1st International Children's Conference - TLC 28

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

*

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.        

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

*

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin. The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy. She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate. Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep and real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

* 

Meanwhile, the 1st International Beggar Conference convened in Toothpick, a wasteland near Bright Hope - a rusting rustic dream of exploratory ways and means with scientific cause and effect and logical rational certainty.

It was chaired by a distinguished group of Cambodian orphans.

NGO Fascists rented 12,000 orphans out to fake humanitarian organizations. Abandoned youth pleaded with ill-informed rich donors for marketing and branding money to feed international guilt and shame.

“Let’s eat,” said a fat banker moments before his yacht hit an iceberg in 2008.

“What you don’t see is fascinating,” said Zeynep, “like roots below the surface of appearances.”

“We have so much ice and they have so little,” said an Icelandic chess player attacking Death.

“Everyone comes to me. My patience is infinite,” said Death. “I make only one move and it’s always the correct one.”

Beggars, landmine victims, genocide survivors and sick and tired dehydrated dying starving neglected humans from 195 countries convened in sequestered committee rooms filled with suits, scholars, academics, UN personnel, CIA analysts, NGO profit motivated scam reps, IMF bankers and plastic ornamental steering mechanisms.

“We agree to disagree,” said Rich Suit.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Wage Slave.

Orphans, beggars and children spoke about slave labor, hunger, exploitation, corruption, human trafficking, corrupt police states and the terrorism of economic poverty.

“Bad luck,” said a rich slave. “That’s a you problem, not a my problem.”

Children addressing global media held press conferences focusing jaundiced eyes on lenses, recorders and bleeding pens. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Sound bites sang starvation’s misery.

If it bleeds it leads.

Incoming! Bleeding hearts ran for cover.

Orphan motions for adjudication, arbitration, fairness, equality and equity were tabled for further deliberation and discussion nowadays.

The average monthly wage was $37 in a Bangladesh clothing factory. 350,000 Cambodian women making $61/month stitched garments for Korean export companies.

Give someone a sewing machine and with a little luck they’ll feed their family. Let’s Eat.

Bamboo - TLC 27

Reflects vigor, life, energy, zeal, endurance, integrity, patience and resilience.

Lucky carried small strong Bamboo to Bursa.

Freezing January snowflake feathers fell. Adults in the Ankara bus terminal stared at thin green life floating through their transition zone.

Luminous leaves remembered spring, soil, light and resilience. Smiling children understood Bamboo’s natural motivation, intention and freedom.

He propped Bamboo into a meshed container, fronting seat sixteen. They travelled west for six hours.

They passed glittering snowfields. Solitary brown-feathered Winter Hawk rested on ice-crested branches above frozen animal tracks. Silver-white trees sparkled crystal diamonds under a blue sky. 

After winter they scaled steep mountains into autumn. Bamboo witnessed silent snow peaks. Late afternoon light played in red wispy clouds.

Descending they departed seasons. Winter became fall in reverse, green moss, summer fruit trees. A farmer on a tractor plowed spring soil. “Ah,” whispered Silent Spring, “I am ready for my turning. I feel blades in my furrows dancing with roots...”

Bamboo pressed green leaves against a window.

“Where am I going?”

“Yes,” said a leaf, “it’s an amazing Zen meditation in a long now.”

“Am I this or am I dreaming?” said a leaf turning a page.

They reached Bursa on the western edge of The Silk Road. Bursa began in 200 A.D. below Uludag (Mountain of Monks) 2,543 meters high, edging snow stone above forests toward Roman thermal baths and mineral rich waters.

They found a temporary room at Achebadem, a private suburban hospital. Clean sheets, a cot and three daily hots. It was an intensive care visual spectrum color theory filled with young lovers living emotional zombie lies of healthy doubt and uncertainty.

Downhill from the hospital a crying middle-aged man holding an orange hospital folder waited above groundat a Metro subway station. Folder contained papers from a doctor, a lab, a prognosis and a definitive medical history. It revealed a story about someone dying - a wife, child, uncle, someone he loved.

He waited in heavy unconditional silence for a green Metro to transport him down the line to his 700-year old Ottoman mountain village of Cumalikizik.

Sharing his tale he’d spill the unabridged package of loss and memory on a hand-hewn oak table surrounded by friends and relatives. Say it’s not true, said a grieving ancestor thumbing medical leaves. It’s a true fact, he said, they left us, alone, we are grateful for their love and our memory. We cry for the living, not the dead.

Hypodermic needles named Pain and Pleasure sharing fabulous silent conversations laughed on life support.

Walking past the hospital Lucky smelled red, white and yellow roses. A bird pressed itself against a rose thorn to make her self sing. He whistled hello. Bird’s refrain was a short sharp interlude trilling a deep symphonic vibration-throated free mystery with harmonic warbling scales.

Down dream street - TLC 24

An unprecedented wave of egalitarian support featuring millions of sad serene women facing arranged marriages filled with empty hopes and vague promises of love, happiness and financial security enlisted to become engaged to strangers across transcendental borders. 

This wave resembled an open hand gesturing the eternal present in a long now as one Turkish mother gifting her daughter fare well gestures watched her disappear into life’s teeming stream.

“Be well my love. You are in our hearts.”

Her daughter joined a tribe of singing women. They lived their dream making sacrifices with clear intention, motivation and mindfulness. The entourage of women danced through valleys, climbed jagged Mountains of Regret and entered a no-name village where males pounded war drums and hammered plowshares into word swords.

Marginalized poor angry males killed each other over pita bread, olives, fresh tomatoes, kebabs and geographical dust while studying imaginary maps.

“The map is not the territory,” said Visualization, a cartographer. “It is a linguistic philosophy.”

“There are no facts, only interpretations,” said a monk in Kyoto writing seventeen syllable haiku. The moon is not your finger and your finger is not the moon.

“Where is this place?” said Curious in a strange village in a strange country on a strange continent on a strange planet in a strange solar system in a strange universe.

“It is far away,” said a gravedigger with earth moving experience. “It is a dysfunctional place where bronze statues of fallen soldiers, warriors, corrupt politicians and testosterone fueled fools rust in dust, make millions off the sweat of wage slaves and congratulate each other on their mutual stupidity and insatiable greed.”

Winter Hawk winged women, “Go home. Return to your families and friends. Live in peace.”

Women followed their heart-mind.

“It’s tough living in dystopia where women are beautiful and sad,” said Zeynep. “Millions don’t know whether they are coming or going, going, long gone. They’ve fashioned well-defined living death masks from loss, hopelessness, confusion and uncertainty selling their tears and fears wrapped in silence, the loudest noise in the world. Millions wait for a forced marriage.”

Potential Turkish husbands gathered to draw lots. They drew with ink, pastels and charcoal. The charcoal came from a deep black shameless unconscious well of women singing, “Give me your sperm, your love juice. Give me a child, give me someone to love and protect carry forever, cherish and spoil with benign neglect. Give me your future. Give me a child who will help me bury your worthless corpse. We don’t care about adverbial labial love, it’s all arranged. Everything has already happened. We just need to experience it. Love is a blind whore with a mental disease and no sense of humor. It’s an impossible love. It’s a matter of practicality. Business is business. Marriage first. Love later.”

“Here,” said a marriage broker offering his son, “accept this boy/man stranger into your heart. Give him a child and user-value with implicit assessment for money in a temporary security agreement. Open your legs swallowing his thick purple verb. Practice dramatic rising action, climax and falling asleep action with a happy ending. Sensational.”

“We breed, work and get slaughtered,” said a baby-bearing slave. Daughters wrapped these constricting words around their hearts in love’s tangled jungle.

Lucky never saw women taxi drivers in Turkey. It’s a male ego thing. Bright tires, spinning wheels. Toy’s For Big Tots show.

Idle retired or unemployed guys sat around in cafes from opening to closing playing backgammon and drinking tea. They slid wooden pieces carved from youth’s forgotten toy story. Young idle macho guys, the next generation of backgammon players played taxi symphonies in the horn section. Beep-beep.

Women knew better. They were more intelligent than men. They expressed their feelings. They lived longer. They knew how the world worked.

Courageous young women confronted parents. “I respect your traditional ideas about arranged marriages however to be honest, heavy, deep and real, it’s old fashioned conservative values and morals. This is 2014 not 1987. I am a member of a new freethinking educated generation. I am not willing to be a victim of your narrow-minded attitudes. I will choose my friends and lovers and potential husband based on my needs and our mutual sense of self-respect. I know why the caged bird sings chirp, chirp, set me free.”

 

Three Baboons - TLC 23

Watering red roses one rosy dawn on the Ankara balcony he met three baboons from a Russian tribe.

A blond corn-plaited hairy one stuck her head out a 3rd short story window and spit past trees. SPLAT. She looked around, smiling. Her upper teeth were small and sharp. He smiled. She jabbered sounds and articulated questions.

“Where do you come from?”

"Do you have money?"

“Are you alone?”

“Do you want sex?”

She strangled sounds but that’s the essence. Baboon language is simple and direct. Humans should be so lucky. He smiled. She smiled. They smiled at each other. She disappeared. She returned with two friends. One had dark hair, hard eyes and big floppy breasts. She shook them side-to-side.

“Look at these watermelons,” she said.

They were heavy fruit. Good enough to eat. Another baboon joined them. Blond, with sapphire eyes and straight short spiked bangs. She stuck out her tongue. A shiny silver post glistened. She was the playful one. Laughing like a child she rolled her tongue around, up and out, like a little snake, kissing phallus. Every now and then a one-eyed snake needs to find a cave. All three jabbered with inarticulate clear syntax.

“Where are you from?”

“Do you have any money?”

“Do you want sex?”

The plaited hair one got halfway out on the narrow balcony crouched down and opened her legs. She rode an imaginary wild mustang. Her eyes and face assumed a state of fluid ecstasy. Shake your moneymaker. The hard-eyed one massaged empty space.

He smiled at this spectacle. They laughed savoring the power of erotic visual suggestion. The silver-posted one flicked her tongue in and out like breathing. Full of energy they needed a verb.

Monkey see, Monkey say, Monkey do.

He waved currency at them. They smiled. He gestured I’m coming. They nodded and disappeared. He skipped downstairs, out the door, ran to their apartment and rang the bell. Ding-dong. Honey, I’m home. The blond plaited woman dragged him in and down a hall. “Ssh,” pointing at closed doors, “they are dreaming about their families in Kiev.”

They were polite. They played all morning introducing him to well lubricated Kama Sutra gymnastics. International relations improved. They made a triple-decker sandwich with trimmings. Let’s eat. 

Zeynep the heroine - TLC 20

He expanded humans’ courage at TLC. This extraneous mixture contained Kiwi, American, Scottish and Turkish dialects. Distinctive voices contained ash, clouds, wind and intrinsic human needs for healthy unconditional loving relationships.

“Are your needs being met?” he said.

“Yes,” said Freedom. “I am free from need and the need for freedom.”

Freedom worked 24/7. Under a broiling Banlung sun tempered by a soft breeze he carried buckets of cement over exposed sewage drains and poured it on red dirt. He shoveled twenty-one muscular sandy efforts into a wheelbarrow. He pushed it to a New World Order construction site filled with profound greedy expectations and poverty’s paradoxes.

Off a dusty road after dark Freedom caressed a hungry passive $10 lover inside a plywood shack with a dirt floor, bed and OK condom removed from neon, Blue Zircon and the tooth fairy.

Her clothes hung on rusty nails embedded in exploitation. Stale perfume, lip-gloss and mascara sang long lost hope. Her dead eyes said plow my field with no emotional connection. She stared at a brick wall as Freedom, grinding desire assaulted heaven’s gate. Get to the verb faster, she whispered.

After fifteen minutes longer than forever she joined five girlfriends sitting around a fire below twinkling stars. See who shows up the night’s young, said one. We are tools, said another. I don’t give a shit, said a sad one remembering her mother and siblings up the Heart of Darkness.

The fat male moneyman slouching in a porch hammock watched flickering reruns under a red light special.