hole in his roof with a plastic bag, he didn’t get off the chair he was standing on. Didn’t even turn his head. What a bastard.” She paused for breath. “He’s definitely clairvoyant, though. How the hell did he know my tits were sagging when he didn’t turn around to look at me?”
When I entered the hut he was standing on a chair, still fixing the hole in the roof. “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,” he said, not looking around. “All your life that’s been your mantra. No wonder you’re stunted, you haven’t even begun to live your own life, you’re waiting for daddy before you begin. Get over it.”
Now he climbed down off the chair. He was taller than I expected, about five eleven, incredibly skinny like representations of the Buddha when he was starving in the forest. He wore only an old shapeless pair of shorts held up with a piece of string, and his long hair was held back in a makeshift gray bun also tied with string. It had been decades since he’d shaved. As he possessed a mixture of Chinese and Thai genes, his beard was sparse but long, drooping down from the corners of his mouth, which was almost invisible. It ended in a few white wisps. Apart from a black fire in the depths of his eyes he looked as if he had maybe a week left in the body. And his tongue, of course. That was alive and kicking.
He assessed me in a blink. “Now I see you better. That father thing is just a distraction, isn’t it? You’re like me. I saw you in a dream.”
“How’s that?”
“A total misfit. You could come from the most stable, loving, chaste, comfortable family in Thailand with a beautiful mum and a wise dad and the very best schooling, and you’d still be all fucked-up. You chose a broken home and a whore for a mother just so you’d have an excuse to be weird. Maybe you’re not so dumb after all.” An extra voltage of gleam came into his eye. “It’s your equivalent of a broken roof.” I could see he believed he’d won the battle and was pleased with himself. “It’s your great distraction. Anytime you’re in danger of having to face the real challenge of your life, you deflect. You tell yourself you’re looking for your true identity, which can only happen when you’ve found your daddy, who, incidentally, will be of no use to you at all when you finally meet him. What a psycho scam. I’m almost impressed.” He paused for breath. “It’s not entirely your fault. Man has made astonishing strides recently in all things inessential. The price we’ve paid is enormous. Stuck with an infantile description of reality that cannot come to terms with death or even lesser challenges, the eternal infant must torture himself for lifetime after lifetime, probably without end.”
—
This time when I arrive at the shack I show him the printout of the English words on the mirror. He studies it for a long moment. “Don’t you want to know what it says?” I ask.
“No. What it says has no importance. Can’t you see what it really says, smartass? It’s telling you how big your problem really is.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s not written by a human being. I saw that in a dream last night, but even I couldn’t believe it. It’s there, though, plain as day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The individual characters. Look at that one, what’s that called?”
“It’s an
E.
”
“Right. There are lots of them. And they’re all the same.”
“Of course they’re all the same. They’re all
E
s.”
“Idiot. I mean they’re
exactly
the same. Same size, same shape, no variation at all. You’ve meditated, you’ve studied the Abhidharma, you know how the mind works. Say it takes a tenth of a second to make one stroke of a pen. Then there’s a gap in consciousness too brief to notice, but it’s vital to your functioning. During that gap the whole history of humanity intervenes in the form of sparks and flashes, your own personal history, the whole cosmos, actually, which of
When I entered the hut he was standing on a chair, still fixing the hole in the roof. “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,” he said, not looking around. “All your life that’s been your mantra. No wonder you’re stunted, you haven’t even begun to live your own life, you’re waiting for daddy before you begin. Get over it.”
Now he climbed down off the chair. He was taller than I expected, about five eleven, incredibly skinny like representations of the Buddha when he was starving in the forest. He wore only an old shapeless pair of shorts held up with a piece of string, and his long hair was held back in a makeshift gray bun also tied with string. It had been decades since he’d shaved. As he possessed a mixture of Chinese and Thai genes, his beard was sparse but long, drooping down from the corners of his mouth, which was almost invisible. It ended in a few white wisps. Apart from a black fire in the depths of his eyes he looked as if he had maybe a week left in the body. And his tongue, of course. That was alive and kicking.
He assessed me in a blink. “Now I see you better. That father thing is just a distraction, isn’t it? You’re like me. I saw you in a dream.”
“How’s that?”
“A total misfit. You could come from the most stable, loving, chaste, comfortable family in Thailand with a beautiful mum and a wise dad and the very best schooling, and you’d still be all fucked-up. You chose a broken home and a whore for a mother just so you’d have an excuse to be weird. Maybe you’re not so dumb after all.” An extra voltage of gleam came into his eye. “It’s your equivalent of a broken roof.” I could see he believed he’d won the battle and was pleased with himself. “It’s your great distraction. Anytime you’re in danger of having to face the real challenge of your life, you deflect. You tell yourself you’re looking for your true identity, which can only happen when you’ve found your daddy, who, incidentally, will be of no use to you at all when you finally meet him. What a psycho scam. I’m almost impressed.” He paused for breath. “It’s not entirely your fault. Man has made astonishing strides recently in all things inessential. The price we’ve paid is enormous. Stuck with an infantile description of reality that cannot come to terms with death or even lesser challenges, the eternal infant must torture himself for lifetime after lifetime, probably without end.”
—
This time when I arrive at the shack I show him the printout of the English words on the mirror. He studies it for a long moment. “Don’t you want to know what it says?” I ask.
“No. What it says has no importance. Can’t you see what it really says, smartass? It’s telling you how big your problem really is.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s not written by a human being. I saw that in a dream last night, but even I couldn’t believe it. It’s there, though, plain as day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The individual characters. Look at that one, what’s that called?”
“It’s an
E.
”
“Right. There are lots of them. And they’re all the same.”
“Of course they’re all the same. They’re all
E
s.”
“Idiot. I mean they’re
exactly
the same. Same size, same shape, no variation at all. You’ve meditated, you’ve studied the Abhidharma, you know how the mind works. Say it takes a tenth of a second to make one stroke of a pen. Then there’s a gap in consciousness too brief to notice, but it’s vital to your functioning. During that gap the whole history of humanity intervenes in the form of sparks and flashes, your own personal history, the whole cosmos, actually, which of
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