Some Sort Of Conclusion

*

To change the world, or at least your world, you just change countries. Those indolent days were over just like that. The place was paralysed with Cambodian New Year, the streets were quiet. Ross and family went to stay in a five star hotel at Sihanoukville; and how many craven days would it take, how much humiliation could be poured upon one person? Brought crashing down. Infitisemal progress, all to be brought undone with a tragic love for rent, rough trade. Henrietta doesn't get the concept of rough trade, Suzy said, retailing the exploits of a boyfriend who had just been arrested in the main street of Moree for drunk and disorderly; that rust bucket town where dust and domestic violence mixed with the shabby disrepair of the streets, a town with whole sections where white people did not go, where the fetid dumps of public housing led across a darkened stream; no garbage was collected, no mail delivered, nothing, nobody worked. Any tougher and they'd rust; she was fond of repeating.

There probably weren't too many argumetns about the facts of the case, the stumbling madness as he threw bottles through windows in the mainstreet, where there were no glass shop fronts but only grills, where the grime and the sweat mixed with a delicious alcoholic oblivion; and where this upstanding citizen told the cops what they could suck on. But why bother even arresting him? What possible difference could it make; in a place where human sweat and stale breath and alcohol fumes were an esential part of every human congress. You can't come in here, the middle class matron declared, slamming the door of her nicely air conditioned home. Boundaries should not be transgressed. He shouldn't have had that extra happy pizza. The heat was overwhelming, the pool luxurious. Pnom Penh was passing by in a fevered haze. Their days together were drawing to a close. And in the end all he felt was a certain shame and sadness; never good enough. He flew across countries to be there; but in the end did not perform. Der brain to the end. Because he never wanted to feel anything, that was rule number one.

Things came to an end, or some sort of conclusion, on that final day; when they had coffee in the air conditioning at the Fresco cafe opposite, already the heat stifling, and following New Year the tuk tuk drivers asleep in their vehicles at odd angles, sometimes two of them curled together in the already blazing sun. Oh what a night; but the nights here were limpid with defeat, with the corruption of a society which had gone off the rails long ago, in a place where money meant everything and sometimes the locals were referred to as monkey boys, not to be trusted, or respected, or liked. Certainly not socialised with. So he sat there in the air con and glanced disinterestedly at the expensive array of pastries; always the mother, always the daughter, there had been no separating his daughter from his mother this time around and he thought later, I should have just insisted on a father daughter side-trip to Angkor Wat; here in the dark, here where no confession was the only solution, because to confess was to face facts he would rather wish away, write away, deny. Was this a betrayal, was he perpetrating a betrayal against someone he loved.

So they pecked goodbye at the airport, there in David's new Lexus, and the next minute he was back in transit, the man passing through airline queues and security checks, ravelling and unravelling, glancing sideways, and the sky was infinite and we were above it begfore we knew, and he knew, in those crystalline clouds and shards of light, that no story he told could ever approximate the truth, that in this famous place above the clouds, moving from one city to the next in booming, crowded Asia, that no words could ever approximate the complexity of what he saw, passing over the heads of millions, the Mekong delta below. Bury me in timber, and I will splinter, Smog sang through the headphones, and Gary's message came soon after landing: Please c me. There wasn't much of a break. The regret was already kicking in. He smoked too much because he didn't like the difference, because once again he was addicted to tobacco after spending ten days with his ex, the mother of his children.

Well it was a tale that didn't surprise, although Gazza appeared to be still in shock. He had had a few and then decided to go and have a few more at a local Karaoke bar, up the far end, the cheap non-tourist end of Sukhumvit, and got drunk enough, in his uinique wipe me off the planet style of drinking, that he didn't care that the girl next to him at the bar was actually a katoy, a lady boy, and he bought her drinks. And on the way back, walking home, got his head kicked in by one, or was it two, Thai men. Stomped, beaten, robbed. Days later Gary was still not himself. Frightened, confessional, talking of God. As if God was really going to help in this situation. Or any other for that matter. Heresy, oh heresy. I know there's a God because I'm still alive, some of the recovered would say, and he would raise an internal eyebrow and think: what a crock. A whole lot are dead. More than you in your self-obsessed little universe could ever know. But frightened now, frightened to go out, the great city of Bangkok where westerners operate with some sort of glorious impunity transformed into a dangerous, looming place; and solutions, well, there aren't any solutions, there are only passing days, far too few for comfort.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/16/2875294.htm?section=world

Qantas estimates flights to Europe and the UK will not be operating again until Sunday as a volcanic ash cloud blasting out of an Icelandic glacier caused massive disruptions to global air traffic.

The European air traffic agency Eurocontrol says about 60 per cent of all European flights, about 17,000 in total, will be cancelled and delays will continue into Sunday.

It is the most extensive shutdown of airspace since the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Europe's three biggest airports - London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt - were closed by the ash, which is a threat to jet engines and pilot visibility.

Austria, Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland shut down all or most of their airspace.

Finland, France, Germany, Russia and Spain experienced major disruption, although Sweden and Ireland gradually reopened their airspace and Norway temporarily allowed some flights as the ash drifted away.

But thousands of passengers worldwide have had their travel plans trashed. Some, including British comedy legend John Cleese, have resorted to taking extreme taxi rides to travel across the continent.

In Britain travellers have been caught by surprise, turning up to airports to learn flights have been grounded.

"We've been told our flights are completely cancelled - all of the UK and Ireland - so there's very little information about what to do," one traveller said.

Some would-be flyers are confused why the airlines are being so cautious.

"I mean the plane flies at 36,000 to 40,000 feet above the clouds. As you get in you can fly below the cloud as well. So why is there a delay?" another traveller said.

http://www.australiannews.net/story/624306

In a move seen by some as desperate, and others as practical, the Prime Minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has handed control of the country’s entire security situation, in the midst of a massive political crisis, over to the military.

It is a risky move on the part of the prime minister, as it is not known how loyal to his government the security forces are, but it was a move seen by some as necessary for the prime minister has proven himself to be incapable to containing the political protests which have plagued the capital of the country for several weeks.

23 people have been killed in violent clashed between the police and protestors and the “Red Shirts” (so called because of the color of their clothing), are showing no signs of easing the pressure they’ve brought to bear on a government they say is corrupt and incompetent.

Now, the prime minister, in handing over security responsibilities to the military, has begun to use that ambiguous and yet powerful word to criticize the demonstrators: terrorists.

"The important problem now is the terrorism," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said, referring to government allegations that a terrorist cell has begun to infiltrate the Red Shirts and is intent on causing chaos and bloodshed, another government official appealed to demonstrators to now allow terrorists to use them as human shields.

It is an ominous change in the government’s strategy, and it comes at an ominous time, as the Constitutional Court presides over a recommendation by the independent electoral commission that Abhisit Vejjajiva’s party be dissolved because of electoral fraud.

http://www.thaiphotoblogs.com/media/blogs/new/redshirtdec08b.jpg