"You might as well stay where you are at. If you go into the
bathroom for more pills or slip into your bag for some glue you might
be able to discombobulate my voice like a child spinning around in the
grass but ultimately you'll fall into me and the mordant words will be
all the more deleterious. Besides, it is still my hand and there are
more cards to play. It tossed another card from the deck his way. It
was Kumpee's girl friend. It was her face and shape.
"Yes, Jatupon said, "She's a lovely card" and the mosquito
nodded his head disdainfully. Then it clapped its feet and said, "One
baht for the human's ability to at least recognize physical beauty."
Jatupon looked on the table and there appeared a one baht coin with a
naked China woman engraved on it. He picked it up. It's weight, which
was always equal to that of play money, had become less; and there was
a continual sensation that even though it rested in his finger tips it
was being pulled lightlessly away from him to fall endlessly into an
inconvertible currency. He watched it vaporize into a gas.
"She is one of the second group who has no special significance to
you at all and yet from her your life has been changed. People like
this might be helpful and even compassionate but at the end of the day
they won't stay with you. They are evanescent nectar in the
dissolution of events and time."
"Only two groups?"
"Only two unless you make up a third. All I know of the future is
from the perspective of today."
Catered to the limitations of Jatupon's entomological knowledge,
this gigantic mosquito was male and a bloodsucker nonetheless. It
looked into his intimate space with such a bold stare that he felt that
it could easily seduce him in as its prey--that the survival of the
fittest reigned with the hegemony of its kind just as micro-organisms
always get the last meal. As he saw its eyes he suddenly knew the