Free Lost in Pattaya by Kishore Modak Page B

surfacing each and every time I took to the bottle.
Otherwise, I never dwelled upon it , until it became plausible, growing
despite the illumination of daylight and without the devoid-manure of liquor,
during the hours of wakeful dead dawns, often the only hours that I did not
drink in.
    I did not hear from Fang Wei, and simply
dreaded the SingPost man who carries the message of separation from lawyers, an
inevitable communication forcing my signature of receipt, the thought of which
sank the dagger of failure deeper into my grief.
    Unwittingly, I fell into the unchanging
routine of a weekly rhythm, somewhere midway giving up upon the strength that
society and its people are supposed to provide. I was simply drinking the
drink, hitting the ball, popping the pill, bedding the whores fifty-odd times,
before I realised that the year was out. Excessive living, it makes one
reticent, wanting to cover an inner core of consumption, one that society
perceives as debased. The simplest escape is to be cut off, socially. It
happens unwittingly, wearing dark glasses in malls, or by pulling baseball caps
low, over the forehead when in crowds lest an acquaintance may stop you, or by
not writing to nor receiving any word from friends for weeks at end, avoiding
even the benign questions that innocuous members of society like taxi drivers
or sales clerks may pose from time to time. The only conversations that
occurred were of me with myself. Soon all voices were goading me to stare
unblinking at the sapling-solution . My stare watering it to grow at an
unnatural pace, till I and the forest of my thought-conversations stood dwarfed
by the gigantic tree that towered above us, a cancer we had created, nurtured
by us, me and the conversational Yin of my Yang.
    A counter, since each and every act of mine
was both completely right and utterly disappointing. Even the solution that we came upon, my counter arguments to it were numerous and solid, yet it had grown
and assumed a proportion that left me in front of the internet screen one
night, checking for flights and hotels in Pattaya.
    Employment, re-entry into the workforce
remained an elusive goal. Its longing dulled with each passing month, till the
point where I stopped seeking employment. It was at about the same time that I
lost my fear of the Postman, since by then he had found me, delivering the
notice of separation from Fang Wei through her lawyers, leaving me to hire a
lawyer of my own, one who would wrestle with terms that may become lucrative
for me. For now I remained in the flat; my lawyer was confident that we would
retain it.
    My lawyer was Singaporean, and hence I
trusted him, leaving even banking passwords with him, with a balance of sums
that he could cash and manage while I was away.
    The sapling-thought was not about suicide,
which was just a constant companion, like a meaningless friend who keeps
clawing and rummaging at his own crotch, just empty in useless nose-digging
companionship.
    The germinal, it was planted on the path of
finding Li Ya, whom I did, but in a manner that left me far more depleted with
her than I was without her.
    My attack of hearts, literally, lay ahead
in the hands of Miho and her mistress Thuy Binh.

Part 2
    Pictures of Li Ya
     
    My plan, the one I
obsessed over, was simple. In the rubble of dead flesh and wasted youth, I
would pose as a client seeking child prostitutes, working through the pile of
girl-children till I stumbled upon Li Ya, my own flesh.
    When I landed in
Pattaya, first off I saw Sri Jaya, scored, shot up, and had him put me in the
same whore house which had soothed me on that first night following the loss. I
asked for the same prostitute by name, and did not emerge from the brothel for a
week except for a walk each evening when she took me out to the little Buddhist
temple at the end of the street. I squared my bills in cash each day from the
ATM right next to Buddha and that kept the pimp’s attention away from me, till
on day-eight