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decreaseI've just finished off my second bottle of Chardonnay, had a tab of acid, and enjoyed my Thai girlfriend off and on for the past two hours. Or maybe it was that she enjoyed me, I don't know for sure, such is my state of mind. Such is the fact that we never know these things, do we? You know, guessing at such matters, comparing different minds...
This Voice from the Past came through the window at some point and said, I swear he said: It's all metaphor. That's how I speak truth.
I said, What!?
Ning said, Okay, you say so.
Lovely, sweet little Ning. Always agreeable.
Thai logic speaking. Or maybe the acid speaking. Or maybe the wine speaking. Or maybe…how can I know in my state of mind?
But I do know Ning, I think I do.
The Voice from the Past said, It's like a strip of tire added to a tire, that's how I deal with truth. You take it off and you still have the big tire.
Oh, I said. What? I said. I turned to Ning and I said, Are we alone?
Whatever way you like it, he said. Choose your own metaphor.
I like Ning's doing whatever she's doing her way, I think I said, the acid and the wine and the hour making my trip unusually fertile in its possibilities. Wondering where this Voice from the Past came from, how he got into our room.
Your sense of getting to truth is not socially responsible, he said.
I think this is what he said. And I said, Okay, we disagree on truth.
Up to you, Ning said. Then she said, Same same.
Not same same, Ning, I said.
Ning's truth is another world, believe me. I will find her in bed with one of my friends and she will say five minutes later I found her in the bathroom doing her nails and there was no one with her when I walked in, or yesterday, or last week. It was all just my imagination.
That's the Thai way of truth, I told this Voice from the Past. It's how they tell it. The real is the imagined, truth is beside the point.
I know, he said. I know all about face and losing face. I know everything about layers of reality. That's what tires on tires are all about.
Ning, I said. Kiss me, okay. Not same same, but different. Not sure what I was saying, thinking only of Ning and another glass of wine.
He said, It is only you who don't seem to care and have no concept of face, even the thin one, the tire on the tire, that I have compared to the Thai.
I have to think about that, I said, finding it hard to concentrate, thinking about Ning and the dragon on the wall that was moving toward the floor and had its long red tongue out. This was the third dragon I'd seen in the last half hour. The other ones had black and green tongues. Maybe it was the sixth or seventh dragon in the last half hour come to think of it, I'm not sure.
It's just like your book that you didn't send me a copy of, he said. The one with me in it that you got all wrong. You don't understand. It's the tire on the tire that's needed to protect us from the real tire. None of us can deal with the heavy tread on bitumen. Too much friction. That's why I go to metaphors and extra tires.
Ning, I said. Would you push him out the window and shut the goddamn window and give me another glass of wine. I don't have a clue where this metaphorical tire shit is coming from, and right now it is the very last thing I can handle.
She got up and put the white towel around her, enough to cover her small breasts, and all the way down to the top of her gorgeous legs. Something else, the modesty these steaming hot Thai women have when not making a farang happy. Doing more than any of those dragons on the wall know how to do.
She went toward him, and she began to push him toward the window. Hard, aggressive. All five feet two and ninety four pounds of Ning pushing this Voice from the Past, this heavy flesh toward that window through which he came. Scary the way she was pushing him.
I said, Ning, give him that other tab on the corner of the dresser so he can fly with you and me. My present in the present to him.
She backed away and looked at him suspiciously and got the tab while still looking at him and threw it at him.
He seemed frightened.
Take it, I said.
I don't do those things, he said. I'm not crazy.
Just this once, I said. You'll see the tire without the extra tire. Maybe like the heat and the friction.
That's not me, he said.
I laughed. I looked at lovely Ning. Then I shouted, Ning! Push the bastard out the window!
Little Ning did just as I told her. To the window, out the window. Whooooosh!
And then he was gone, the Voice from the Past. And she was back with me. She dropped the towel and poured me another glass of wine, and then she came to me, crawled in beside me. I felt good. Another day with Ning. An unforgettable one too.
The author can be contacted at: korski1@cox.net
© Korski. All rights reserved by the author.
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