The Lost Boy

It rained again today

It was one of those days when the earth seemed to be spinning backwards. I didn’t leave the house until 5 p.m. I’d woken up at 3 p.m. in a state of confusion. Unsure where I was or how I had got there, I soon realised that I was in my own bedroom. There was nobody else there. I spent two hours walking around my room, took a shower, and eventually mustered up the energy to go outside. I felt inspired to take pictures, but all I could find to take pictures of was an old multi-gym and a cat. The battery in the camera is flat now.

I had made a plan to meet a friend at MBK in Pizza Company. I was strolling along the overpass, moving against waves of Thai people all trying to get to the exact opposite place that I was. It was a little unsettling. I soon noticed that almost every person had no mouth. I wasn’t frightened, but thought it odd. I took some solace from remembering that things like this occasionally happen in Bangkok. Some of the people had no face at all. These people worried me, but I had somewhere to get to which left no time for dwelling on minor details.

I was overcome with the unshakable feeling that I didn’t know where I was going, even though I had a clear destination in mind. The path I was walking looked unfamiliar. I could have been lost, but deep down I knew exactly where I was.

I bought my ticket for the Skytrain and followed the mouthless people who now seemed to be moving with me. The train took an eternity to arrive. People were motionless, and yet moving frantically. Nobody paid me any attention and I hid towards the back of the platform. Boarding the train, when it finally arrived, was a laborious task. There were rather more people than I had been expecting for 5.30 p.m. on a Sunday. I stood in the corner, comforted by the fact that I was on the edge of the crowd.

As the train moved I noticed that it was raining. It hadn’t rained in Bangkok for several weeks (not that I’d seen anyway). I tried to remember if I had taken a shower or not and recalled that I had. Having not seen rain for a while, I wanted to jump out of the Skytrain and let if fall on me. The seas of cars, aligned in disorganized madness below, were becoming wet; I was a little jealous. A motorbike had crashed into a car and people were examining the damage. I was glad that I don’t know how to drive.

For one reason or another, I noticed that I had possibly slipped into an altered dimension. I was seeing everything as if for the first time, and as a result I was seeing things that I had never seen before. This contributed to my feeling of being unsure where I was. I left the Skytrain and walked, noticing people. There were two farang: one was wearing a white shirt that looked like an England football top, the other was muscly with a lot of tattoos on his left arm. They weren’t together, but I noticed them because they both had tiny girlfriends. At first I thought they were twice as big as their girlfriends, but after looking for a few seconds more I saw the difference in size wasn’t quite that much.

I felt like I had forgotten something. I checked to see if I was wearing trousers and, sure enough, I was. I kept checking my nose to see if it was still there or if something had happened to it. I walked into the Tokyu department store and immediately thought I was lost. I felt like Father Ted when he was lost with a group of priests in the lingerie section of a department store. I wasn’t in a lingerie section but I could empathise with Father Ted.

The meal at Pizza Company passed without incident. I ordered a refill Pepsi but couldn’t finish the first glass. I felt that I’d somehow cheated myself. After eating we walked to Siam Square where I saw a man moving at twice the speed of a regular person. He was serving food into small bowls, but doing it so fast that it looked as if he had four arms. It occurred to me that I had not spoken much during my outing. I was with three other people, two of whom I had never met before. They were both Thai and looked young. We ate ice cream at iBerry and eventually it was time to return home and so I said my farewells.

I walked towards the BTS station at Siam. Once again I wasn’t sure where I was, even though I knew that where I was I had been many times before. There were an unusual number of dogs on the sidewalk (unusual even for Bangkok). None of them looked at me, which I thought was strange. A small black dog walked around in a circle, blocking my path. I assumed that he didn’t know I was there, although why he hadn’t noticed me I wasn’t sure. Finally one of the dogs made eye contact with me. He regarded me with disdain. I was alarmed and quickened my pace.

The journey home was peaceful. All the while that I hadn’t known where I was going I had ended up at my desired destination unscathed. There had been no problems getting to where I wanted, just problems that I had imagined. I decided to walk home as fast as I could but found it difficult with the multitude of people, sauntering, strolling, casually strutting in front of me. They were not aware of my plight and so I forgave them.

It was possible I was still drunk from the previous night. I had slept late and was feeling sick. The feelings I had experienced during my brief expedition were nothing new. I remembered that they had occurred before, both at times of being and of not being drunk. I got home and took the aforementioned photo of a cat.

Techno' tags: Day out in Bangkok, Confused with life