course doesn’t exist in time, but when you make the next stroke of the pen you are a different person. After a whole inhalation and exhalation nothing at all remains except the blueprint. No way the next stroke is going to be identical to the first, there has to be a subtle difference. When it comes to a whole letter, well, no normal person possessed of normal consciousness will produce exactly the same letter over and over again.”
He stares at me. I take back the printout, hold it close to study, nod, hand it back to him. “So what are you saying? Someone has a template they use to write this stuff on mirrors in blood after they’ve brutally beheaded a person?”
“No. I’m saying the hand that wrote it was human, the mind controlling that hand was not. It was not a real mind. It was a clone of a mind.”
I gape.
“That’s a terrific battle you’ve got on your hands. Try not to win it.”
“Try
not
to win it?”
“Sure. If you win it you’ll get conceited and start feeling too positive about life, and you’ll come back powerful and successful in the next incarnation and totally fuck up all over again and have to start over as a dog or something. If you must win, make sure it hurts so bad you don’t ever want to go through something like that again.” He shrugs. “But you probably won’t win. This is big. Very big. This is the end of the world, what you have there on that piece of paper.” He scratches his beard. “By the way, what does it say?”
I tell him. He stares at me and shakes his head.
“What?” I say.
“
What? You ask what?
You’re a detective, you told me. Has anything ever been so obvious?”
I take a deep breath. This guy is a master of trying your patience. Maybe it is his teaching method; at this moment it seems like a serious personality defect. “I am very sorry to be so stupid,” I say with a smile. “Clearly my modest capacity is so far behind yours it is difficult for you to relate to me. Would you graciously explain what the…” I take another breath. “What the hell you are talking about?” I say softly.
He hums tunelessly. Never before has humming filled me with rage. Little by little words emerge from the hum. Finally I realize what he is saying over and over again: “Someone has you on a hook, my friend. Someone has you on a hook.” He smiles. “Congratulations. If you survive this karma, you will be close to enlightenment. I almost envy you.” Then he frowns. “Take a look at this,” he says, using a dramatic gesture to sweep around his unbelievably squalid abode with the leaking roof, the dirt floor, a mean little brazier, one pot, a plastic bottle of water, a bamboo mat for a bed, a crude Buddha image on a high shelf. “You think this is tough? This is easy.” He points to his head. I get the message. He has tranquillity, I have the opposite. When I make to leave he grabs my arm and stares into my eyes. “You smoke weed, don’t you?”
“Ah, a little.”
“No, a lot. But probably not enough. Next time you smoke, get really, really stoned, then meditate on desolation. Concentrate on the most unpleasant death you can think of, then how it will be at the end, when you realize there never was a heaven or a morality and every single little thing you did to make your life and the world better was a total waste of time.”
“Why are you so hung up on desolation?”
“It’s where the treasure is hidden.”
—
So much for my brush with the saint. When I emerge from his shack I am surprised to find the woman from my previous visit outside staring at the river. She looks away when she sees me, as if she understands what I am going through. Maybe he puts everyone through it.
5
A fter I’d given myself time to think about it, I realized there was a reason why Vikorn might be happy to nail the HiSo lawyer Lord Sakagorn, he of the sky-blue Rolls-Royce and the trademark ponytail. The Colonel was from a dirt-poor subsistence farming family in Isaan
He stares at me. I take back the printout, hold it close to study, nod, hand it back to him. “So what are you saying? Someone has a template they use to write this stuff on mirrors in blood after they’ve brutally beheaded a person?”
“No. I’m saying the hand that wrote it was human, the mind controlling that hand was not. It was not a real mind. It was a clone of a mind.”
I gape.
“That’s a terrific battle you’ve got on your hands. Try not to win it.”
“Try
not
to win it?”
“Sure. If you win it you’ll get conceited and start feeling too positive about life, and you’ll come back powerful and successful in the next incarnation and totally fuck up all over again and have to start over as a dog or something. If you must win, make sure it hurts so bad you don’t ever want to go through something like that again.” He shrugs. “But you probably won’t win. This is big. Very big. This is the end of the world, what you have there on that piece of paper.” He scratches his beard. “By the way, what does it say?”
I tell him. He stares at me and shakes his head.
“What?” I say.
“
What? You ask what?
You’re a detective, you told me. Has anything ever been so obvious?”
I take a deep breath. This guy is a master of trying your patience. Maybe it is his teaching method; at this moment it seems like a serious personality defect. “I am very sorry to be so stupid,” I say with a smile. “Clearly my modest capacity is so far behind yours it is difficult for you to relate to me. Would you graciously explain what the…” I take another breath. “What the hell you are talking about?” I say softly.
He hums tunelessly. Never before has humming filled me with rage. Little by little words emerge from the hum. Finally I realize what he is saying over and over again: “Someone has you on a hook, my friend. Someone has you on a hook.” He smiles. “Congratulations. If you survive this karma, you will be close to enlightenment. I almost envy you.” Then he frowns. “Take a look at this,” he says, using a dramatic gesture to sweep around his unbelievably squalid abode with the leaking roof, the dirt floor, a mean little brazier, one pot, a plastic bottle of water, a bamboo mat for a bed, a crude Buddha image on a high shelf. “You think this is tough? This is easy.” He points to his head. I get the message. He has tranquillity, I have the opposite. When I make to leave he grabs my arm and stares into my eyes. “You smoke weed, don’t you?”
“Ah, a little.”
“No, a lot. But probably not enough. Next time you smoke, get really, really stoned, then meditate on desolation. Concentrate on the most unpleasant death you can think of, then how it will be at the end, when you realize there never was a heaven or a morality and every single little thing you did to make your life and the world better was a total waste of time.”
“Why are you so hung up on desolation?”
“It’s where the treasure is hidden.”
—
So much for my brush with the saint. When I emerge from his shack I am surprised to find the woman from my previous visit outside staring at the river. She looks away when she sees me, as if she understands what I am going through. Maybe he puts everyone through it.
5
A fter I’d given myself time to think about it, I realized there was a reason why Vikorn might be happy to nail the HiSo lawyer Lord Sakagorn, he of the sky-blue Rolls-Royce and the trademark ponytail. The Colonel was from a dirt-poor subsistence farming family in Isaan
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