The Sea Is Ours by Jaymee Goh Page B

hawking dried bark, roots and leaves from a canvas tarp next to the trail weied deeply and was ignored.
    The trail disappeared into the foliage of a bamboo grove as did the black garbed man and his servants. As if alarmed by his energy, a gap appeared as the leafage parted above his passage.
    Preecha deftly lifted the yellow and white butterfly from the frozen ocean and wound it for release to a clear sky. From the calluses raised during its making, the insect launched. Bright wings batted and flipped to a sweeping spiral glide over his shaved pate to dance stiff -legged on the hard sea.
    A plaintive hum was left to step away on the green peaks of the giant staircase across the river as Preecha ended his morning ritual in meditation. Still cool damp air filled his lungs, slowly, each air molecule rejoicing to enter his sponges and meet with his blood.
    Behind closed lids, energy spun and lifted him high above the brown artery that pulsed below. In his transcendental meditation, the worlds of myth and reality blended into one. Sinuous silver green nagas coiled and roiled near the Siam shore. Hanuman sat near the washed away chedi foundation, pale hands applauding another day; dog’s face cheering, brown tail curled around his hairy rump. Brass greaves sparkling, a kinaree flew a low patrol on the shore line, blue wings alternating a beat and glide, gold eyes inspecting everything.
    â€œPreecha.”
    In his name was command and condemnation. Breath bucked out of him in surprise. Jarred by the annoyance, his scant arm hair rose from their roots and prickles ran up his neck to the base of his bare head. Features impassive, he turned to regard the speaker.
    Globules of sweat dripped from beneath the spiked black hair of the man in the tailored black suit as he stood with his pith helmet off. Irritated by Preecha’s obvious indifference to the effort made to be present on the Mekong, Prasert exerted himself to maintain self-control and gain the cooperation of his brother. Behind him stood two acolytes who had abandoned their board game with pale and dark chips of wood at the trail junction and stood in flat faced silence.
    â€œPrasert. Older brother. How are mother and sister?”
    Prasert wiped sweat with one hand from his brow and flicked the drops away from long nails at the end of his pale fingers. In light tunics and short pants, the acolytes stood straighter and thinned their lips in disapproval. Prasert’s thick lips split in a white toothed grin.
    â€œLittle brother, forgive the Western manners that our mother wished me to learn in Paris, and the medical training that our father wished me to protect the Thai people with. You have perhaps a drink of water for weary travelers?”
    The acolytes waited for Preecha to give assent. The scent worn by Prasert began to overpower the musty odor of damp, decaying plant matter that coated the earth under the trees that encircled the meadow. A large black fly buzzed between the quietly standing men, and then flew to Prasert. Like a working saw it flew in and out around his head until an angry fist slapped it.
    Morning heat radiated up from the bare blackened rock on which he stood with toes spread. In the afternoon, it would be too hot to walk on the weather-sculpted rocks and Preecha would retreat to study in his hermit’s cave. Prasert would be gone by then. With a finger’s twitch, one man turned stiffly away to a trail that ran beside a trickling brook and climbed higher into the clearing.
    Prasert followed, his leather soled shoes slipping and clicking. With eyes straight ahead, Preecha walked the trail, weighing and feeling each step. Yellow and green grass stems swayed and swirled as he passed. One man was left as a figurative gatekeeper to this holy site. At a clear pool, fed by a welling spring and a tumbling waterfall, Prasert accepted the ladle of water.
    Now in the shade of the foliage, relaxed after the exertion of his climb, near pool water