Big Game, Little People

Centuries earlier or later depending on reference points along Time’s thin line on an event horizon as infinity and eternity played post 9/11 dirges, fugues, and blues with a full orchestra in the pits Ahmed resumed his story in the Sahara.

“Fate bites you when you least expect it,” he said waving his hands like wild kites. “Her appetite is insatiable.”

Leonardo was so far removed from 9/11 reality he took no possession of the event. He read Ahmed’s open palms and eyes. Leonardo’s facility for unspoken tongues was legendary. It was all body language and he was fluent in every language. Gestures were a work in progress. Gestures used people.

Ahmed described airplanes and two tall towers. “I’ve read Superman by Nietzsche in Arabic. He said 'God is dead' and God said, 'Nietzsche is dead.'"

Ahmed waved his arms like a Moroccan eagle condemned to freedom yet a prisoner of the sheltering sky. He raised a hand indicating height and smacked his flying hand into his stationary hand. The impact echoed across caramel dunes. He smiled through black teeth. His dark eyes held all the world’s secrets.

Leonardo had no idea where, who, how, why, or when Ahmed received his information. Perhaps from slave and gold trade caravans, perhaps through osmosis.

“Yes,” Ahmed said, “2,974 people from 80 countries died.”

“I see.” They were just two nomads in the desert. They did not talk about Being and Nothingness. They tweaked reality by breathing.

He handed Omar’s book to Ahmed. “Have a look-see.” Ahmed read Tifignagh words.

“He was not as surprised, stunned and scared as all the well meaning myopic tax paying, allegiance singing populace would have the world’s citizens believe in their us or them attitude. He knew they’d be catapulted into a new heavy deep reality, grounded fast, sifting soil, searching for answers, breathing through death masks, deconstructing and revising history while pleading for meaning to their existence. Postmodern dialectics.

“Now they had to figure out the big answer to the big question. Why? It’d keep them busy for life. Their children taught them to ask why? Being extremely impatient and under extreme pressure to be successful in their all-consuming reality, they became extremely frustrated with the “why” question from their children. Parents wanted to be the boss, the grown-ups in complete control. They figured they had all the answers.”

Whoops!

“In the BIG game people with a long history rolled their dice when it was their turn to play and everyone had to go back to the start. They had to read the rules. They had to read the small fine print. The details they casually accepted carte blanche, data they skipped because they didn’t think it was important, the stuff made in Hollywood, the fictional entertainment stuff with happy endings. They were well conditioned to violence, sex and reality television. Now they digested so-called reality television in real time." 

ACIN

on an Irish Bus

I turned the mirror toward them. The women looked into gleaming glass. They saw their past, present and future lives all rolled into one powerful flash of light. It was a vision reflecting their joy, sadness, regrets, hope, charity, wisdom and love. The looking glass showed them their birth, middle age and death.

They saw An Gort a Mor, the great hunger and sat back sucking air.

Carrigart was the edge of their world.

“I see,” Mary said, looking up and straight into my blue eyes. They reminded her of a snow leopard, a wild, sharply focused nocturnal predator comfortable at higher elevations existing in an independent, solitary way.

“Then,” I said smiling, pointing to the red typewriter, “I download the images into this,” sliding the talisman mirror into my pocket.

“Of course, it’s a manual. They don’t make them like that anymore. Better than staring at a small screen full of radioactive electrons and clicking on a mouse.”

“I should say not,” Mary said. She preferred lead sharpened to a point.

I was trapped on an endless ride to the edge of my life. More questions. Where was I from, what’s America like, why did I leave the land of milk and honey as locals so well put it. On and on. Was I married? No. Did I miss my family?

“No, not really. My grandfather, named Malarkey, immigrated from Sligo during the famine, married Hanna Haley in St. Louis, ended up in Colorado Springs where my folks were born and my rudimentary research at Dublin Castle indicated genealogical records burned in a Sligo church fire years back.”

So much for hard circular factual data.

“My family, while emotionally cold, distant and abusive yet well-intentioned, kind and loving were dysfunctional, trying to understand my vagabond spirit nature. They had no choice in the matter and by now they’re used to receiving strange word-strings full of mysterious symbolism and tragic truths from diverse twilight zones. I transmit between crystals and gringsing decorated with universal binary codes.”

“Really now?” said Mary.

“Yes, I gave my folks a world map for their anniversary. They loved it, inviting friends, neighbors and strangers over for trivia games using postmarks, stamps, decals, flotsam, thread, needles, bark, cactus fiber, beads, charts of tributaries, topographical maps, animal skins, hieroglyphics, and Tibetan prayer wheels with Sanskrit characters.

“They caressed burned broken shards of Turkish pottery, Chinese bamboo brushes dripping blood, torn out pages from esoteric Runes, Paleolithic fertility symbols, vitreous unusual writing, and one of my favorites, a Quetzalcoatl image full of written narration based on the oral performances of Central American myths.

“Fascinating,” said Deirdre.

“Yes, I gave them Olmec nahuales shamans containing animal powers dating back to 1200 B.C. speaking their wisdom. They blended the spirituality and intellect of man with the ferocity and strength of the Jaguar to create their nahuales. Their soul required an animal medium to travel from the earth to the heavens and into the underworld.

“Additional cultural reminders were beautiful blank black mirrors. Some displayed faces others contained scripts written backwards with stories of people, geographies, forbidden objects, and a box called Pandora.

“This was one of their favorite things. They never knew, from one exploration to the next, what they’d find in the box I sent them from the journey. One realization they experienced with Pandora was how they behaved differently listened more, spoke less, almost as if they were communicating via telepathy or kinesthetic dimensions, within the exotic flow of spirit energies bathing them in a crystal light. They slowed down.

“Yes, they didn’t know what to make of it whenever something mysterious, fascinating, and totally intriguing reached them from General Delivery far away from their daily existence working to pay for a house mortgage, car, food, terrorism insurance and child care.

“You don’t say,” said Mary. 

Excerpt from Subject to Change, A Century is Nothing.

Ministry of tourism

Welcome to The Ministry of Tourism in Kampot.

It's near The Ministry of Fear and The Ministry of Truth.

You can't miss it.

It's next to The Genocide Museum. S-21. 

2,000,000 skulls are waiting for you.

They are delighted to have company in their silent vigil. 

Colonial French buildings will delight your memory of commercial conquest.

It's all a facade. 

Kampot is a sleepy little southern river town.

It is famous for pepper. Pass the sneeze please.

Quack-quack.

Hold hands. Relationships are precious. Life is short.

Let's have a look-see.

Lao kid

I’m a big seven as in 7, said an omniscient reliable Lao narrator.

Your life is not a test or a dress rehearsal. If it is an actual life your invisible friend will protect you from ignorance and fear.

My dad's not very smart. It's probably his DNA. A string theory of letters. Genetics. Gee. Net. Icks. 

Let me give you a kind-hearted example of his stupidity. It's the rainy season here in Laos. Slashing squalling delicious rain. Soft, cool, soothing. Like tears. Cry me a river.

It's pouring like honey. What’s dear old dad do? He washes his silver van in a downpour. Smart eh? Yeah, he’s trying to impress dry watchers with his intelligent hose running wealthy water over rain. Cleaning. He ignores me mostly.

Grandmother sits on the faded 1924 white austere colonial dark brown balcony folding banana leaves for a ceremony. Every morning at dawn she walks to the muddy road and offers wandering Buddhist monks a handful of rice. She burns incense at the family altar. She nurtures her shrinking garden after her son decided to plant a cement parking lot. What a clever little man.

Grandfather stares at rain on flower petals collecting in pools.

Father's very busy. He disappears for hours. Drinking beer with friends. Playing around with a secret squeeze in dark places. She’s starving for affection and cash. A poor girl from a poor family needs to make a living, poor thing.

My mom's also really smart. What’s the difference between smart and clever? After the rain, when it's dry and the smallest full moon of the year rises above the Mekong before a river festival filled with floating orange flowers and burning candles she burns all the plastic garbage. Yeah, yeah. Burn baby burn. Light my fire.

It's a sweet smell let me tell you. Like that Duvall character saying, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Kinda like that smell. What's the word? Acrid. 

When she's not burning plastic trash she sweeps. Broom music. Stone cold. She cooks. She pretends to be busy. She's a baby machine. What's another mouth? She manages the home, kids and cash. In China I’m worth $3,500 on the stolen kid market. My sister would have been aborted.

Mom ignores me mostly. She's very busy doing her humble mother routine. Later, she squawks. She's a soft kind later.

People here like parents and teachers and lazy passive humans love to pretend to be busy. I guess it gives their short life meaning.

Milling around is an art form with style. Hemingway had style. Fitzgerald had style and class.

They are soft and kind. They have a good heart. They are not as mercenary as the Vietnamese. They drift through your sensation, perception and consciousness with the grace of a cosmic Lepidoptera in a strong wind. The trick is to tolerate, with kindness and patience, your great teacher, the bland empty-eyed star gazing starrers and hustlers. Bored after five minutes they lose interest and leave you be. Zap, like a zig-zag lightning bolt. Gone. Zap.

Vietnamese plant rice.

Cambodians watch it grow.

Laotians listen to it grow.

Ain’t nature a great teacher?

For cultural, historical, educational, environmental, emotional, intellectual and economic reasons milling around is a popular daily activity. This unpleasant fact cannot be denied or ignored or forgotten like a missing leg.

It needs to be up front because it is a clear immediate danger and way of life.

Limited opportunities, unregulated population growth, substandard education, no medicine, no hope and inconclusive futures enhance Milling Around. It kills time alleviating boredom, the dreaded lethargic tedious disease.

Milling Around kills the human spirit. No initiative. Period. How sweet. How charming. It’ll take another generation to clean it up. Cambodia and Lao and Vietnam are alive with ghosts.

Their existence is one long perpetual distraction. Say what?

You may as well do what you love because you're going to spend most of your life doing it. Breed and work. That’s what I say.

I’m too young to know much. I know what I don’t know. Anyway, I need to finish my school paper on developing moral character with social intelligence, grit, self-control, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity.

How do you build self-control and grit?

Through failure, said the boy. There are two kinds of character.

What are they?

Moral character is fairness, generosity, and integrity. Performance character is effort, diligence, and perseverance. Kids need challenges to grow. Like hardships and deprivation. Yeah, it’s trial and error and taking risks.

Thanks for the life lesson. You are the future of Laos.

six from 2012

Six images Orphan enjoyed in 2012.

Two monks at a wat and The Tree of Life, Luang Prabang, Laos.

On the street - boys and wedding Siem Reap, Cambodia.

 

Music man plays for an audience of 1, Trabzon, Turkey. Red balloons.