We stumble up the steps from the congested, coughing road. Up to the Sky Train, the floating arm of concrete and steel that moves when the arteries underneath are blocked by Bangkok cholesterol.
A band is busking: teenagers from a local school, dressed in blue trousers and skirts and pristine white shirts. A girl is the lead singer; she sings confidently and with talent into the microphone, leaning into it like she is sharing secrets. A boy strums an electric acoustic, head bowed. Another boy hammers an electric drum. A girl holds up a smartphone with the music score on it. Together, lost in music. Other friends loiter while a larger group sit on the steps and applaud. We sit down and watch, letting the press of commuters pour around us, spilling along the different levels, stairs, elevators. Rain starts to fall, smearing the glass tube walkway with dirty tears. The girl sings and occasionally laughs like a tingling river, loosing the flow of lyrics. The band's bravery is infectious; they are entertaining the crowd after school when they surely have other homework to do. We drop a few dripping coins into an open guitar case and that elicits a surprise from the entire band. They jump up, one by one, like reversing dominos and politely thank us, as if it’s their first ever tip.
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Between 2013-2015 I lived in Guangzhou, China, with my wife. I wrote frequently short true-stories/life writing pieces for Internations. These were the '303' articles in which I only have myself 303 words to write about my experiences. You can find some of them here:
On his yellow jacket, Special Assistance.
He gives no assistance, let alone special, to the anaemic elderly man spewing up thick red spurts of blood on the shiny grey floor of Gatwick’s Terminal 2 Departure Lounge. Special Assistance continues failing to fulfil his jacket’s motto, reading The Sun while sitting on the side of the information desk, one foot swinging in the air. The anaemic man’s daughter runs to and from the Information Desk, trying to hurry along a different man on the phone. ‘Medics coming,’ the man on the phone says. A traveler goes up Special Assistance and interrupts his reading. ‘Are you aware there is man throwing up blood over there? Could do with some reassurance, if nothing else.’ Special Assistance slowly looks up and over at the chaotic, coughing event. ‘Not aware,’ he says shaking his head. He folds his paper over and slips off the side of the Information Desk. He then spends five minutes wondering around the scene but never going up to the poorly man or his frantic daughter. He looks lost, useless, unimportant. The medic arrives and takes over. Special Assistance goes back to his paper. |
AuthorI have had short stories published in Bad Idea Magazine, Black Market Re-View, Brand Literary magazine, Dreamcatcher, Internations, Gloom Cupboard Print Edition, Pens on Fire, The Writing Shift and Zero Flash. In 2009 I had a mini-memoir published by Harper-Collins in Not Quite What I Was Planning. Archives
August 2023
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