one's encroaching aloneness was purged and thwarted in the retreat
engineered by the batons and water cannons of one's linguistic moans.
The whore, whose self-image had been disparaged by the unconventional
positive endorsement of her activities by the wife, was grateful to
gain the parting of her thoughts from the driver's voice. She was
pleased to be once again hearing anything--even the least little
unenlightening fact-about their trip. She smiled. After all, it was
the land of smiles.
"Thai" mumbled Nawin's voice from the back seat.
"Domestic or international?" asked the taxi driver as if amnesia
had wiped away a whole section of memory. Porn released an alien
chortle that made Nawin think that he was sitting on the back seat with
some type of mythological, hybrid animal he was in the process of
taking on an overseas journey. How quickly she had gone from
seductress to a callow calf and kid. He smiled at the man's ignorance
without laughing. He felt that his girlfriend was ugly and noticed how
mutable the sight of anyone was: at one-time ugly and at another time
beautiful, at one-time virtuous and another point wicked, and at one
point victim and another time slut. It was not only the physical
dimensions that could vary from moment to moment. The perception of a
whole being could change. He moved himself to the window to get away
from her hand and feigned a curiosity with the world outside. He rolled
down the window. At that moment they both had a similar jejune feeling
of the repetition of old things and new things not fully connecting.
It was indescribable to them both. Porn kept asking herself if she was
doing the right thing in forsaking her responsibilities with her
clients for the unknown of traveling with him.
"You look like you are car sick," said the driver. "My son always
got that way even a kilometer down the road when he was a boy. Matter
of fact that happens to him now--not quite as bad, though. I can't