The door in the floor

[MrX]

 

 

 

Catherine was a waiting at the top of the escalator having already bought the tickets. The theatre was small and cold. She asked for blankets. The attendant came back after the anthem to say they were only available for the honeymoon seats. . We watched the opening sepia images of The Hamptons roll.

 

 

?The reviews made out the film was a bit heavy. If you don?t like it, just say, we don?t have to stay?

 

 

They were couple in crisis. He was author and philanderer. Their two older children had died tragically in an automobile accident. She was stone with grief. They had had a consolation daughter.

 

So many Thai couples in the audience, surprising. Definitely mai sanuk.

 

A young man came gawkily off the ferry, hired for the summer. He would drive and service the wife. Lead her from mourning. The door in the floor was in their private squash court. In the end she was able to leave and he would open it.

 

I marveled at such European cadences in an American film

 

From the Major there were no taxis. Walking, half way home I said pidgin tinged ?You want eat in my Bangkok?? We sat at the only free table, farthest from the kitchen, in front of the shuttered gold merchant. The cloth was holed and red velvety.

 

 

?What did you think ??

 

 

?The sex was so boring? brightly. Remembering

 

 

?I wouldn?t kn?? she said, biting her tongue because these days I had already claimed asylum.

 

Then: ?They showed it by mistake.? So she thought it art-house too.

 

 

I shouldn?t have spoken. The only other time I had nearly left her had been ten years before. The cities themselves were sepia there. We didn?t yet have a son but a chunk of money. I forget why. Or more exactly the money was held up. If it didn?t come before the X of Y the window of my holiday was closed. I couldnt go to Thailand alone and never come back.

 

 

 

 

 

Today was a holiday too. Out of middling Sukumvit?s gloom cars of the newly rich pulled up and pulled out, collecting extended family takeaways. We had ordered only soup and rice. I watched the stainless steel trolley rattle up the pavement. There would be too much ice in the beer glass again.

 

 

 

She said; ?Keith says Falang couples cannot survive long in Bangkok. There are too many temptations.? bravely moving Queen to King 4. .

 

 

?You know I don?t want to go back to falang land? I obfuscated

 

 

When the food came she insisted on trying mine while what I tasted were the noodles of Soi 23. A second beer. Must bind my tongue.

 

?What about Kit then?.....You always said you would do anything for him?

 

 

 

 

I could only think chaotically of why they didn?t speak when they finally separated. Old snake skins already shriveled disintegrating in the wind. Almost painless. Or failing relations, dry like river beds. And then dangerously of Kim Basinger on all fours, gnawing at the coverlet. And how, just now, she might be doing the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At home we were quiet and alone. Kit was sleeping over somewhere

 

?Welcome to the rest of our lives ? We always joked

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, mercifully at 1:04 the SMS came through.

 

I turned foetally to sleep

[ThaiHome]

Jesus Christ. It is really painful to read your stuff. I have lived the 2 lives you are living. There is no right thing.

TH

[Central Scrutinizer]

Powerful and poetic. Thanks for the peek inside.

:applause:

 

Cent

[Encore]

>It is really painful to read your stuff. I have lived the 2 lives you are living.<

 

Same here. It starts slowly and easily, but gradually the two lives get mingled, and elements start seeping through from one side of the firewall to the other. It takes a lot of effort keeping both lives on even keel. It's a bit like juggling with one too many balls in the air.

 

You write interesting stories, Romp, and with style.

[chuckwoww]

T.S.Eliott meets Alain Resnais and Martin Scorcese. Very, very nice.