovers, kids, moms and dads cradling infants. A busy woman next door with her rolling restaurant grills meat and fish using pieces of charcoal fired below a clay pot.
Wealthy people blast past in 4-wheel drives. One day I saw a Hummer. It was humming black money. The people inside were invisible. Someone said there are 200 very, very rich people in this country and millions of poor people. How many poor people can fit in a hummingbird?
Humans trapped inside vehicles scream, "Look at the people outside. They are eating, breathing, living, laughing, talking, dreaming and loving. What if I die here in this cartoon graveyard? Who'll be my role model?"
Accidental children inside rolling machines pound their tiny craniums against reinforced tempered glass barriers yelling, "Look, mom! See the kids by the river. They're playing a game in fresh air. They have air-conditioning. I want to play. I'm hungry!" Mom ignored their plea of temporary insanity.
Dad steps on the gas blasting loose gravel and dust into the air. He wants to get home to his gated house with high fences wearing shards of glittering sharp green glass. To keep them out.
A young boy and and his sister finish eating corn-on-the-cob. He runs to the edge of the world, pulls out his imaginary pistol and fires at the flaming orange sun. It explodes and disappears. He laughs, "Bulls-Eye!"
He and his sister find their father's comforting hand and they walk.
Metta.
Share Article