"I don't want a future, I want a present. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future."
If very their truly words said, it that above.
"I had wanted to talk but had found no time, sought some fixed point, but found none. In the midst of the unrelenting forward thrust I had felt the need to stand still. The muchness and the motion had been too much and too fast. Everyone had withdrawn from everyone."
Brilliant.
English my native language and have characterizes of dyslexia.
Copyright (C) 2011, Zoolane
I have pass by English Exam.
Thanks Zoo.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Best regards
M.
A complete change of pace here man, and something of a change in style too. Interesting read, that's for sure, notwithstanding the occasional strange word choice, like autumnally...
Still keen to find out where this is going.
Keep it coming.
Live and be well - H
Hi Hawk
Thanks for the valid points you made. Due to the demands of work, I invariably can only write a chapter in either “Bangkok Benediction” or “The Last Paradise” on my Sunday break. So the flow and style, sometimes becomes disjointed depending on what sort of week I’ve had, what I’ve been reading in the evenings and all the other bits that start to germinate in my head.
I’m hoping that when I retire in eighteen months’ time, I will be able to write full time and then introduce a greater element of consistency.
Take care
M.
Looking round Mick thought to himself, “This place makes the more impoverished of Dagenham's council estates look like a civilized supper in the Penrith village tearooms and the rough part of Balham, a spring afternoon sculling a tranquil tack on Lake Windermere.”
He recalled the lines from Shakespeare “And dig deep furrows in thy beauty’s field.” Issan, he realized after his six month stay with Chi, tilled a furrow way below the conventional working sector, and it did so with minimal effort and zero scruples.
“These people”, he had come to deduce, “simply did not give a damm, and they couldn't have been prouder of their social status.”
He noted in the local bar an individual who, he had till now considered to be one of the less feral members of his immediate community. But foregoing his usual genial greeting, he had upon Mick’s entrance ignored him and continued to pour copious amounts of liquor down his gullet with great vengeance and furious anger.
His mission, which he had clearly accepted, was to getting absolutely plastered. Such assignments aren't without their adverse effects and upon finishing the contents of his bottle Mick noted that the man had begun to hold an aggressive heart to heart with the empty shot glass which now stood barren before him.
"You're a lachico" he essentially roared at the innocent receptacle.
Now Mick wasn't sure if the glass was as stated because it had slowly eroded his soul or because it was empty, but either way, the facts remained the same; this particular vessel was, at present, the focal point of a lunatic's wrath of retribution. He clearly wanted it dead.
Before he could launch into a final cacophony of expletives and end the existence of the glass by repeatedly hurling it across the room, his worried wife and mother arrived on the scene and attempted to usher him home. Initially they couldn't move him. He was now immersed like a scuba diver in a bottle of beer Archa, and had no inclination whatsoever to go home and 'gin khao'. But credit where credit's due, his mother was a feisty little woman and insisted he followed them back home, this instance.
He subsequently got up and fell over. This man was unable to walk.
Expectant eyes breached Mick’s private space where he sat pretending to be invisible, and obviously doing a poor job at it. Eventually he resigned himself to the fact that this gentleman's form of transportation back to his dwellings would come courtesy of yours truly’s shoulder.
Up he came after some effort and off the troupe plodded. Fortunately his home was only 100 or so metres from the bar, and after some short time they entered the house.
Mick deposited him down on a mattress which was parked by the front door and took in his surroundings.
The house turned out to be a glorified shed which was apparently deemed fit to accommodate ten or so people.
To his left, an elderly man who literally appeared to be rotting sat rocking on the floor in a state of profound psychosis.
Next to him, an elderly couple who each in turn bared their decayed teeth at Mick, a gesture he was unable to translate – “did they want to eat him, or were they simply saying hello?”
In the middle of the room, a new born baby crying for nobody in particular and being comforted by the same person. On the far right, a trio of teenagers smoking, drinking, and playing cards.
Mick looked at his bar acquaintance who was already submerged in a deep, drunken slumber, dribble sourcing from the corner of his mouth and trickling into a slowly expanding pool on the bed sheet, and he just about wept. All the dreams, all the aspirations of love and inner peace in this part of Thailand were becoming like dry ashes in his mouth.
When I was about to click your latest posting, it occurred to me that I wasn't sure if I were up-to-date on "Bangkok Benediction," and it turns out that I had. I also wanted to "bump" this one as well.
A couple of things to add that I failed to mention in the previous go-round.
1. Among your fellow LitNutters, you have a knack of evoking setting in both panoramic and delicate ways, providing a vivid portrait of locales that seem fascinating and "exotic" to this home-bound statesider.
2. You also provide a panoply of distinguishable characters who are collectively desperate, at times both sympathetic and self-serving. Both the locals and the transplants look upon their opposites with a jaded judgement:
3. Every once in a while your prose sparkles with a breathtaking sentence phrase, such as the opening line to the work or a descriptive gem, such as [they]"clasped each other as if they'd been in a shipwreck.""You'vre not been here long Mick, so let me explain to you. There are guys that come to Thailand for whatever reason; divorce, alimony payments, trouble back home, and they think this place will solve all their problems. Warm climate, cheap to live, plenty of women and for a time it does just that. Then it gets into their system. They wake up with a hangover, kick last night's whatshername out of bed and live on beer and hamburgers. It sucks the marrow out of them. They can't leave because; either they have nothing to go back to, or their papers have expired and they have no money left to bribe the police or authorities. So they sell themselves cheap, like any whore, with whatever they can do. English teacher, consultant, it's all the same cheap labour, and the Thais take full advantage. Here endeth the lesson man!"
4. Literary and cultural allusions(Colombo,Maugham, the brilliant analogy to George Eliot in the opening to Chapter 8) --these, as well as the amusing, self-referential comments delivered in an off-hand way -- not to mention the ever-present wit--place you squarely in the post-modern milieu.
5. I envy your apparent immunity to clichés, though once in a while one will sneak in and (ahem) "rear its ugly head": "like a limp rag."
Some minor quibbles (mainly found in the earlier chapters):
--Watch your apostrophes, missing where they're needed and included when they're not. Here are some examples, with corrections:
"just what its name implied" "from its neighbors"(No apost. needed, for the possesive pronoun of "its.") The contrary is effect when the word is a contraction for "it is," where the apostrophe is indeed called for. (Just remember that the apostrophe is a stand-in for the missing letter.) "It's the beginning of the weekend."
The apostrophe was missing in these phrases: "each other's needs," "catered to one's needs" and "an affirmation on the man's part."
You never need apostrophes for simple (non-possessive) plurals. Hence, no apostrophe in "Thais." It was written correctly in subsequent appearances.
Recurrent spelling error: de rigueur. ( The letter "u" appears twice, not just once, and if you want to indicate that it's a foreign phrase, italicize rather than put it in quotes.)
One verb error: "where he lay face down" (not "laid"). The pronoun "he" without a clear antecedent (chapters 5 and 6) and an unfinished symphony of a sentence--" Ed viewed him with potential " ("Potential" what?)
(I realize that the editing mechanism can't be accessed after a certain length of time, but if you have saved the file, maybe you can correct these minor errors on the original version.)
Despite these pesky little points, this story deserves "bumping."
Last edited by AuntShecky; 06-12-2013 at 02:34 PM.
What's a lachico? I dunno a lachico. Word don't know lachico. You know, Man, one thing I note about your pieces is the wordsmanship. The story telling is engaging and the wordsmanship even more so. I suspect you have a well developed vocab. and it allows you to find the word with just the right meaning. Always a pleasure to read and learn.
Dear Steve
The word “lachico,” “lachi,” or “latchico,” is west of Ireland slang, whose meaning can vary according to usage. It can vary from meaning a lazy person usually male, to the stronger version of “f-cking eejit” (idiot).
Perhaps I should not have used it in the story, but in the end demurred gracefully to my conscience, as our hero is after all of Irish descent.
Glad you enjoyed the tale.
Take care.
M.
Dear Aunty
Thank you for the kind words and your inexhaustable patience with my grammer.
Best wishes
M
Last edited by MANICHAEAN; 06-11-2013 at 11:47 PM.
Dear 108 fountains.
Found it relatively easy. Strange on my part to see the pre and post Bangkok themes in the writing.
Take care
M.
It does not seem possible that you could have written this without having spent considerable time in Bangkok/Thailand first. Much of the expat scenes could have come from Philippines or just about anywhere else, but the scenes that were strictly Thai were too detailed and too correct to be the product of research only, but if that is the case, then congratulations on carrying it off so well.
Much I could say about this, but I'll try to keep it short.
1. I really hope you come back to it to give it a conclusion it deserves. It could go any number of ways, but it feels to me that you could bring it to a conclusion in just two or three more installments.
2. You did a good job in capturing some of the feelings of desperation and hopelessness that do lie not so far below the surface, for both men and women, in relationships like that between Chi and Mick. I would like to think that the two of them were able to find a happy ending (no pun intended). That can happen. We expats tend to more often hear about the failures, but there are successful relationships too.
3. Speaking of desperation and hopelessness, your Chapter Five is a masterpiece. It's not really desperation or hopelessness; it's some emotion that I can't pin a name to. But it's real. I've felt it myself in Thailand, when naiveté is suddenly lost and all the smiles seem suddenly false. Whatever that feeling is, you captured it perfectly.
4. There were so many really beautiful passages, some profound insights, and some great humor sprinkled throughout. For humor, I especially like -- You know the type. Sup the first coffee of the day and wonder; where am I, who am I and do I like it here? Technical stuff about what time and which day of the week it is will have to wait. -- Reminds me of the time years ago when I was sitting with a friend at a Bangkok go-go bar and saw an older guy sitting at the stage drooling at the girls. I turned to my friend and said, "Look at that old guy. Just look at him. When I get old, I hope I'll be just like him!"
I hope you get a chance to visit Saigon while you are in Vietnam. I never really found a favorite bar in either Bangkok or Saigon, but I have some favorite restaurants in Saigon: the Wild Horse Saloon for steak (and the Red Sun bar next door, although I'm not sure that place still exists), Com Nieu Saigon, for some of the best variety of great Vietnamese food (menu has more than 100 items) and a fun, outdoor atmosphere, and the Temple Club, which is somewhat upscale, but very, very nice.
A just conception of life is too large a thing to grasp during the short interval of passing through it.
Thomas Hardy
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