Some Assumptions
A Retrospective
I really loved her, I did.
I met her six years ago, when I first got the job at the school. She smiled at me, this oblivious teacher who must have been about my age and had a seeming temperament not unlike my own. She had a mischievous smile that spoke of deeper held secrets, a tiny mole upon her chin, a roundish face and dramatic eyes, slight curves to her otherwise robotic and lanky form, and my first thought was—“love at first sight.
”I wonder what her thought was, probably “look at this fucking buffalo, he looks dumber than the last one.”
Or maybe she thought the same thought as me, I’ll never know.
More on this romantic catastrophe later, it’s still being processed.
You know, I’ve heard all sorts of Farang-Thai relationship stories, but the ones that happen to you personally seem to be very unique in-so-much-as you don’t know how to describe them but to other Farang who have been through similar straights.
“Did she do this?”
“Yeah! How did you know?”
“And then she did this, right?”
“Dude…you are freaking me out!”
Thats not to say Thai women are predictable—they are anything but! I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said that men will never understand women. Thai women are a special sort of advanced theoretical astrophysics that Von Neumann would be hopeless to solve.
But then again, when it works, it works.
I was thinking also about another girl, another teacher girl up north, who tore my heart out when I moved to Bangkok. I heard through the grapevine she slept with more than a few farang who passed through there once I left. But she totally looked me over. I wasn’t important enough for anything physical.
But man did I write about her. I wrote a lot. And not always kind words about her, neither. Sometimes when it’s all said and done you just want to fill the void. You just want that action. Show me the nether regions, and don’t make me go to the netherworld to find them!
It’s cold in here. I got the air con running. I took a shower and now I’m in a towel just sitting on my bed in a dark room, writing this. I just farted. Smells like refried beans. When did I eat that?
Tomorrow, work is winding down. I got just a few more days at this post, and then I’ll find another.
But such is life. We live, we fart about, we die. And some people say we even do it again.
I can’t decide if that is truly a blessing, or if it’s truly a curse.
It’s another day now, the next day, and I’ve lit a lavender scented candle and I’m sitting on my couch. The air con has got this place nice and cold. Its dusk, the sun is on its downward descent, that Sun God Chariot moving towards the horizon.
If a woman were here, at this moment, if the woman I’m thinking of now were here, would it improve things? In many ways, the moment is perfect as is. But if she were here, I guess I’d be smiling.
Of course, I’m not even sure what woman I am thinking of. In a way, it’s just my Aenima, lurking beside me, dressed in a flowing red and white and gold kimono, smoking a cigarette on a long cigarette holder, face changing to suit my mood.
This amorphous, ever-present woman smiles at me. Cackled teeth turn to straight.
“Feeling alright? You look a little blue.”
“I’m orange actually.”
“Again?” She says, her face pouting.
I love it when she does that, I love it too much.
Down below us on the street, the blue monkey who I met years prior is dancing in front of a man with a music box. His eyes point in different directions, and his skin is green. He wears a sombrero on his head.
People walk past him and avert their eyes in terror, but he just smiles.
A woman I once knew walks past him, and he grabs her by the lapel as she does. “Don’t you know?” He says “It’s all over. Mankind. The world is ending. Computers done and killed us all. This is just a simulation!”
“Get off of me!” Shouts the woman in fear, and she pushes him off and runs away. She spends the night crying alone, but for a goldfish in a bowl that looks at her solemnly with watery blue eyes.
The monkey, for its part, continues to dance. Eventually, the black cat emerges from an alley, sits nearby, and watches it.
“Are you alright, monkey? You are looking rather blue.” He says.
“That’s an assumption,” says the monkey, “to think that if I am blue, that I am not alright.”
“I have other assumptions.”
“Some assumptions,” says the monkey, “are better left unsaid.”
High above them, in my apartment, I have just finished with the woman in the kimono in my bed who doesn’t really exist. Her face changed several times as we were doing the deed. I stare up at the ceiling. The sun sets, and the night brings mischievous joy.
But some assumptions, are better left unsaid.