I see a boy pointing at me. Pointing at a stranger. What kind of stranger? A friendly stranger. Are you a stranger?
Yes. I am a stranger to myself.
Why is the boy pointing? The boy is pointing because. Because why? I don't know why. I know the boy is happy. How do you know he is happy? He is smiling. What is a smile?
It is a reflection. A reflection of what manifestation? A manifestation of joy. Facial muscles in Laos.
Can you read a smile?
Yes I can. His smile says, Smile, we will help you practice.
The chunchiet animist people of Ratanakiri in remote northeast Cambodia bury their dead in the jungle. Life is a sacred jungle.
Animists believe in the universal inherent power of nature in the natural world. The Tompoun and Jarai, among many animist tribal people in the world have sacred burial sites.
This is the Kachon village cemetery one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok river from Voen Sai. The River of Darkness.
It is deep in the jungle along the river. You need a local guide and a translator speaking the local dialect.
The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site.
The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell. In their spirit story dream the shaman meets LOTH, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief says sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy LOTH. It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.
After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, carve wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a festive week long celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village.
Years earlier I meditated on my equilibrium one hot humid Asian day standing in disparate lines waiting for my visa to be validated by a boy soldier armed with an M-60 in the third world.
He had ammunition to spare and the 90-day firearm waiting period was not in effect. His background check bounces. If he is lucky he eats rice three times a day.
If I am lucky I will get through this transformation, derivation, metamorphosis alive. I will emerge on the other side chanting my mantra, ‘Om Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.’
His bloodshot eyes checked me out as he rifles luggage. He found a mirror. He saw his destiny. Death by starvation. He slipped it into his pocket giving me a sullen, apathetic, malnourished stare. He needs it. My supply is infinite.
He pointed at my battered typewriter, “What’s that?”
I smiled, handing him shredded greenbacks.
He opened my passport to a visa page from the Hanford nuclear reactor in Washington State.
It reads, “Passport - Total Exposure System. Radiation Work Permit.”
I am allowed access to non-radioactive areas with an approved dosage of 10 mrem/hr in general areas. My stay time is 500. Radiological conditions allow me 1K of Beta Gamma and 2 mrem of Alpha. I wear a dosimeter badge to monitor my dosage in high/high-high radiation areas, contaminated areas and airborne radioactive areas or particle control areas.
Here in Coma-Land, somewhere below the equatorial zone it is the rainy season. Coming down. Sheets.
What it is. Two seasons. Dry and wet.
Laundry hangs itself. Why does laundry hang itself? Poverty? Lack of initiative? Boredom? For the same reason the juvenile boy facing glass across the street passively performs circular tedious rag motions on a glass door.
His decrepit grannie living upstairs waiting to die a glorious peaceful death will inspect it. If her old tired gray eyes see one dancing smudge she'll begin screaming, Clean it again, Clean it again. He will hang his head.
In shame.
Listening class is permanently cancelled.
Around and around we go. Where we stop no one knows. If he knew the end game he'd cease breathing. He'd hang with laundry. He'd go to school. Too expensive. Yeah, yeah.
Dirt roads are now expansive expensive elaborate esoteric lakes. Welcome to the lake district. Take the long way home. Endless landscape shrines are a luminous green. Eat it with your eyes, said Saigon.
The Bayon from the 12th century at Angkor Wat features 48 faces. All directions.
Immense and powerful.
This slide show also includes images of detailed carvings from the main Angkor temple, depicting "Churning The Sea of Milk," an ancient Sanskrit Hindu story.
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