Infinite Wisdom

*

Well, there wasn't anything to be done. Bar Restaurant Beer Orgy Slosh read the sign; and if everything was lost and he destroyed every opportunity; here on the darkened ways; in the streets in the early hours; in fabulous life, then equally he feared any easy way out. He listened to every other story. They came laughing. He was in despair. I don't smoke weed, he said, making a smashing gesture with his fist curved into his other arm, the reflection of an hysterical story of events decades old. As if anything mattered. The work load was insurmountable. The Death Of Stapo. Hence the courage, hence the change. The death of everything that had gone before. Let go of the past, let go of the future. Let go of all ordinary sins; ailments; anger, sadness, fear. The monk splashed holy water upon them both.

It was too cruel and he didn't have any answers; so they hung in the space between desire and action; killing time in restaurants, farangs on holiday, lounging away the idle afternoons. There are plenty of other businesses, said the former Australian Federal Police officer who owned the guesthouse; talking to an old pal on the phone behind him. The place was full of farangs, foreigners, scheming, scamming, taking the cheap money, spreading lives of love and offer, twitching in circumstances he could not understand; how do you do? Everyone planned a future. He only planned a past. He was the only Westerner in the entire disco. They danced. They got drunk. As always, he envied the lives of others.

For so many years he had sat outside the News Limited building, smoking cigarettes, loser cigarettes now, and watched as all the flash cars went zapping past, and people, young men in their own bodies, went riding past in their technical comfort; and he envied them so fully. A handsome Thai man stood up and embraced him for no apparent reason; drunk. A girl danced beside him, dancing, shouting to the music, flirting; and all disappeared in random encounters. There would never be a way out. All was lost. And yet the depression had disappeared and he didn't know who he was anymore. Birds flittered through the garden trees. Wind moved softly through the Chiang Mai air. A tuk tuk chuttered past. If anything was going to be fulfilled, it wasn't here.

They road out in the real estate agents car to look at a house; and they made jokes later about how it represented the perfect nightmare; a place to die; a place to experience that incomprehensible desolation; dissolution; the true unhappiness only they could bring upon themselves. Once set up, the officer said, explaining how everything worked. Everybody was working something here. The son of a former relationship. It wasn't easy. Nothing was easy. Everyone else had a life and all he could do was look on; infinite, these things that never ended, dragging the cheerful Americans along to a vegetarian restaurant. It was the first time Brent had ever been to one. They were very funny. American John had seen Janis Joplin live; and was a link to living history; to an icon he and his friends, and John Bygate in particular, had put on a pedestal, oh Lord, everything we had ever wanted to be, balanced on a bar stool, knocking it back.

Man it reminds me of a dream I had in Nigeria once. They were visiting from Japan, where they were both English teachers. Gary is coming up on Thursday. There isn't any tomorrow. There is only today. Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery. All these cliches kept churning around, ever since they had been splashed by holy water and joked, feebly, that they were now spiritually evolved; they had left this plane, everything had been resolved. It was a simplistic explanation of what had already happened to them; the wind moving through the trees; the swirl of a late summer storm, the chatter of the guest house owner, the infinite space between the fabric of things; as if they could understand; as if the bars would bring relief, as if those bottles of whisky on the Thai tables weren't tempting; and as if every time, the rare times, someone flirted with him; that he didn't want to right himself off then and there; into oblivion max ten, so that he too could embrace, or was it penetrate; everything that was love and low cost and the fabric of things; the future the past the body beneath; the mini-death of short pleasures; the pure infinity of human yearning. Of simple lust.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7533884/Moscow-metro-blasts-female-suicide-bombers-kill-35.html

Two female suicide bombers known as “black widows” blew themselves up in Moscow’s busy metro during morning rush hour killing at least 35 people, according to the Russian authorities.

A further 40 people were reported badly wounded.

Though no group has so far claimed responsibility for the atrocity, security sources said early indications suggested that the suicide bombers were from the volatile North Caucasus region that includes Chechnya.

If that is right, it would be the first time since 2004 that Islamist extremists have struck the Moscow metro, raising the terrifying spectre of a new bombing campaign aimed at Russia’s biggest cities.

Prosecutors opened a criminal case immediately, saying they would be working on the basis that the explosions were the work of terrorists.

The bombers struck two separate metro stations in central Moscow – Lubyanka and Park Kultyry - in a carefully coordinated attack.

At least 22 people were reported dead at the Lubyanka metro station, which is situated close to the headquarters of the FSB security service, the successor agency to the KGB.

Witnesses said an explosion tore through one of the carriages as the train was coming into the station killing commuters onboard as well as people standing on the platform. Dozens were reported wounded.

One witness, a policeman, said the bomb went off as the train’s doors opened and people poured out. Officials said the suicide bombers were wearing belts around their bodies packed with explosives. There were unconfirmed reports that they had set off the bombs using their mobile phones.

A second explosion at the busy Park Kultyry metro station located close to Moscow’s famous Gorky Park followed about forty minutes later.

It is not clear how many people that blast killed and wounded though some reports said up to fifteen people had lost their lives. Officials said the attacks had been conducted in identical fashion and that the overall death toll was likely to rise.

There were unconfirmed reports of a third blast at a third metro station, Prospekt Mira, but officials said they could not confirm whether that was true or not.

Traffic on the metro system, one of the world’s busiest, was disrupted as emergency service vehicles surrounded the stations affected. Police said sniffer dogs were checking for explosives before removing victims’ bodies. Mobile phone networks crashed as people scrambled to find out about their loved ones, long traffic jams formed, and emergency hotlines were set up.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/29/2859482.htm?section=justin

The Federal Opposition says the arrival of two more boats carrying asylum seekers and the escape of three detainees from a detention centre shows the Government is losing control of Australia's borders.

One hundred asylum seeker boats have arrived in Australian waters since the Government was elected in 2007. The two most recent arrivals were detected in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that four detainees have escaped from Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre in the past month.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the Federal Government's border protection policies are not working.

"This is a 100-fold indictment of the Rudd Government's policies," he said.

"When Julia Gillard was the shadow minister for immigration she would regularly put out press releases saying 'another boat, another policy failure'. This is a policy failure compounded 100 times."

The Immigration Department is threatening to fine the operator of the Villawood Detention Centre over a spate of recent escapes.

Three Chinese nationals climbed over a fence at Villawood early this morning and are still on the run. New South Wales police are searching for the trio.

Two of the men had been detained for over-staying temporary visas while the third is said to be an unauthorised air arrival.

http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754332467706460/main.png?a=0&maxh=400