The Dreaming Spires

Oxford

It was easy to think of the dreaming spires, of places that were somewhere else, any excuse to escape the dread that regularly overtook every waking step. And yet there was nothing that had changed. When he was growing up the world was going to end in 1972. According to the Mayan calendar it was going to end in December 2012. But as pundits around the world observed; it did no such things. But there were many who observed how quickly the zeitgeist, the eternal angst, had drifted into a kind of eternal now; that what had once seemed so important was no longer. That the problems, the desires, the troubles were rapidly shifting into something else. And so it seemed. The world had not ended; but something had.

He had been on the island of Phuket and day followed day in a lazy swirl which was new to him. He wasn't dealing with people used to a life of professional heat. Instead they sat in cafes and open air squares and dawdled away coffees a damn sight more expensive than almost any you could find on the mainland. Every glimpse of melancholy was an opportunity to confide in someone else. If there was any personal agony involved he couldn't see it. So some things were hard; but they didn't see it. Strive to survive. 

And then Ko Samui.

As one of the people in a restaurant explained; they weren't from Thailand either and none of the customers were from Thailand and so there wasn't much point in trying to speak Thai. Just speak English like everywhere else.

If they felt like their country had been stolen from under them; it was an easy sentiment to understand.

Mai Sabai, not relaxed, Chalaht, clever, Mai Chalaht, not relaxed, Mai Pen Rai, never mind, Arai G'dai, whatever, even in the middle distance the voices kept up their wavering mockery. He wasn't going to do anything to change the script. Mai Kow Jai Mon Thai, Not understand Thailand. He was neither blind, stupid or deaf, not yet. And while ever the derision lasted, nor would he be at peace. 

Leave him be, leave him be, let him get on with getting his life back together.

The topsy turvy year of 2012 was coming to a close; and he would never have cared, never have known, if they hadn't laid it out so clearly for him. There amidst the false trails lay all the answers. He could haunt the place but in the end didn't care. There was going to be a reckoning, but it wasn't for him. If they had ever been destined, it was not for him. If they had ever been in love, it was not with him. And so, when the fish came jumping out of the sea, when a myriad of stories came home  to roost, when every thread and every path laid down came finally back to where they belonged; he would be standing there laughing. Because he was still alive against all the odds. And he smiled magnanimously. Thanks for the ride, he waved, with all the grandiosity of the defective. 

Show no fear, he advised. They don't understand it; and are frightened of what they don't understand.

"Thai people not your friend," the pharmacist on Surawong warned him, eyeing the young man standing outside waiting for him.

"I know," he replied, laughing disingenuously. "I learn the hard way."

The pharmacist looked at him curiously, as if the depth of stupidity of this particular foreigner remained beyond any depths of stupidity he had previously witnessed.

Never mind, he thought, as he paid for his purchase and made his way outside. Thailand is an ever fascinating, intriguing, often beautiful, always challenging place. He hadn't intended to stay so long. But one way or another; he was still there. The acrid smell of the dense traffic swept through tired lungs; and he cheerfully greeted the young man he knew perfectly well was deceiving him.