Ice Girl in Banlung

  It’s fucking hysterical.

  Now and then mean the same in Ratanakiri, Cambodian animist jungle languages.

  Leo is incognito and invisible perusing the Wild West. It is replete with wandering literary outlaws, animists, shamans and 25,000 natives. Rambunctious young Banlung cowboys and cowgirls dance 125cc machines through spiraling red dust.

 How long have you been here, said Rita a 12-year old girl cutting and selling ice along a red road.

  All day. I started in China. I walked to Vietnam. Then Laos. I’ll stay here awhile. We can talk.

  Ok, she said cutting crystals. Is a day long enough to process a sensation and form an impression? Is it long enough to gather critical mass data about the diversity and evolution of humans in this total phenomena? My name is Rita.

  Good to meet you. I’m Leo the Lionhearted. Yes, if you slow down. How is life here?

  I work, I breed, I get slaughtered. This is my fate. My fate is a machete slashing through jungles. Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin.  Janus.

Yeah, yeah are two of my favorite lazy words. She smiled. Especially when I am talking with illiterate zombies. They are same word. I spit them out twice at light speed. You accent the last consonant, drawing it out like a sigh, a final breath a whisper.

Y-e-a-hhhhh. It’s crazy English believe you me. Impressive, eh? I can also say OK twice with a rising sound on the k sounding like a meaning I understand without internal meaning or personal truth-value. It’s vague. Why be precise? Many people have conversations using abstract metaphors. Ok? Ok?

 Ok. Address the very low literacy rate.

  Hello, literacy rate, how are you, she said.

  I am well and speaking with improved elocution. My English is getting better. I know my English is not grammatically correct but I know my English is fluent. The more I see the less I know.

  Well said, said Ice Girl. Someone said literacy means reading and writing.

  I doubt it, said Literacy, Who needs reading and writing? Humans need food, sex, air, water, shelter, clothing and red dust. Hope is in last place. In fact, hope may be the greatest evil because it’s a myth. It’s the last thing that dies.

  Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract, said Ice Girl, sawing cold. I love myth, fiction, truth and inventing stories.

 I thought you said eating and fighting, said Literacy. You must be fucking crazy. My survival depends on eating and fighting. Reading and writing is for idiots. Millions never learn how to write, let alone scribble stories. No chance. No money. Poor people see education and school as a waste of time and money.

Education and medicine are expensive.

 I see, said Ice Girl. When I write my stories filled with immediate direct sense impressions and precise details they lose their magic. They are like ice. Ice loses its essence in the big picture. Existence precedes essence. It’s lost between heart-mind-hand-tool-paper. Spoken stories lose their edge fast. Spoken words float around looking for a character, like plot.

 Too many people talk out their stories. Lost in the telling. Lost tales float around looking for ears. Talking kills and rejuvenates magic and mystery. Ghost stories.

 World tribes memorize chants, rhythms, songs, tales and star trails with a side order of red dust. You never hear a kid say, Let’s take the day off and be creative.

 Here’s my secret. I look for a literary agent. Someone said they help writers. I sent one a query. One wrote me a letter. I will share it with you later. I write at night. During the day I’m busy with school and selling ice. If they ask me I will send them a manuscript. Maybe they will love it. Maybe they’ll find a publisher with a big marketing budget and the rest is history as they say. If not I’ll be independent and publish it myself. Ice is my life and I will never give it up. Besides writing, laughing, loving and living, it’s my life.

  Wow, that’s lovely, said Leo.

  Yes, she said, I follow my bliss. If it’s not in your heart, it’s not in your head. I’ll tell you about the agent later.

  A man arrived on a broken motorcycle. She gave him a blue plastic bag of ice. He gave her Real currency.

  Sure. I follow my blisters, laughed Leo.

  Where are you staying, she asked.

  I don’t have a home. I live in small houses along the road. For now I sleep at Future Bright.

  I know it. The woman owner smiles and lies at the same time.

 What’s the difference between hearing and listening, Leo asked?.

98% are asleep with their eyes open, she said. They don’t know and don’t care. It’s endemic.  They look without understanding. The remaining 2% are dead and long gone.

She opened her notebook. She spilled red ink on white paper. Red is a lucky color of wealth and prosperity. Living in a red dust town brings everyone good luck.

  Tell me about your visionary skills, said Leo.

  I am ahead of the future. The day after tomorrow belongs to me. I connect the dots forward. I practice detached discernment. My job is to pay attention to direct immediate experience, get it down and make sense of it later.

People here live in a perpetual disconnect. They are talking monkeys looking for a place to happen. They can’t focus. Their attention span is ZERO. Like Year 0 in 1975 before I was born. No attention span? No problem.

  How about your town, asked Leo.

 Red dust roads in Banlung are paved with blue Zircon and Black Opals (nill) reflecting Ratanakiri, or “Gem Mountain.” Rich city women wear blue Zircon, gold necklaces, rings, bracelets, sparkle bling. Rural women do not wear this wealth.

Married women wear red bead strings. They fashion yellow, red, blue, green, glittering plastic bangles on necks and wrists.

  Here it’s about food and honoring Earth spirits. Animists believe taking stones harms the spirits, creating an imbalance in the natural order of things.

  Thanks for Life Lesson #3, said Leo. I’m going to have a look-see. See you later.

Ice Girl in Banlung

English School Management Style in Turkey

Early in September at the beginning of a 51-day short story, Lucky suggested to Trabzon management, I’ll be happy to move to Giresun. You need a full time eloquent teacher there. It saves you time and money. It means you don’t have to send a native barbarian over by daily bus. Saves 2.5 hours two ways. Turn around time. Students will have a full-time talking monkey expressing clear pro-nun-ci-a-tion with a silent eye.

The ineffective English coordinator-director married to Mr. Fat Profit said, Ok and called the Giresun Die Rector conversing with wild specific gestures. She stopped yakking. Connection died.

She spoke with trembling hands it’s ok. She grabbed the teachers’ schedule and scratched out his name. I eliminate your name, identity and memory. I erase your existence here. You do not exist on my scheme of language inquisition and massive revenue if you only knew. We want our teachers to be happy, lying through her teeth. In Giresun they will help you settle in. Get a spacious apartment near The Department of the Forest. No hot water and a view of the Black Sea. Find your way. Etc.

Thanks this is my lucky day.

He traveled to Giresun by bus along the sublime Black Sea. The bus passed a long haul semi. The blue plastic canvas tarp read TRANSTIM.

Met a four transit. The rucksack truck carried refugees from Georgia to Grease. Three million lived in Germany. They were the pre-invasion poverty and destitute force seeking social welfare benefits.

B quiet, said Ata Leader born in 1923. Immigrant mothers covered children’s mouths. Don’t speak. If they discover us they will kill us with false hope, lies and acts of random kindness.

Police stopped TRANSTIM. They murdered adverbs and adjectives. Kill modifiers. Murder darlings.

In Giresun Lucky saw many people with bandaged hands - domestic victims…shhh no talking about reality.

4/10 Turkish women suffer domestic violence in terrified silence, speaking of unpleasant facts. If they go to a hospital, human services, or police to file a complaint they are exterminated with extreme prejudice. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Everyone’s ego carried a gun reinforcing visual intimidation.

Shit Outta Luck

In Giresun, Lucky needing a temporary place to crash met Sooner Or Later (SOL) or Shit Outta Luck, a sad spinally hunched over articulate 28-year old part-time neurotic Turkish/English teacher. He was strong on grammar rules and weak on life.

I love rules, said SOL. I failed my government teachers’ exam by one point. What’s the point, asked Lucky pointing at the Black Sea. Being correct is never the point.

The point is to get a cushy government-teaching job, said SOL. Now I teach, cajole, bribe, insist and incite with grammatical insight, exam material to blind, deaf and dumb university students.

How to pass, how to pretend they know the grammar rules. How to keep their fucking mouth shut in a Big Ears No Mouth society. They struggle for jobs. They struggle in/out of university. They struggle to be free and independent. They struggle to escape the tyranny of oppressive, emotionally distraught neurotic parents and teachers like me with our obsessive-compulsive control issues.

Yes, said Lucky, I see a distinct similarity between your fate and young female Chinese university teachers. Your age is the same as students. You are their brother. In China teachers were sisters. Students’ attitudes were, ‘be my friend.’ It’s impossible to be objective treating them like siblings. It perpetuates dependency versus autonomy.

I motivate them in the simple present, said SOL. Subject+verb+object. My fate is future past perfect, he said.

I am simple present and empty, said Lucky. The day after tomorrow belongs to me. Welcome to the insane asylum. I celebrate with crazies.

I invoke the Light of God within.

I am a clear and perfect channel.

Light is my guide.

Welcome to Land of Erasers. Turkish university students at TEOL loved forcing erasers across paper with passion, purpose and dexterity.

Erase mistake’s memory. There’s the rub.

  

In Banks We Trust

Every morning scared Giresun citizens lined up at banks before opening time.

In Banks We Trust. Give me your coins. Give me your artificially valued numerical currency with implicit trust. Give me your economic life. Give me your insolvent fear of financial collapse and worthless exchange. Give me your tomorrows. Give me your unlimited potential. Give me your laughter and stupidity. Give me your hope, the last evil thing to die at low interest rates.

Stepping with energy along a frozen alley at dawn an old bearded man wearing a knit cap and layers of cloth carried a sharp saw and wicker basket over his shoulder. Going to The Department of the Forest to harvest kindling. His best friend stumbled behind him staying one step ahead of death closing in.

Age whispered, Faster, faster. Enjoy the time you are given.

A young girl carrying a bouquet of red balloons walked past crumbling Ottoman walls. Her head scarfed mother gripped her hand in morning’s desperation. Stone stories sang as red, pink roses wearing thorns said hello to men haggling over silver fish. Are you passing through, said fish man, Yes, said balloon girl, there are not many things you need to remember about your visit to Earth. This is the day of my dreams.

 

 Give us a quick Giresun tour one fall afternoon.

You take a path away from bland towering apartment blocks watch time shops, sartorial dummies and modernity into a neighborhood of eighty-year old plastered stone/straw homes. A smiling curious Kurdish woman on her balcony asked quest-ion words. You shrugged. You didn’t know. You smiled. She smiled. Smiling is the answer. She shared Kurdish stories. Leaf plane shutter images whispered family and community minus alienation.

You wandered down another path and met a shaggy golden retriever chained to a wall. He was happy to have his ears scratched by Lone Wolf. Everyone stared at you playing with the dog. When they were distracted by nothing as usual you cut the chain. The dog ran free. Trailing thread a tailor emerged from his shop yelling, where’s my fucking dog?

Red, yellow and white wild roses said hello. A man planed wood for an axe handle at his shop. Honing laughter’s axe his bushy moustache and sharp eyes said he studied biology. His methodical passion reminded you of your father in his basement workshop on Independence Street. He respected his tools.

You visited a kind seamstress in her hole-in-the-wall shop. She fashioned a coin bag with satin ribbon drawstring refusing money accepting a smile.

You sat outside a teahouse. Across the street hard-working men and women with weathered faces haggled over farm tools, axes, hoeing instruments.

Young black haired men with strong backs, dark eyes, solid boots and motivation carried sacks of hazelnuts (Findik) to a wholesaler. He weighed them on a scale. Men sold their nuts. My wife loves my nuts, laughed one. His friend said, my wife never says show me your nuts she says show me the money honey.

Late light slanted off cobblestones.

A nursery gardener shook dirt off a small tree and cut roots. He helped an old woman bag it. Planting it in her garden she heard a woman crying in a Bursa cemetery water soil with tears near a gravedigger pounding a sledgehammer.

Everything must go.

Verifying her existence a woman studied her undulating reflection in a window of female dummies sporting wedding dresses. She glimpsed a serious fleeting vision of her calm beauty self-reliance and wisdom without a care in the world.

It will be cold in January, said Bamboo. Turning pages, yellow leaves sang, what a long strange trip it’s been.

The Language Company

 

heart sutra

Everything changes, everything passes,
 
Things appearing, things disappearing,
 
But when all is over—everything having appeared and disappeared,
 
Being and extinction both transcended— 
 
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides,
 
And that is blissful Peace.

Through the center

I climbed through the center of Bali inside magical light past an extinct sacred volcano at Lake Batur carrying spare ammunition, a small portable typewriter, a map carved on narwhal bone, a roll of scented four-ply toilet paper, codices or painted books and texts on bark paper called Amate, and cactus fiber including palimpsest animal skins and dialogue of Mayan origin.

My hair caught fire. Gathering flames I lit a piece of bark for guidance.

I mixed volcanic ash with water, creating a thick paste of red ocher, a cosmetic balm rich with antioxidants.

I applied this to my skin to gain entry and passage through the spirit world of ancestors. 

Source: A Century is Nothing.

Skylight

Sky darkened. 
Ceremonial drum thunder sang vocal intensity.
Lonely lost suffering foreign tourists in Cambodia shuddered with fear.
What if I die here? 
How will my family and friends begin to realize my intention witnessing 1200 years of dancing Angkor laterite stoned history gnarling jungles revealed by natural strobes? 

Lightning flashed skies. Giant flashbulbs illuminated petrified children 
Buried inside cement cavern eyes eating cartoon images on a plasma scream.
Skies opened. 
Rain lashed humans. Some laughed, others cried. Tears dissolved fear.
Sweet dreams, baby.

Dawn. 
Two arrived. The boy is cutter. He carried rope, ladder, small axe and machete. 
Helper friend is coconut palm tree scout. 
Here and there, he said, pointing.

Go up.
The boy shinnied up a narrow palm.
Transferring to the towering 2’ diameter palm he climbed higher.
Roping his tools. 
How’s the view, asked helper.

Sublime. A wide brown river lined by cauliflower oaks reaches bamboo huts.
Orange sunrise severs cumulus wisps.
A market woman has her nails done in blue glitter.
A boy saws crystalized ice on a red dirt road.
Girls in white cotton pedal to school.
A woman grilling waffles along a road buys bundled forest kindling.
Saffron orange robed monks sit in meditation at naga wat.
One plays a drum.

Go up.

He climbed higher.

He chopped. Long thin heavy branches weighted by freedom danced free.
Helper dragged branches past advertisements for temples, orphanages, river trips.
He chopped. 
He dragged.
He chopped.
He dragged.
He secured rope to the top. Blossoming.
He chopped.
Coconuts, leaves, bark danced down.
White interior life dust snowed.
Tree crashed.
Light escaped. 
3 hours. $20.