끄라비
단편소설 <끄라비> 기형도 작가(한-영 번역)
Krabi
At the break of dawn, the first impression of Krabi appearing through dusks was different than I expected. It oddly adopted coexistence, instead, it was in awkward harmony or complied with the tastes of people like other pioneers. If this much was like dense forest, that much was neat town. Over the defended barren fields ran a wide river along. While the Elaeagnus and the colonial public offices were growing up like siamese twins ,encroaching the surrounding sites, on the back side of the wall decorated colorfully was the rugged and fantastic cliff stretched out without notice. As the lime mountains mounted randomly whereabout in the field looked a little bit boring, it seemed that was not built by Divine providence but nipped off from any arrogant star. That's why I thought the nature originally has the coincidental face or the different name by any chance. However, the tropical familiar air that was spread out along with two veins, which got together with separated family seemed to tell that so didn't it.
Yes.
I walked town, coming out the terminal. hen the morning came down, all the city woke up fast. The sellers opened the stores and swept the front streets. On the paving blocks, young students in the white shirts and the blue shorts were waiting for the bus, standing in line. They were chatting in soprano tone, and sometimes laughing with their teeth exposed. My lodging is a two-story guest house built recently. The room had the tiles with the texture of marble and smallish balcony had a southern view of the town. On seeing the clotheslines fluttering, I hung out all my wetted clothes by the long journey. A wind with smell of the palm oil blew in and waggled my clothes colorfully. The wind blew from the high-grown palm tree colony along the outskirts of the town. And then the direction of the wind changed, another smell was given off this time.
A bike rental shop had rented the first floor of the guest house. A hostess introducing herself, Tao, was mimicking a turtle straining its neck from the shell, so I imagined what kind of parents who had named the daughter turtle they were.
Out of the radio on the wall came the old one of the most representative songs. No matter how I thought, the song was too old-fashioned for her to listen to, so I asked her how old she was. She answered that she was 22 but would become 23 in 15 days, copying a turtle this time taking the forelegs out of the shell. She looked waiting for me to ask when her birthday exactly is, but I didn't.
Yes.
A white automatic bike suited my body type. Through the wind I felt my first breathing was cool. Without any noise, the bike smoothly gain the speed and the brake worked right. While I was at it, I went to Ao Nang, deviating the town. The sea was absolutely transparent to tell how far the seawater was from how far the seaside was. The tall palm trees leaned forwards to the coast and under them were some western women in bikini bathing in the sun, lying on the flourish white sandy beach. It was so clear that islands afar came into my eyes. When I entered the inland, driving along the curves of the bay, randomly eroded lime mountains were appearing. Some embraced such an eroded temple and the more magnificent were the stalactites, the greater the elaboration as a whole. As I had no mind to go too far, turning around, I came back the town. On the left side stood two rocked mountains looked like a cat's ears with two rivers flowing between them. In the front spread Mangrove colony and on the right side, a young river that passed by all the things flew away through the mouth into Andaman sea. That felt like a one-line poem started from the left to the right.
Yes.
The sun was losing his power long after noon before I knew. The surrounding got a lot more silent. I went to the fossil cliff along the map Dao gave me. Local families were spending time in the large empty lot covered with meadow. I walked wherever my humor told with my bike stood on a side. Walking on, in the edge of the place I petted playfully the tropical trees standing closely and the stones by them one by one. When I return to this city, my heat stained there will be a sign to awaken our relationships. Next, sitting on the stone chair forward the sea, I looked at the down of the stiff karst cliff. Transparent sea water came in and out gently. The clouds floating without worries were seen and I dimly felt humid in the wind. Suddenly, I sensed any sign and looked around. A pure white cat stood next to me. It unexpectedly pushed its nose, smelled me, and rubbed the cheek. The colors of its eyes were different. One is blue and the other is gray. Its tail was especially thick and the face would rather be close to a fox than a cat. It meowed at my foot for a moment, and then fell asleep with the body rolled up. After I sat more as I was, I entered a small restaurant by the parking lot. As the owner was out, a young girl, looked like his or her daughter, in an elementary school brought me a dish of fried rice with drink. It was nice-looking. I asked her she made it for herself but I seemed not to make myself understood.
"The sky is clear."
Embarrassed, she said that, twirling her body. When I stayed on because I didn't know how to answer, she added
"It's not raining."
Afterwards she ran into the kitchen chasing after the cat, which followed me. After meal, I walked along the fossil cliff slowly. Sometimes salty sea wind blew and got not long my back hair up and down. Anytime the left was sea and anytime the right was sea.
Yes.
When my shadow got longer, I rode my bike back to the lodging. Since the town was small, no such neon signs caught my eye. Yellow light bulbs hung on the street lamps shone the low building elegantly. With the bike left in front of the lodging, I walked to a small pub which had a sign, Pongpen. A pot-bellied old Arab, holding a beer, dozed at the table beside the road. And a young couple at the corner table touched each other with serene expressions. I sat across them.
"It's not raining."
Yes.
Serving a beer, the waiter said that. So I thought the residents in Krabi had waited for rain. It was a minor illusion. The rainy season without rain was strange to them. As fresh papaya smelled in the street, It was the smell that let me know the forest was not far from here. I sniffed the papaya until the dried-fried pork was served. Around nine, most of the lights in buildings were turned off except Ponpen's and some guest houses'. Early and peaceful sleep covered Krabi like maternal instinct. When the waiter came with an old guitar, I was drinking the third bottle of beer. As he put the half-smoked cannabis between the tuner and nut, he sang a song along the Three-fingering. It was a England song that I had ever heard. In the bridge music, he calculated the income of the day, how many beers sold out, how much money he made, etc, and also it was roughly on the beat. I didn't came out Ponpen until I drank four bottles of beer. I staggered along the empty street to the room, And I fell deep-asleep deeply.
It didn't rain one the neat day. I hung out in the fall and the valley, with Krabi's sky which was clear but not hot on my head. When I felt hungry, just over there was a restaurant that carried fried rice with pineapple or rice topped with sweet chicken boiled down. It can't mean that because the street has few customers but the stuff always were fresh.
Yes.
While I was thinking, looking up the map, where else to go, sitting on the temple surrounded with date palm trees, I looked around by the chirpy and bubbly loud laughter. There were children taking a picnic. While the teacher was addressing the cautions, they didn't stay still tapping each other and wriggling here and there. However, when the teacher actually turned around, they placed themselves here and there and started drawing pictures with serious looks. I closed to and asked one of them what to draw. There were two elegantly decorated elephants with a sleek red roof of the temple as a background. One, looked like a mother, was big and the other small.
"Where is an elephant hereabout?"
The child with black eyes gave me a snack with coconut flesh instead of answering my question. To my thanks, the child answer with the eyes wide open.
"It's originally yours."
While walking to the bike, I glared back around. The child waved the hand holding the picture as though the child had waited. The elephants on the picture were shaken along with it. From out of the temple did I drive to the East. I drove thinking of the child and the elephants. The mountains in Krabi looked like apples that were bitten once out. The exterior of the mountains were full of scrubs and spilt sections were pure white compounds of lime where the woods don't grow. MY eyes on the running bike reached out of several km. I thought that when I saw that far away but I couldn't remember. I overslept from the third day. Around at noon, after I woke up unhurriedly, I went out around low hills and rivers. Then Around at 5 pm did I eat supper at Tara park near the lonely riverside. Seafood dishes tasted good at the restaurant located in the middle of the one-story building. I ordered the same two dishes as before, and one is recommended by a attendant. When the lights of the town were turned off one by one past 8, I stood the bike up in front of the lodging and I stopped by Pongpen like daily work. I drank beer until 10 or 11 pm, and next I came swayingly back to my room. That's all. Each time new feelings washed over and covered the previous feelings. Still, when I thought back, memories were simply bundled up like that.
Yes.
I stayed in the peace there for six days that I had never felt and therefore on the leaving day I took enough energy in my body. So I seemed to be adapted to wherever the next destination was. Taking the bus, I moved to an express bus terminal in the outskirts of the town. Then I got on the night coach. On the bus being started, suddenly rain like fog began to wrapped it up. It's not good to leave. However, how on earth nice day is for leaving.
"Now, it finally is raining."
A young lady sitting next to me murmured with curiosity.
"If this were rain."
She seemed to tell as if it were not rain.
As soon as I returned to my country, I fell in love with a college junior. So didn't I from the start. I considered she was counted out, so I wanted to help her. Time went by and my good turned into friendship and next love. On the day when all the things were rich, we two drank liquor together. Besides, we had more talks than usual. She confessed the anecdote of the beginning of the semester that she had sidestepped my concern with her face red. In short, my pity for her was an suspicious approach in her shoes. In the end, she had had no choice, so she gave up.
Coming back home, I replaced the feelings I had misunderstood one by one with the contents she had told, thinking the several games happened between us for last two years. With much of wonder, everything appeared just as planned like clockwise. After I was done with it, I deeply sighed. I wasn't able to love her any longer by any possibility. Moreover, I could have no pity for her, even with tears in her eyes, who was very shocked by the parting words. Except delusion, No trace of love yet remained. She kept getting touch with me, not having known from where my change of heart had came.
That exhausted me.
One day, then, I dreamed a piece of a short dream which was stringed with Krabi.
While I was listening to songs of bugs in the forest, sitting against a well-grown date palm tree, my mom walked to me from far away. She, in a pure white dress wavy, held a yellow umbrella in her hand with her. I opened my arms like a sign, and then she also opened her arms, lightly hugged me and lifted me up. We checked the warm temperatures, putting our palms on each other's backs. That felt fishy somewhere else. That's because her vacancy left huge sense of loss in my youth, so I had to fill my eyes with tears due to feeling sheerly stunned even at the very joyful moment. Pain and gladness got tangled in the virtue of the tropics that still stayed on after waking up and made the night messy. Perhaps, the surplus feeling sprung in Krabi tended to wake up the numb lack to be old. To tell the truth, It's because not had she looked lovely but I had needed a love, so I was into love with the junior. Therefore, I needed to go somewhere. When I got to Krabi after driving through a long night, the tropical energy that I had felt revived in my blood vessels. When time passed by the fainted parts of the memory were randomly repainted, so in the later, All the things turned to be different and they wasn't able to be found original looks. We were disappointed at the point. However, when I came back in Krabi, it was even more beautiful than my fainted memory had beatified it. The fog rounding the mountain at dawn and the river whirling around the mangrove woods had been thick and deep. I strained my neck and watched since a woman with a yellow umbrella seemed to walk forward from somewhere far.
I unloaded my stuff in the lodge, and went to rent a bike. The young female owner of rental shop, Dao, remembered me. She said pointing out one of the bikes displayed in front of the shop
"It's the best."
Yes.
On starting the engine, my body trembled with the sound of it. I drove on the road neatly cleared by the monsoon rain. When I was out of the town, a man herding five or six water buffalo whistled at me. My Turing back, he smiled at me with his eye brows lifted up. That was no less than Krabi.
I drove to the destination, Lamplanang. Different than before, as I didn't have a map, I sometimes arrived at unexpected places. Even those times, however, the hidden dense forest over the still crossroads twinkled like jewels.
I drove a long time along the semi-watered houses stretching along the river side. Then to take a rest, I smoked sitting on a hill in the rubber-tree forest. I stared at a stone as big as a human's head that it stealthily crawled up into the forest. That was wishy-washy. In the shade, grass smelled cool. After I smelled it, for the last two years I got to know Krabi missed me as much as I missed Krabi.
I ran on the bike about for an hour with the sea on the left, looked around Aonang, either and came back to Tara park about at 5 pm. The interior became changed and the employee were almost exchanged but the young teenage was there as ever.
"I doesn't rain."
Yes. As if the word were that she met me yeaterday and today again.
"Because I love here."
That was the word I told her exultantly. To my opinion, I regarded at that time the reason it didn't rain even in the rainy season as the climate reflection of my mind. The waitress smiled shrugging her shoulders. She had remembered two kinds of foods I had always ordered. Another recommended was a mixed dish sweetly boiled chicken with dhania.
Because it was hot, the ice in the beer melt down in a minute. I didn't actually feel tired but my eyes were falling shut again and again. The sound of swirling clouds in monsoon, the sound of fresh water and salty water dissolving into each other, the sound of the sunlight rolling in the glass blew here and there by the direction of the wind. At sunset, as soon as I heard the news that in the opposite of the park appeared a monster, I went see the scene making two young employee in Muslim clothes go ahead. A monitor lizard looked astonished by the encamping people, so it set the body lying down flat upright and looked around with the tongue stretched out. The body was bigger than an average youth. After a lump of chicken taken from the restaurant was thrown to it, it couldn't make up its mind for a short time and crawled toward the dark riverside with the meat left.
I wandered here and there next day, too. I again saw the fall powerfully sprinkling water particles and gorgeous and transparent beach, and then after a long time said hello to them. The forest in a rainy season looked wriggling due to the over-energized life. Once I drove toward a southern ditch crossing the newly paved asphaltic road. I intended to check out to where the road was connected but I unexpectedly went too far away driving with loosened mind. At 6 pm when it was getting dark, I couldn't see Tara park until I turned back with some worries. On one side of the parking square did the young men in the town display fireworks. I got to come back driving a gentlely curved road.
Yes.
It might be a trivial luck to see the sunset spreading in the mangrove forest over the river and the colorful fireworks dyeing the part of the sunset. If that had happened repeatedly, however, it was certain that I naturally burrowed up the suggestion contained between the lines. So I got to think Krabi liked me, took care of my schedule and gave a deep attention to my minor feelings. The pale clouds such as a parasol filtered a little sunlights. The atmosphere was clear and had proper moisture. The residents smiled too much, and dim smell came from the eroded lime hill. The food mistakenly chosen tasted good. Beer was always cool and Tara park in the evening held every-day festivals. I murmured in proud like this at some times.
'It's good to appear the lake over the hill.' Then a lake appeared. 'It looks cool for a lime cave to be in the back of the forest.' That way, I met a coast line having a Jasmin fragrance and a cane land in light green. Whenever I was in the vein, I started the bike and rode in it and if I felt hungry I entered the first restaurant I saw and ordered some food. The price of goods was too cheap for me to recognize running out of money.
One day at night I felt bewitched and went to the lime cliff. When I turned the engine off, I heard Krabi's breath from a distance. Surely, It may have been a sound of the low wave petting the reef, an old rubber tree leaning, the Lirawadi floral leaves fallen by a wind, or silent sleep talking from the members of the forest. I was too pure and simple, however, to divide such details, that I couldn't help hearing the sound of breath but anything else. Seating myself on the chair forward to the sea to be good to see sunset, my clothes made a rustling sound. I heard it as Krabi's breath as well.
So I murmured less than the sound. I scattered my words about the exhausting feelings left in the outer world, so to speak, loneliness or disappointment, etc. Come to think of it, I seemed to overstate my helplessness to get consent, so I gave up. Instead, I hummed some trifle melodies, and, while I was at it, I sang a song. I sang the songs that I liked, that occurred, and later that I created as I liked. Dark and lonely, I was not scared. That's because I knew the fact that I was protected. To make matters better, I regarded the darkness, not known how deep it is, in the slopy colluvial soil as a holy sealing.
Finally, I, who emptied my musical talents, slowly walked and stroked the trees on the border and the stones near them. They were such familiar signs certifying that I came back in Krabi that there still remained my heat and that it would after a long time ever remain there forward.
Before the night was full of communion, I came across the signs alive. It's a cat, which had a bulky tail, resembling a fox' face. Like a day when it had been 3 years ago, it silently neared, wrapped a round, and cried its uvula with the tummy on my top of the foot. Its cry sounded to me like an answer to my story and song. It had a tiny sub whose fur, face and even odd eye had resembled the mother cat. After all, it must have been nonsexual in reproduction. They fell asleep after romping, being tangled side by side. From the far jungle, such sweet smell of wild hyacinths flew through, and a big and small pair of Comrui which was flied by someone was rising up dimly like a canful.
Yes.
While I just saw lazy peace swallow a day, two day, and a week, finally, it ate a half month away. After I returned the bike, I packed my stuff slowly. After finishing it. I looked up the Krabi's sky sitting vacantly in the balcony. It was too dazzling. And it was, had been, and again. All the half month was. It had never rained in the town. When I stood up after sitting about for half an hour like that, I felt ready to leave finally, because any parts of my soft heart abruptly had grown up.
From when I was loading my backpack on the express bus, it got suddenly dark and then it started raining patty-patty. In the middle of a rainy season, it wasn't strange, considering, to rain. Rather, for 15 days I had stayed, it's too strange to be clear all the time. However, the rain wasn't absolutely expected until noon, the passengers who had to go far bustled with a worried look. After a moment it rained cats and dogs by the dark clouds from everywhere. Large drops of rain knocked on the bus window. The wind blew so hard that the bus was shaken side and side. The terminal square was low, so the water rapidly rose up. The embarrassed driver pulled the bus out of the square and moved it a little bit high ground. Because of that, the passenger who arrived late got angry with them wholly wet.
The bus departed after about 20 minutes of departing time. Hard rain painted the scene of Krabi slantly. The bus running through the town, parallel with mountains, and toward the eastern Hotyai bordered the high way and turned to the northern great prairie. When finally going beyond the border of the state, I looked up the Krabi's far sky through the window being wet. The black and white clouds that couldn't make head and tail were united and divided here and there. A dense air layer which surrounded the whole area became soft weakly. The familiar energy that was covered over the earth' surface was washed away for the sea little by little. In the middle of that, along the curved road which the bus had followed, the string of the semitransparent sentiment chased after like a finger.
On seeing that, I realized that I had misunderstood. Krabi hadn't liked me. Krabi loved me. With my heart astonished, I put my palm on the window. Whether that looked like a farewell, Krabi got the finger back and wiped tears away. I said I would be back but it seemed to suspect my words.
On graduating the college I had anyhow broken up with the junior who hadn't still given me up. However, I didn't so with the young lady I had saw out in the next spring. Arguing, parting and Meeting again repeated boringly for 5 years. One day, when I was having a feast, I quickly got to think that I myself stood on the edge of my youth, and that before I would get pushed away should make sure of doing something. I turned over the table and I went to see her. Thanks to her being depressed similarly, the words went easily. We decided to go on a trip together. She briefly made a reckless agreement that we would go to Krabi. Perhaps she was moved at the virgin scene that I had described. Or that' because she believed it would be okay wherever if we had been together.
Coming back home, I planed the trip schedule at desk. Collecting a variety of data, sorting them, I compulsively scrutinized the details. Avoiding a rainy season, I chose a clear dry season , and worried about there may not be lodgings, I booked the expensive hotel room town.
Despite all of the preparations, however, everything went in mess on arriving at Krabi. Because of the mosquitoes teeming, we had to cancel the reservation and come out, but the lodgings I used to stay in were full. There being no alternatives, we had to come back to the hotel. In the course of that, the worker at the front desk completely changed of a rubber and asked for the premium relevant with one day's charge. An awful odor of fungus smelled from the closet, and the sound of the turning air-conditioner was threatening. She elaborately pretended to be cheerful, but she couldn't help being depressed and disappointed. I wondered that was real Krabi. By any chance, am I now the outer of the familiar palace I had stayed in. If I came more inward, could I have taken a care I had been given with my lover? So to speak, such as a fossil cliff or Tara park near the riverside.'
It wasn't so long a time until I came to know that not the place hadn't changed but the mood in the city itself had changed. The rented bike from the front desk was a real lemon. On the way to the Tiger temple about an hour way, the engine died 3 times, and the power button didn't work , so I had to kick-start for a long time. Besides, as if that were a show, black clouds crowded and sprayed rain drizzling. It was too hard to go far away, so I faced round. From then on, our trip fuuly became spoiled. As we had densely planed a close schedule, on a part of the plan going across, the rest of it one after the other fell into utter confusion. We didn't have any other choice, however. I abandoned the schedule which I had planned for two months, and made up my mind to handle on a whim at times, but, furthermore, the second cause of spoiling the trip was no other than the uncertainty. When we lightly got hungry, we went to the Tara park surrounded with shade of the clouds, but all the stores was wholly in a holiday. The park where visitors had disappeared looked very dreary. So many people stayed home and were likely to do number two.
Back to the hotel, I returned the junk bike. As rain stopped just in time, we plodded through the blazing sun lights to the market. Just on the slippers, we moved in the muddy market with water. Half-eaten food waste which had been thrown away by anyone and the dead insects, etc clung up to our ankles. Since we felt very humid and sticky, we were in no condition to eat and to sightsee something. In the end a seller drunken in the daytime provoked a quarrel that we got out of the market escapingly. I suggested going to another night market on the opposite of the city, but she acted like she didn't hear me.
We ate noodles no better than not eating at the hotel. I wanted to drink beer at Pongpen but she refused it due to tiredness. We lay down next to each other before 8 pm. The mattress made of coir fibers was so old that the part of the bed which my butt got to was deeply sunken and it gave the foul smell of a rotten body. Sleep didn't visit me. But with nothing to do, I stretched my arm in a quiet and held her wrist. Upon that, like waiting a gust blew and beat the window.
On the next day, the inside story was the same. From the morning was it drizzling. It was misty that made me in a dilemma to be in it, or not to be in it. After waiting about noon, I went to rent a bike. There wasn't Dao, but a middle-age man looking like a flat fish was sitting. The rented bike from him, a fish, was the same beaten-up junk. We intended to go a chinese temple, but gave up because of disturbing sounds from the engine.
That turned out to be so true that I felt worthless. After dropped by a convenience store and had a cut, we I entered a riverside cafe. We just looked at the Mangrove forest for two hours. We didn't really know what on earth to do. It's me who had us in Krabi. But I didn't mean the place was not like this. I said to her that Krabi had been a much nicer one than that. But, the place we had stayed in, whatever they say, the most pathetic in the world. Toward 4 pm, I led her to the fossil cliff, after letting her yawning nervously calm down. For my words we could see the fantastic tropical sea, she rode on the bike pretending never to do. However, a sea always represents its own sky. In an overcast weather, There is no beautiful sea in the world. In spite of already knowing the fact, the reason I told a lie is it's because I felt impatient and depressed. Perhaps, it might have been a fault I obscurely wished something good would have happened, if we went there. At first, it wasn't that bad. Despite the cloudy weather, the scenery was fairly good, and the sound of the cool wave could be heard from a distance. While we were rounding the outer of an empty lot, We ran and picked up Rirawadi flower leaves whenever they were falling down. And we turned and threw them like a top, dangerously leaning on a palm tree. Due to the wind blowing from down to up, the flowers stayed at our eye-level for a while, and then as if they had suddenly thought of gravity, they plummeted toward the sea fast. After we flied all the flowers we picked up, we cooled off sweat sitting on a bench toward the sea.
The 20 minutes was the only peace we enjoyed throughout the whole travel. The cat which had a fox face visited us in 20 minutes. The cat looked about for a second, slowly came to me, laid its tummy on my foot top, and lay down. And it closed its eyes blurring. She who had liked animals held out her hand stealthily to pat it. And the cat cried once in low voice, suddenly stood up, clawed her backhand deeply, and fled away.
In a flutter, I ran to the bike and brought some tissues. However, she absolutely rejected the tissues that I handed ; she licked the blood. She said nothing at all until we came back to the hotel. Waiting for when she finished her shower and came out, I took Povidin, red disinfectant, out from the backpack, put it on the injury, and put the several bandages one after one. Finished the first aid, she lay down on the bed, and turned her back. In the street through the window outpoured the rain like clapping hands.
Cared for in the next morning, her backhand swelled up bluish. It looked infected.
Though I unfixed the bandages with caution, the blood clots not yet healed came unstuck and yellow pus spilt between them. She stared at me instead of the injury, while I was sterilizing and replacing the bandages. Without a time for me to make a retort, she abruptly stood up, and started packing her bag with her hand. She took the all the things including the clothes hung in the corner and toiletries in the bathroom. Traces of tears were seen on her face before I knew. I felt like that a rusty dumbbell sat in my heart. Although I had planned a nice week, we gave up all the things in only two days, and had to leave like being kicked out. I had wanted to introduce my love to Krabi. But I shouldn't have done it.
The sound of wind sounded so serious from when we came out of the place that black clouds covered the sky. Whether a taxi driver the hotel had called didn't satisfied with the fare deal or not, he pulled over the car on the middle way and spent time rapping a tire several times. We narrowly arrived at the bus terminal after almost grabbing him on the collar. With the bags on our shoulders, we got on the bus and sit next to each other.
From that time on, it started raining cats and dogs in earnest. There was something strange. I had never met such rain. Heavy downpour stroke on the bus top like howling. Surroundings got darker like night, and whenever the lightening smashed, the constantly sinking bus terminal appeared. I wasn't able to tell her a word. That' because I listed a great number of the good things like flashing x-lovers back, shortly before getting to Krabi. I proudly remembered her oddly envious eyes at the time. That, however, was a past, in front of my eyes right now were a thunderstorm and heavy raindrops tearing my memorial space in to pieces. In the blink of an eye, mud bubbled up to knees in the terminal square. The water flew backward from the drain along the buildings. At the rim of that, polystyrene, dead mice, blackish bad bananas, etc, spun one way. When a young piglet, which was deadly pale, was swept away, the local passengers who had no regard fell into unrest. The clock hung on the bus said the departing time exceeded. After several trials of starting the engine, he shook his head. He tried to move the bus up to the higher ground, but the heavy rain tended to not give any chance of that. The tires were already sunken completely, and it's only a matter of time water would pour into the bus.
A short young lady in a wet uniform yelled shrieks out loud. On seeing the passengers stand and go out, we followed them. They scattered hastily toward the buildings after they were handed their packs in the terminal square which water was rising up to waist. There were some passengers falling over something, winning through the water. Once they were shut into water, raised their heads, they spitted out every stuff with mud. A drown dog was floating near me with the eyes inside out. I thought I was just unlucky. It was unluck that everyone confront. I thought everything would be okay if we had escaped the damn rain. When, however, she missed her foot, fell down, when the backpack on her back was sucken in the muddy stream, when I saw her struggling, not standing properly, I got the scent of what Krabi wanted and was cloaked in a dizzy tremble.
Madly, I snatched her hand up swirling in the water. With my desperate strength, I pulled her toward me. She stood and harshly vomited with her face entangled with mud and dirty water. Here she came because of me. She didn't come here by her choice. It's my fault. I had to take care of her by any means. As soon as I took her backpack and shouldered it, the two-story ticket office building collapsed with a bang. As a water flow soared up high, it battered the bus sideward which we had got on. I felt not fear but shame in front of that miserable intimidation. I felt ashamed of heart-wholeness having regarded the attitude for a long time as simple kindness. During the time I had been led to stay in warmhearted care, Krabi developed the its love to a blunt obsession. When water came up to breast, we couldn't stand against it, so we got out of the terminal square. Meanwhile we speeded up, turning our bodies around obliquely, on the other hand, we proceeded step by step, resisting desperately against the water flowing. Whenever she got lost, she screamed for me to let go of her hand. Then, I contrawise spit the four letter words to uncertain targets, contrawise hooking in her hand with all my might. Like that, because we quarrelled with each other, confronting the water flowing, our steps were inevitably unnatural. Due to her one hand being caught by me, she got more often cooped into water, covered with mud and sand, and injured. However if I hadn't done that, if I had let her hand free, Krabi would have swallowed her whole. And she had torn into pieces by any number of stones around. Fierce threat made me simple. Thanks to that, I could focus on the only thing that I had to do. It was for me to take her alive home.
The tree was pulled out and the buildings were destroyed by the strong wind. Downpour like knives stroke our foreheads. Dirty water filled with drums, ruins of buildings flew with one enthusiasm to divide us. Because of that, I pointed out a middle point such as not broken electric poles, lamp post and got rush on them as soon as possible. After that, I moved toward the next point, reviewing the situation. The more fight went on, the faster my mind and body. I got a eyes sensing danger after several crises. But we were still in low ground, I couldn't help but see her suddenly fall down and being injured by the rolling stones under the water. At every those times, spit and scream poured out of her mouth. Being far away about 3 bolcks from the terminal, the water level went down below knee. Our bodies got more free but if we missed our feet and fell down, we got scooped more severly than ever. Rain streak got no better, and so did water flowing. I didn't reduce the speed. Except catching our breaths or vomiting a couple or more of times, I ran up to the high ground pushing and pulling her.
In such wise, we narrowly got to Putawan resort.It was in the highest place that we felt we stepped aside an urgent danger. I felt so tired that I was dying to lie. However, we couldn't afford to have time to drop and hesitate in the tyrannical land. Just in time, a taxi preparing start at the gate of the resort was seen. I blindly blocked the front, ignored the complaint showed by an old swedish woman sitting on the seat and made a deal with the driver. He wanted me to show money, so I did that, and wanted me to show the passport, so I did that. If he had wanted me show my balls, I would have shown them promptly. Finally, 7 people including she, I, and the driver got in the taxi folding the bodies. After I barely closed the door, I realized that I had held her bluish swollen hand tightly. In the gaps of the hand was the blood with pus filled like sticky glue. I let her hand free silently. Whether I grabbed her hand for so long, my fingers didn't work arbitrarily. On my glancing at her face, it looked so pale that the vessels looked seen. Her eyes absolutely got different from before.
Yes. Leaving Krabi, I looked out the coastal lines stretched away. I watched the black tidal waves gulping the beach and the bungalow being destroyed like a disillusion. I watched the palm trees spilt at the back randomly, and the civilization swept away powerlessly. Even in the hazy darkness was the very everything seen. Krabi turned all the world inside out and cried out loud with its hair shaken out loose. It begged me not to go. I turned my head. Until Krabi disappeared from my view over the state's border, until its tearful eye completely chipped out from me, I nerver looked back there once.
From arriving at Hatyai all the way through the black sea 4,000 km, she stayed silent like the stratosphere. Thanks to that, I could carefully contemplate what was the power that longingly drew her toward me in that dangerous situation. That was never love. At least that wasn't any love. She may thought the same. We parted getting to the airport, and then severed contacts with each other. It was a sharp farewell. It couldn't help. There was too a large river between her and me. There were thunderclouds and tsunami. There were a heavy rain pouring, drown bodies, collapsing banks. This disaster separates the relationship of an eternity. I got married after three years that had happened. My wife had enormous self-control or never loved me. From that on, everything went downhills. We had nothing adjusted. My friends advised me not to wear a look which needed a help, but that wasn't a matter of effort. My married life ended up not over two years. Because I felt very sick for her words that she made when we broke up, I thought myself as a dog which hurt others, and tried not to meet anyone. The illness that throws the foods up began at that time.
The sadness of losing Krabi visited me in such a time. One day I flopped on the bed as I couldn't keep myself steady because of an awful dizziness. When my headache hit the peak, the dark green illusions glimmering imprudently in my eyelids converged on a fluent curve. And then they were having a certain image. That was a sense that I had anyhow suppressed and been against when I was in days I had a power. Yes. Fine wind grazed my ears and lime mountains on the both side of the quiet road stood in lines. Yes. Banana leaves twinkled bule and the children who I came across waved their hands toward me. Yes. I advanced to the tropical sea, running through the straight road. Doing that, at some moment, I raised my hands slowly. As humid atmosphere opened my body cells one by one, I recalled some by some on the quiet road where the boom of the bikes had disappeared.
Yes. It's at daybreak below zero. I took dried breaths in a terrible cold. I felt trembled severely. I was forced to admit. Humane will resonating with my heart exists as a form of a city in Indochina Pen at a distance. The reason why the clear enlightenment felt like an dizzy illusion was because, instead of accepting it or refusing it, I pretended not to know. I insulted the sign established by my fingerprints and temperature. I looked away a cry encroaching the mountains and the rivers. That was my attitude in front of Krabi. And what the heck could I do now? I spoiled it irreparably.
I stood in the airport in Krabi not three days after that. It's past midnight or more. I felt so put off with every single affection by myself, taking a taxi, hiding into the town like a thief. I was reluctant in confusion not to know what to do after unpacking all my stuff, rather what to be done. It's not because of my fault. The face of Krabi looked too pale. Everything looked old, infirm and decayed in the background with the disastrous trace remaining intact. Delicate scents of palm oil disappeared and loneliness like the bad breaths of terminally ill cancer patient. The once young and hot city like that was slowly going to the ground. Furthermore, dreary rain was falling down out of the window. I immediately sensed what it meant. It meant I was nobody in Krabi. I thought it natural but I felt sorry for a long time about that honesty.
It rained endlessly though it became dawn. The earth and sand poured from the hills ran over the breathless road like sentiment. Krabi seemed to forget how much beautiful, attractive the city itself had been. After two days I couldn't endure more, so I came out. Whenever winds blew, murky water drops flied around here and there.
"It is raining."
Dao murmured looking up the sky. Her voice sounded different from that of the past. She didn't make any comical gestures like pulling out her neck from the back shell as a turtle does. I felt sorry about that. As a part of Krabi, that was an impression kept for 3 years. Her forehead was filled with wrinkles in spite of her late thirties.
"Slippery, so Be careful."
I rode on the bike and drove on the road overrapped with pleasure and sadness. The fossil cliff I first visited was still. Let alone the fox's face cat just to be sure of expecting, there was nothing moving except only a toad that dwelled on its own misfortune telling why I lay down flat under the rirawadi tree with its flowers all fallen. All the stores in rainy season closed, too, and the sea reflected the only gray clouds floating in the sky. Yes. The signs such as tropical trees lined along the rims of the road, the stones on the road, the relation which shared the temperatures was now covered with hatred and distrust. Looking vacantly, I turned around and left for the fall. Because of much water flowing, I could hear the sound. However, as the fossil cliff was, the fall was not any more the one I had knew. Passengers whom I came across by any chance only thought to run away other places. There was nothing Krabish all around. I turned to Tara park. Whitish soil emerged from limestones was covered on the black asphalt in places. Heartless rain hit me on the face achingly. Although I had a slightest expectation, Tara park had died, too. The scene that one of the edges of it was destroyed by river water was seen clearly far from a distance. Leaning on the bike, getting rained blankly, I returned my place. My body being wholly wet, I felt heavy. At that night, I bought two bottles of whisky at a convenience store with myself humidly wet. I drank them, sitting in a dark road side, missing the any cut-off past and vomited all.
The next day, from the morning I took aboard myself on the bike and got around. The rain stopped for a second, but I knew it didn't matter to me. The gray sky had always been ready to spray rain, and the rain coming down, too, didn't count to me. Getting dull of time and motion, sitting on the bike running was like a feeling that I had watched a boring TV program in a sofa. Wet air slided by me with no meaning. I never felt warm at any of it. That the thing passed by between us may be heart rather than time. I thought the banana farm would be nicer but was just a rotten pool. Believing I was heading for the river, however it was Janta basin covered in dust. I was sad because not I was wrong but I forgot.
It suddenly got dark, so it started raining. I made a U-turn in front of a monkeys' cave and drove to the airport. Mountains and rocks came to a lull and low farmlands stretched out. I speeded up. The rain streaks got thicker. The strong wind hugging rain brushed around my ear. Nothing but the wind couldn't be heard. An anxiety controlled me. I couldn't end up like this. I couldn't pull it out, either. I didn't mean not that I hated it but it was impossible. I had to smell the dim smell of the eroded lime hill as soon as possible. Before late, I had to see the jungle twinkling like jewels over the lonely crossroad and the half-floating houses lining long with their single foot dipped. By that, my loneliness would be finished. Near me did the lightening like ivy strike. On the dark sky's wall remained pure white texture and yellow cone as afterimages. They sprung out to me smoothly drawing an arc. I saw a dazzling Deja vu in all of the confusing figures. Closing my eyes, I little by little raised my hands up. Because chilly air opened each cell of my body, I recalled some by some on the cold road.
The bike by itself flied away bouncing off the road as it slipped about 20m away and the fore wheel curved forwards. I got pashed on a gravel land miserably. Owing to the shock, I couldn't breath for a long while. My heart fluttered. Pain came over me after a step late, so terrible feelings mixture of the cold and the hot passed into my system like poison. I didn't know exactly where I got hurt. I raised my numb head and looked down. At my knee dislocated under the shorts spewed blood. And it was surrounding me with rain. Despite my effort on stopping bleeding, I couldn't move my left hand at all. Turning back, There was a bloody stump from the palm butt to the forearm. Given that the torn surface was rough, it seemed not to have cut by something but to have burst out from the inside. On the brim of the crack did the yellow bleached skin dangle. I intended to do something but quitted. I had no energy to do that. I was on a lonely way.
If heaven would help me, it would, or let me alone like an orphan. Whichever was good. Whenever the thunder stroke, the blood pool surrounding me twinkled pure red. My body got to soak its way into Krabi. No, Krabi was squeezing in me. It's somehow warm. That's it. From feeling the Krabi out maybe when I came back like a thief at night, this serving seemed to suit me most. My head trembled was laid on the ground. and I relaxed my body. The way my heart appealed to something was just pain, so relief and sadness pulsated along the emission of the blood like a thunderstorm. Even if I got alive, I couldn't walk properly. If I got alive. If I am not, I will be a part of Krabi. I will hover this city as the earth, the wind, or a string of sunshine. As so will I, I will say lovely hello to any traveller to come someday. Perhaps, I may hope that from the first. No, surely I have been hoping that one.
The rain stopped.
The black clouds erased by a rubber faded out, they became chubby cumulus and then left for the south. The sky left was blue in grace. While it got warmer, mud all around got drier. Little, rolling round water drops were coming home again. Relaxed. I felt hugged in wind lightly. If there had been a hand, I would have wanted to touch my hand on it. And I had wanted to hear whatever. Delicate scent was smelling from a distance. I couldn't know that was a palm oil, or one of the thousand of sweet smells Krabi has. There's no reason to distinguish. My feeling was too fertile for the effort to be meaningless. Horning, a truck stopped. A man with a worn Yankees' cap on ran and shouted.
"Hey, alive? Are you still alive?"
He was a kind man. But I was able to answer. Because he came too late. Yes. My body started to permeate into the ground, already passing through asphalt. My soul was scattered forward the air, flying widely. Yes. I became the white and yellow Rirawadi floral leaves, and the tropical eyes hidden half between the clouds. became the fox-faced cat, the distant limestone smells rising steam, and the whisper of the river flowing through the Mangrove forest. At the same time, I became a soft lump of meat, smoothly approaching to hug the strangers' dead bodies beginning decayed on the Namiam national highway 2. Yes.
Yes. I became Krabi at last.
