Take The Orange Pill - Ice Girl

Chapter 22.

Another brilliant Banlung day bloomed bright. Infinitesimally small intense waves and particles traveled at 186,000 miles per second.

  What you don’t see is fascinating, said Ice Girl. She and Leo heard the clatter of tourist utensils singing near dumb thumbed Angkor Wat guidebooks dancing with dusty beggar children hawking vignettes at a medical clinic.

  The Angkor Children’s Hospital in Siem Reap has 22 beds in one room. They are filled with infants wearing air hoses in their nose. They suffer from pneumonia and tuberculosis. This is common. A parent holds a tiny hand.

  I.C.U. has five occupied beds.

  400 mothers cradling kids wait to see a nurse. She dispenses free orange generic pills.

  Life is a painkiller. Life is a generic placebo.

The mothers are happy to get SOMETHING, anything. They have no knowledge about modern medicine.

  One effective blue pill costs $1.00. Parents need to buy 15. $15.00 is a fortune. Out of the quest-ion. Parents accept free ineffective orange drugs. Parents need a miracle.

  How much does a miracle cost?

  Mothers are hopeful. They wait. They have ridden on the back of cycles from distant villages. Everyone there had an answer for the child’s sickness. Babble voices of genocide female survivors sang remedies. Men pounded drums. Relatives prayed and burned incense. A shaman dancing with death smeared chicken blood over a tiny chest. Another healer waved smoking banana leaves over a child running a fever. 400 mothers waited forever to see a nurse and get an orange pill.

Ling's art in Laos.

*

  Mr. Money talked in the Battenbang market. He’s 30, well fed and garrulous. He stood near a shop holding a pile of 500 Real notes. 500 = 25 cents.

  I am rich, he said waving money.

  I am the President of Earth, said Leo.

  He came over and collapsed in a red plastic chair. Southeast Asia is filled with red plastic chairs. It’s one big kiddy class for humans with an emotional IQ of -7.

  He put the money on the table. See, he said, I have a lot of money. Real notes were old and faded.

  Yes, you do. Where did you get it?

  I collect the money from the shopkeepers. It is their daily cleaning fee. But, I am a poor man. I only make $50 a month. Food is cheap. I have two wives and two kids. Wife number 1 is mad at me. Why? She saw me with wife number 2. I screwed wife number 1 one day and then I went over to see wife number 2. Wife number 1 saw me with her and now she's angry, ha, ha, ha.

  I have lots of energy. I can screw three times a day. Do you want to go with me to a nightclub? I can show you around. There are many girls looking for some action. Their boyfriends are poor at sex. The girls are poor and need money.

  Leo smiled. Sounds like a diabolical combination. Not today. You can only trust 10%.

It’s easy, he said, I know everybody, waving his arms around the market. People slurped noodles. Women negotiated prices, haggling, chopping vegetables, stoking cooking fires with kindling, manhandling blazing woks, nursing infants, wiping counters, sewing cloth, selling gold, trimming nails, cutting and shampooing hair, cleaning oranges and sitting with begging bowls as hungry eaters stuffed faces.

  Eater’s eyes were either buried in bowls or scanning desperate hungry faces in a life of perpetual distractions.

  Eat fast or someone will steal it from you. It’s not about taste. It’s about filling your stomach.

  Between slabbed meat and fish an old woman with her begging bowl sat on cracked pavement waiting for kindness.

  Save the strong, lose the weak, said Mr. Money.

  Yes, I’m sure you know everybody, Leo said.

  Are you really the president?

  Yes, I am.

  I think the president is a joke.

  Many people would agree with you, Leo said. It’s a lonely thankless job being responsible for the entire human race.

  Yeah, yeah. Well I gotta go make some collections. See you later.

  The machine world in Banlung roared, reversed, revered and resounded with operatic overtures.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Banlung market