Long Distance Call

November. Late afternoon. It's my birthday. Frost still lingers in the shadows untouched by the sun that flickers through the remaining autumn leaves. Flights from the continent leave vapour trails to catch the last of the light. So high in a cold clear sky they make no sound. It will freeze again tonight. Once again I promise myself that next year I'll spend my birthday in Bangkok. Though in truth it wouldn't feel any different to most of the other days I've ever spent there. It always feels like it's my birthday when I'm in Bangkok. My phone breaks the silence and lights up with a call from Sai.

"Happy Birt'day to you," she half sings.

"Thank you Sai," I say as I watch my breath drift like smoke in the cold air.

"Khit teung khun mak maak," she says.

"Same same Sai," I reply. "Where are you now?" I ask, knowing from the background noise that she's on Sukhumvit.

"I go to eat with friend," she says.

I look at my watch and work out that it's around 11. 00pm where she is. As she talks in a mixture of Thai and broken English I find that I'm listening more to what's going on around her. I can picture her there at the crowded tables down near The Thermae. I hear the traffic, the unmistakable sound of a Tuk Tuk pulling away, the happy chatter of working girls talking with each other and ordering food, the clink of glasses and cuttlery, "Where you go?" a girl calls out, the sound of Farang laughter, "I go wit' you," she says laughing along with them, a blind singer passes slowly by, her voice amplified and distorted drowning out Sai for a few seconds, she laughs and talks louder and I laugh because I can picture the chaos that envelops her in a scene of polluted beauty. As she calls out for another beer I know that she has no concept of where I am, of the stillness, of the deafening silence that surrounds me watching vapour trails turn pink in the setting sun, of how cold it is. Behind me a three quarter moon is rising.

"Sai can you see the moon?" I ask.

"Can see," she replies.

Her friend says something and Sai wishes me a "happy birt'day" again. We say our goodbyes and I continue to listen until she cuts the line. "Hey where you go?" I hear her call out before the phone goes back into her bag. "Hey how are you?" a farang voice of recognition comes back before the line goes dead and leaves me with a head full of images I didn't want. I reflect on how a call that had briefly made me feel closer to Sai, and Bangkok, had somehow left me feeling even farther away than I already was.

© Richard. All rights reserved by the author.