JUNK


PROLOGUE


In which OUR NARRATOR introduces:

Himself 
The Swingin’ Christmas
The Suicide Spirit
The Domino Effect

Himself 

Some say I don’t exist. Others can't make their minds up. Not sure what you think?

You may have heard of me, though these days I’m not that popular. You can’t see me, hear me, touch me, taste me or smell me so it’s not surprising you haven’t got to know me very well, but it’s not too late to try. 

Your best scientific brains believe human DNA is 2% chromosomes, cells and genes and the other 98% is dormant. They think I’m redundant genetic clutter left over from billions of years of evolution. They have no idea what I’m capable of. They call me Junk.

Others call me the essence of their being, a celestial presence, an indefinable aura a soul or a sprite but you probably know me best as spirit.

Whatever. To be honest, I really don’t care what you or your eggheads call me. 

What’s in a name?

It’s what you do with yours that counts. 

Your world is waiting.

Time is running out. 


The Swingin’ Christmas

I was created one millionth of a second after the fertilisation of Jake Hunter’s human embryo. 

Nine months later, on the day he was born, I first saw the world through the windows of his soul. Through them, I see things mere mortals can’t. 

For the next four years and three months I was the spring in his step, the joy in his heart, the mischievous sparkle in his eyes. I was the wind in his sail. I kept his hopes alive and breathed life into his dreams. 

But on December 25th 1992, all that changed. Like billions of others on that morning, Jake Hunter was woken by the distant jingle of an imaginary sleigh-bell. With one eye still in a dream he hurried downstairs in his pyjamas into the mysterious darkness. Each breathless, step drew him closer to the magic.

The cold had crept under his skin and frozen his bones. His toes were like small pink icicles. But thankfully, there is nothing more powerful than the human spirit when it’s on fire and on that particular morning, I was. 

Shivers became excited trembles that tingled down his spine as he approached the front room. Through the window the rooftops, paths, hedges and roads outside were smothered in smooth dollops of glittering silver snow.

In one gloomy corner of the room, fairy lights flashed and tinsel dazzled. A white angel watched from on high. A red shiny bauble distorted his face. A fleeting glimpse under the tree revealed an empty space. No presents. Santa hadn’t been yet. Where could they be? 

Something clattered. An elf landing at the bottom of the chimney? Reindeer on the roof? 

Something like the sound of smashing crockery shattered the silence. He wasn’t alone. Santa! Eating mince pies? Ringlets of his hot breath whirled into the air as he tip-toed to the kitchen door. He opened it carefully. A flood of light blinded him. 

Jake looked up. Questions pounded his head. 

Why were dad’s bulging eyes staring at nothing? 

How come his tongue was unusually purple and had slithered to one corner of his mouth? 

Why was his face the colour of a squeezed lemon?

Why were the veins in his throat made of scarlet throbbing gristle? 

Why were his size ten brogues swinging in the air? 

Why on earth would dad be dangling from the kitchen ceiling with an electric cable around his neck? 

Tremors of pain shook him to his core.

The tears on his face froze.

Maybe, this wasn’t Christmas after all.


The Suicide Spirit

A vapour of black sorrow, purple pain and red rage swirled from his dad’s swinging corpse and drifted across the kitchen.

With nowhere else to go a suicide spirit possesses the person their human loved the most.

Jake’s mouth, wide with astonishment, breathed it in.

The rest vanished up his nose and in through his ears.


The Domino Effect

They say carry the spirit of a child into old age but as it sank deeper and deeper inside me it crushed my pure innocence

It gutted Jake’s insides.

An avalanche of shock sent fallout debris crashing around me and burned in the dark recesses of his brain.

A sombre fog blotted out the light.

The seeds of his young dreams withered and died.

It spread into his heart, rotting his love. 

The blood flowing through his veins curdled.

His energy buzzed like a swarm of bees, then faded to silence. 

I heard his thoughts scream for help.

‘Hold on,’ I shouted. 

But my voice was lost, echoing only in the shadows of his subconscious.

I was cut off. Paralysed. Alone.

I exist in the hope that one day things will be different. 

When human’s give up, I don’t.



Chapter 1

The Unholy Trinity 

August 21, 2013, 3 :10 pm

As Bangkok’s chaos flickered in the windows of Jake Hunter’s soul for the first time, the faint grey figures on the street, trapped in the groundhog drudgery of their daily lives were possessed with red demon rage. Lurking in the shadows of doorways were black lizard-rats with human fingers. The bending reflections in windows were hungry ghosts searching for revenge. The sun, shining on an ordinary day was golden spirits, flying into the molten sky, setting it on fire. 

In the unforgiving humidity Jake removed his steamed-up glasses and wiped a tepid residue of sweat from his weary eyes. He squinted at his watch. Two hours he’d been trapped on this bus. Shielding his eyes from a white hot glare, he stumbled, grabbing at thin air. 

‘Open the window please, someone… anyone?’ said Jake. Nobody moved or said a word. Like white-faced zombies, passengers stared straight through him. 

MY OWN FLESH AND BONE

Jake Hunter is my human.
He’s 25 years old.
A 6ft 1 inch rake made of thick strong wire.
He has octopus arms and legs and big brown eyes as cute as a spaniel puppy.
With black framed glasses he was a geek. Without he was a rock star.
To some his clothes were unfashionable, understated. To others he was scruffy.

He spotted a seat, vacated by a round woman with an Afro frizz and breasts like lumpy pillows. After fighting his way around her and through a tangle of sticky bodies he sank wearily into it, put his head back and relaxed. For the first time in years he looked forwards, not back. Everything would be different when he saw Dan again. 

CHALK AND CHEESE

Jake’s younger brother Dan was 20 years old.
He was born eight months after Jake’s dad’s swingin’ Christmas.
He was free, wild, dangerous, adventurous, happy-go-lucky and cool.
Everything Jake wanted to be but wasn’t.

Thoughts of the spiritual wisdom of Buddha and the new culture he was about to explore raced through his head. He allowed his imagination to roam, picturing himself in shades and shorts, soaking up rays on a white tropical beach, sipping a pina colada. An emerald ocean winked at him. Paradise palms saluted him. He saw himself as one of the shaven-headed Buddhist monks in orange robes he’d seen praying in front of a temple. At least they were calm. They’d found peace. Perhaps he could convert. 

IMAGINATION

I love it. Don’t you?
It’s like a free spirit.
It can go anywhere.
Do anything.

The bus driver appeared to be talking to himself. 

‘What the hell’s he doing?’ said Jake to the old man sitting next to him.

‘It look bad,’ he replied, narrowing his watery hazel eyes.Taut and visibly shaking, he pointed at the sky. 

Jake looked out, gazing through the filthy window at the cloud of thick smog billowing into the road. He studied the swirl of mysterious white shapes spiralling over rows of cars, bicycles, tuks tuks and rickashaws. They drifted closer. The world was disappearing before his eyes, closing in on him, like it was about to end.

BEAUTY=DEATH

The smog was crimson, orange and green,
like the most beautiful aurora borealis you’ve ever seen.
Its toxic hosts
floated like deadly ghosts,
melting holes in the sky,
poisoning passers by.
What the eyes don’t see,
whatever will be will be...

But there was something else. Inside the shifting veil of poisonous, fumes it was drawing nearer and nearer until half a face appeared. For a few brief moments, one silky white eye peered out. Wing-like limbs hung from its sides like the melting wax of two huge candles. A gaping hole opened and closed, as if speaking. Silently, its legless, neckless form drifted away pulling a heavy screen of smog down in front of the bus. 

The bus driver bowed his head, clasped his hands together and prayed. Jake stared at the old man, imploring an explanation.

‘He’s asking for help from Mae Yanang the goddess of journeys to chase the smog away,’ said the old man. 

Through the front window Jake saw a masked man on a tuk-tuk disappear into the smog. As he hurtled towards the bus, Jake closed his eyes, trembling, rubbing the St Christopher pendant between his sticky finger and thumb. 

The brakes screeched. The bus swerved. As the back hit something hard, glass windows smashed. Something sparked and buzzed. At the front there was a dull thud, the sound of scraping metal and a scream.

Jake was thrown forward into a forest of legs, ending up on the floor. His glasses flew off. His world was a blur. Heavy luggage rained down on his legs. Chickens clucked. Bottles rolled and shattered. He cried out.

In the panic that followed, passengers clambered in the aisle for a view of the accident. Concerned voices escalated into a din. A stampede of desperate feet trampled on him. Pain ripped through him.

Shaken up, Jake managed to fumble for his glasses. When he finally retrieved them he placed them back on his nose and struggled back to his feet. Standing on tip toe, he craned his neck, straining to see more of the scene ahead. Outside the fumes were clearing. Concern turned to stone on the faces of the gathering crowd. It was serious.

A man was lying face down in the road next to the mangled wreckage of his tuk tuk. The left wheel was bent double, the right spinning slowly. From inside his twisted body a black mist with two stumpy horns drifted into the street. Dark hollow sockets for eyes stared. Tusk-like fangs snarled. A long proboscis slithered in and out of its jaws. 

THE UNHOLY TRINITY - PART I

Spirits of the DAMNED are always black,
They’re mutant evil beings so watch your back.

At first it floated around a ravenous dog which was nuzzling at scraps in the gutter and slipped inside its bony ribcage. The dog shook violently as if it had fleas. When the dog bolted, it flew out of it and filtered slowly out of sight down the metal grid of a drain.
The white spirit howled and span into a mini tornado of glowing gold that fizzed, sparked and rocketed into the sky. It exploded, shooting laser beams of light from behind clouds. They sliced through the smog, lighting up the world again.

THE UNHOLY TRINITY - PART II

When spirits glow yellow and gold, they’re fine
They can move on, ready to be set FREE as light and sunshine.

To Jake it was as if God himself had appeared. He thanked his lucky stars he was still in one piece. But something wasn’t right. 
A strange heat came over him in waves. Plumes of black smoke and the smell of burning plastic made him heave. He turned around. Flames were raging at the back of the bus. It must have caught fire when it collided. A small Thai boy, dressed in a cowboy suit was lying, barely conscious, under a seat, near the rear. Their eyes met. Groaning, the boy muttered something in Thai. 

A local thrust a caged chicken in front of him. As he stared into the bird’s drooping eyes, warm liquid splashed his face. He looked up and a drip of sweat fell from a hairy armpit into his face. 

‘Jesus C-Christ,’ he stammered.

In the blood-boiling heat, he was suddenly cooking. All around him gridlocked vehicles roared like an army of wounded metallic beasts, shuddering his bones.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
Before you find your fire, something must burn.

He ran his clammy fingers through the matted thick black curls on top of his head and gnawed at his fingernails. He stood up, shaking. Fists clenched. Teeth grinding. He kicked the back of the seat and looked around for some sort of reaction. The blank faces surrounding him stayed vacant and gaunt. Jake’s shaking hand unzipped his bag and fumbled inside for a drink. 

A HUMAN PRIORITY
Millions have lived without love, not one without water

His bottle was empty. ‘F-Fuck,’ he said, his tongue’s connection to his brain severed. It was like a light had gone out in his head. His optimism crumbled. His eyes were glued to the boy’s pleading expression under the seat. It tugged at his heart strings and split his mind in two. 

‘Go back, he’ll die if you don’t help him,’ I screamed.

‘Fuck him, save yourself,’ boomed the gravel voice inside his head. There was no escape from the familiar chill of its pain and bitterness. I was used to it.

Jake stood still, frozen. He waited a few seconds before deciding. He turned his back on the boy and scrambled his way towards the exit, swept along by a tide of clamouring bodies. 

When his feet finally touched the ground outside, he was overcome by fumes. Bent double, hacking and barking like a seal, he was on the verge of collapse.

All around him there was pandemonium. Sirens blared. Ambulances, fire engines and police cars raced. The tuk tuk driver’s body was wheeled away on a stretcher. Jake didn’t even notice his head was covered by a blanket. A policeman was trying in vain to calm irate drivers beeping their horns. Another was hopelessly directing traffic.

‘Lek, Lek, Lek!’ screamed a distraught woman holding a baby in her arms. Bawling hysterically, she pushed through the crowd towards the bus. A line of policemen stood in her way.

Engulfed by smoke, a fireman emerged in the doorway carrying the small boy. ‘Lek, Lek!’ screamed the woman. 

Lek was laid out on a stretcher. Hope beamed in onlookers’ eyes. Finally his mother broke free and ran to him. She leaned over him and shook his lifeless body. She kept shaking it, again and again, refusing to accept reality. The world stopped. Silence filled the air. Her hopeless scream shattered it. The faint imprint of Lek’s face was already circling the misty white outline of his body. 

Jake Hunter looked up at the ashen sky. He saw clouds, the odd bird. Nothing unusual. He wondered if there really was a God. And if so, how could he let things like this happen? 

‘Is he…y’know?’ said Jake to the old man next to him. 

He nodded grimly. 

A SMALL OBSERVATION
Only the good die young.

‘But we lucky. We alive,’ he beamed. ‘Wait, here. I have something for you.’ He retrieved something from his battered brown briefcase. ‘Maybe you have these,’ he said waving Jake’s wallet and phone under his nose.

‘Oh, they must have fallen out when we crashed,’ said Jake 

‘How you say in English? You need eyes in the back of head here. If spirits don’t get you, thieving bastard will. They’ll steal your soul if you let them,’ he wheezed.

Firemen sprayed a hose on the bus, quelling the flames. Smoke darkened the sky.

The old man pulled something from around his neck. ‘You need this. It keep evil spirit away, you need plenty luck here,’ he said, giving him a stone amulet with Buddha carved on it. 

‘Really, there’s no need,’ protested Jake. ‘I’ve got a St Christopher to protect me,’ said Jake. ‘He’s the patron saint of travellers, where I come from.’ 

‘Take it, take it,’ insisted the old man forcing it into his hand and closing Jake’s fingers around it. Turning his back on him the old man wandered across the road. 

Jake tied the amulet around his neck. He fingered anxiously through his wallet to see if anything was missing. There wasn’t, so he put it safely back into the zipped pocket of his backpack. 

The mayhem had calmed. The fire on the bus was finally out. Police had restored control. Traffic started to move. 

Lek’s ghost vanished into a mountain of grey cloud. In a flash he reappeared, dipping and diving like a demented bird in front of Jake. He clung to him, watching him like a hawk. White fire roared from the narrow spaces where his eyes used to be and he slashed one of his misty tendrils back and forth, as if it were a blade cutting his throat.

THE UNHOLY TRINITY - PART III

A HUNGRY ghost is a dangerous sight,
It must get revenge or stay forever white.

Jake hitched his heavy rucksack onto his back. The sign for the Khao San Road appeared above his head. Dread seeped from his sweaty palms and his stomach churned. Pain birds flew in. His mind went blank. Laughter filled his head. 

‘Afro fire, Afro fire,’ growled the gravel voice in his head. 

He looked across the road and saw the round woman from the bus. He saw orange and yellow flames shooting out of her head. Her hair was ablaze.

‘AAAArghhh…’ he raged. Without a thought, he ran after her. Half way there, in the middle of the road he stopped in his tracks. She looked back at him grinning. The fire was gone. This couldn’t be happening. Not again, not here, not now, he thought.
A car swerved, narrowly missing him. The driver stopped, beeped, shook his fist, and swore at him. Dark heavy clouds rushed into his head, whipping up a storm.


CHAPTER 2

The Hungry Cowboy

By the time Jake set foot on the Khao San Road, sheets of torrential rain were picking up rubbish off the street and flushing it through the gutters. The bars and restaurants were rammed with tourists, competing for shelter from the monsoon deluge.

Every inch of him was soaked but he didn’t care. It wouldn’t be long until he saw Dan again. He stuck out his parched tongue to catch drops of moisture. He felt alive, like he’d stepped from an oven into a cool refreshing shower. Tantalising food smells hung in the air, rumbling his hunger. Faces leapt at him from every direction. Market traders fought with plastic tarpaulin sheets to keep electrical goods on their stalls dry. An odd looking man stood in his way. 

‘You want… buy?’ he asked, holding up plastic bath plugs on chains. Jake side-stepped him and carried on. A beggar held out a photo of Thai royalty as he rattled a rusty tin at him. DVD salesmen packed away suitcases and ran for cover. Vegetable sellers hollered. He scurried past a painted Thai lady. She must have been in her late forties at least. 

‘Cheep fuckee, you want cheap fuckee,’ she shouted, waving and chasing him down the street. 

SPIRITUAL FINANCIAL ADVICE

Money makes you mad, inhumane,
completely insane.
You greed after more,
Even break the law.
You beg, steal or borrow,
like there’s no tomorrow.
It’s a situation beyond retrieval,
this root of all evil.
By now you must know,
I can’t take it with me when I go.

Jake paused to catch his breath and get his bearings. He fought to banish the visions of the woman on fire and Lek’s pleading eyes from his mind, trying to look forward not back.

Balancing on both feet he positioned himself under the canopy of a market stall. While browsing the electrical junk, fake rolexes, handbags and cheap gold necklaces on sale, he pulled out a crumpled postcard. 

On the front of it were Thai workers in wide-brimmed straw hats digging with spades and forks. Although faded, the smudged Bangkok postmark, dated six weeks ago was still legible. Despite the coffee stain he could read the words scrawled on the back.

“Hey dude, I’m the urban spaceman, Fancy a visit? Tai Loke 3570 Khao San Rd is cheapest Bangkok hostel if you do. Meet you there??? Wheels are made for rollin’, bags were made to pack I never seen a sight that didn’t look better lookin’ back. Butterflies, zebras, moonbeams and fairytales, Jesus Jimi Christ, Come up and see me make me smile - Dan.” 

He kept mumbling Tai Loke 3570 to himself, as he searched for it among the sprawling Thai letters on advertising signs. One of the letters flew out quickly in front of his eyes. As it fluttered like a five pound note around his head, he jumped out of its way before it shot back into the sign again.

As the rain eased off he got back on track, hurrying down the Khao San Road, splashing his way through puddles, half-jogging, half-lurching. The street seemed to go on forever. Several times he stopped to catch his breath. After wiping his specs on his soggy sleeve he came to a battered old door. The words ‘Tai Loke Luxury Executive Hotel’ were engraved on the gold plate sign, hanging loosely from it. Jake knew why Dan had chosen this place. Self-respecting backpackers on a shoestring would be proud of it. It was a cheap dump. 

His sodden clothes stuck like concrete glue to his skin, weighing him down. He was dead on his feet. Too weak to force the door open a chubby middle-aged man opened it for him. The man walked inside and sat behind a dirty screen that reminded Jake of an old theatre box office. Strands of greasy hair were stuck onto his shiny bald head. He forced a lop-sided smile to acknowledge his presence. 

‘Yeth? What d’ya want?’ he lisped through the gap in his teeth Jake pulled out the photo of Dan. It was worn and crumpled.
‘You seen this guy lately? He’s staying here.’

FROZEN IN A FRAME FOREVER

Dan Hunter had a dyed blonde Mohawk.
A dragonfly tattoo on his arm.
A dangly pirate ear ring.
His smile looked a bit false but Jake knew that whenever he had his photo taken he always said bollocks instead of cheese.

The hostel owner looked at him blankly and shook his head briefly. 

‘Many tourist, no memory,’ he said, scratching the flab bulging from the holes in his white string vest. 

‘You sure? He’s been staying here. You must have seen him?’ said Jake waving the postcard under his nose. 

A grimace spread over his face. He pursed his lips which inflated the rolls of flesh under his chin like a plastic paddling pool and shrugged.

‘Ok I’ll wait for him here. Have you got a bed for tonight?’ asked Jake.

‘Only big room beds, all rest taken,’ 

‘Big room beds?’ asked Jake.

‘Come, I show you,’ he said swatting a fly on the back of his hairy neck.

He ushered Jake through the door, gesturing grandly as if he were leading him into a royal palace. 

‘Forty baht cheapest in town,’ he enthused. Jake dragged his rucksack into a shabby dormitory. Rows of military grey metal framed beds greeted him. 

Jake paid him for the night. When the hostel owner was out of sight he flopped onto the bed. At last he could finally relax. He sank into a saggy mattress, staring up into the wooden rafters. 

While he lay there, waiting for Dan, he heard distant voices. At first he thought they were in his head, but they were outside. He couldn’t tell if they were casual conversations or crazy arguments. Home seemed a long way away now.

He sat upright on the bed. Lek was chasing geckos the size of large mice up and down the walls. They scuttled, darting to and fro, rustling the flaky dog-eared wallpaper. Light and shadow fought on the wall. They played tricks on Jake’s eyes as Lek flashed in and out of them. He came to rest on the ceiling, shining from a wooden roof support.

NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

The freckles on Lek’s cheeks glowed like small nuggets of white gold.
You’d think for the spirit of a boy, no more than three feet tall, pointing a toy gun,
he’d be harmless.
You’d be wrong.

Jake Hunter had grown tired of watching geckos and shadows. He was sick of waiting for Dan. Stretching out his wiry frame on the bed he tried to get comfortable but his feet dangled over the edge.

The smells of festering shit from the sewer and freshly fried street food drifted in through an open window. He looked at his watch. It was 4.30 in the afternoon and still no sign of his brother. He paced up and down, whistling. 

Lek had not moved from his perch in the rafters for twenty minutes. It was as if he was working something out. Planning his next move, like a bird stalking its prey. 

Slowly he drifted down from the roof, scattering clouds of fine dust and insect spirits, making them float in the air like miniature snowflakes. He closed in cautiously on Jake until his white light struck his eyes.

Jake squinted. 

Lek unleashed a shriek that could have woken the dead. 

Jake yawned. 

Outraged, Lek flew onto Jake’s back and wrapped himself around his neck, squeezing his throat and gouging his eyes. 

Jake didn’t flinch.

Frustrated, Lek threw himself to the ground. 

Jake took off his wet clothes, pulled a dry shirt from his backpack and put it on. He rolled down his jeans, slid them off and threw them onto the bed. 

‘Help the fat man in the toilet,’ grunted the voice in his head.

Jake looked around. He was alone. 

Jake walked hesitantly towards the toilet. When he got there he took a deep breath, pushed it open and looked inside. There was a large security mirror next to the urinals. 

The hostel owner, a disturbing mixture of Bobby Charlton and Freddie Mercury was showing an unusual dedication to toilet cleanliness. He started to whistle, dancing and singing ‘I want to break free.....’ while he was mopping the floor. He drew slowly on the end of a cigarette. Then, there was silence. 

In the mirror his face grew larger as if under a magnifying glass. His eyes flashed an anxious glint, as sweat poured over the smooth surface of his bald head and trickled to the end of his nose. Fear and panic grip his expression as the life drained from his eyes. His head thudded on the ceramic tiles of the urinal wall as he fell. He lay face down in a yellow stream of piss and cigarette ends which turned slowly into a thick blood red river. One eye stared up at Jake, yellow, vacant and dead.

Jake buried his face in his hands. When he took them away, there was an empty space. No blood, no piss, No hostel owner.

On his way back to the dormitory, he checked the front kiosk. It was empty. He went back inside and sat down on his bed. He pulled out a packet of pills. The silver foil crackled as he popped a couple of yellow capsules. He forced them down with a gulp of water. His breathing subsided. A numb calm descended on him.

Jake rubbed his eyes. Fighting sleep and forcing the hostel owner from his mind he sighed. He tried to stay awake in case Dan came in. But in the end, he succumbed. 

I never get tired so I don’t need to sleep. Whenever Jake sleeps I listen to his breathing and the beat of his heart and watch his dreams. 

They’re the same every time. He floats down the stairs backwards. When he hits the bottom, a white baboon dances to sad accordion music. A witch cackles in the background. He tries to light a candle but he can’t. He rides a magic carpet to escape, but there’s no way out. Darth Vader’s breathing follows him. The voice howls like a banshee. And then it all rushes in. The murder, mutilation, violence and the swingin’ Christmas he can never forget.

Jake woke, sweating. He sat up disorientated.

Lek glared from shafts of smooth white light on the wooden floor next to Jake’s bed. A door crashed open.
‘Hello. Who’s that?’ asked Jake.

Silence.

‘Dan? Dan? Is that you?’ he said.

Silence. 

‘Dan?’

He waited. Two voices exchanged words in the background. ‘Let’s go to that club tonight, the one with all the Dutch girls, 

‘Shhh, there’s a new arrival.’ 

‘Dude, how’s it goin’?’

There was a few seconds delay before Jake was able to see clearly.

‘Dexter. Dexter Matthews, Dex for short,’ he said.

Dex’s intense green eyes came sharply into focus. 

‘Jake,’ he said. 

WHEN BLACK IS WHITE

Dexter Matthews was wearing a T-shirt with the words
“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room,” on the front.
It was like he had stepped from the pages of a travel clothes catalogue.
He was wearing a skull necklace on a black string,
Reggae coloured leather wristbands
And his dreads were tied in a ponytail at the back.
Jake thought he was cool. I didn’t.
Why do white humans pretend to be black?

‘You seen the owner? You know the fat guy at the kiosk? ’ said Jake.

‘ Nope. ‘fraid not. Why? You not paid up?’ asked Dex.

‘Er yeah, just wanted to ask him something…’ said Jake.

‘Try asking how come this place is such a pig sty,’ said Dex, clutching a Lonely Planet guide book on South East Asia. ‘Zane’s idea of a joke.’ 

‘What?’ asked Jake. 

‘He said this was an exclusive luxury executive place,’ said Dex. 

‘Well it does say that on the door,’ smiled Jake. 

Dex removed his shades which were like Lou Reed’s in his Velvet Underground days. He placed them in the pocket of his Timberland shorts.

A man pushed past Dex and offered his handshake. Jake didn’t know what to make of him. 

LEAN SERENE FIGHTING MACHINE

With his shaved head
and a silver ring through his eyebrow,
he looked like a Buddhist monk.
With the US military flag tattoo on his shoulder
and the vest and tags on a chain around his neck,
he looked like a soldier.
Zane Johnson was a walking paradox.

‘Zane’s the name, skulduggery’s the game,’ he said. ‘You just gotten here?’ 

‘Err, yea. More or less. It took ages on the bus from the airport. There was an accident,’ said Jake.

‘Shit, what happened?’ asked Zane.

‘There was a crash. A fire. People died. A man and a kid, I think. It was the smog, you couldn’t see…it was dangerous,’ said Jake.

‘Jeez,’ said Zane, twisting his face. ‘Thais are psychopaths when they get behind a wheel. It’s like that all the time here though. Rush hour every hour. I thought us yanks were the pits for gas guzzlin’’

‘Been here long?’ asked Jake.

‘Bout a week. This city is such a blast. More full on than the Big Apple, know what I’m sayin’ dude?’ said Zane, stretching his tanned muscular physique. He was very sure of himself, almost cocky. 

Lek appeared from nowhere and stretched over Jake’s face. 

THE RULE OF POSSESSION

Lek tried everything to force his way into Jake.
He was inventive and determined, I’ll give him that.
He slid into his skin, through his eyes.
But I stayed strong.
Only the young, the weak and vulnerable allow others in.

Lek tried the same with Zane and Dex. But after ten minutes he gave up, flew onto the wall and shadow boxed reflections of leaves.
Dex stood quietly in the background. His thick brown dreadlocks hung from the sides of his face. He arranged them in a ponytail at the back. 

Jake took out Dan’s photo from his wallet again and gave it to Zane. 

‘Recognise him? He’s supposed to be staying here.’ 

Dex looked at it. He shook his head. ‘Did you arrange to meet him?’ he asked.

‘Yea, look. He sent me this,’ said Jake passing him the postcard.

‘Well, at least you’re in the right place,’ said Zane. 

‘He’s…’ said Jake, hesitating, trying to work out why he hadn’t showed up. Maybe he had run out of money or he was ill or he had met a girl or something. It was too early for the word ‘missing.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it. It scared him. He kept quiet.
As Zane scanned the photo, flecks of copper glowed in his amber eyes. ‘Jeez, You sure he’s your brother? Don’t look much like him d’ya?’ he said. 

‘Wait a minute, isn’t that the guy that works at the bar in the club? What’s its name the Kazbar?’ said Zane. 

‘The Kazbar?’ exclaimed Jake. ‘How far’s that?’

‘A few doors down. We’re goin’ there tonight. The music’s great and the booze is cheap,’ said Zane, bouncing on his toes. ‘Good times round the corner and Dan’s the man. The maaan,’ he said.’

‘The Kazbar’s where it’s at man. Everyone goes there, it’s the place to be. He’ll be there you’ll see. Ain’t that right Dexy?’ said Zane whose rectangular face was framed by a strong jaw with a slightly upturned nose that flared his nostrils. 

‘You bet,’ said Dex.

Lek drifted across the floorboards. He hovered over a colony of ants, watching up close, fascinated. They were busy crawling all over a dark sticky patch, probably devouring the sugar of a spilled fizzy drink.

Lek settled on the ants like a bird on a nest. As he vanished slowly inside each of them, they glowed and marched together out of the dark stain and crawled up the frame of the bed in a long procession. In single file they crawled into the dirty white sheets on the bed before swarming over Jake’s jeans. 

‘Come on get ready, let’s go. No time like the present. May the force be with you,’ said Zane saluting Dex and standing to attention. ‘That’s what my old man used to say.’ 

Jake thought of Darth Vader and his dream. He had never mentioned that or the voices or the visions to anyone, let alone strangers on holiday.

Zane pulled at Dex’s belt as he stepped into his trousers. Dex fell flat on his face.

‘Butt out idiot,’ said Dex, flushed with embarrassment.

Jake threw his clothes on quickly, not even noticing the unwelcome visitors in his jeans. He followed two complete strangers out of the door into the warm night air. Zane led the way.

‘What do you do back home?’ Jake asked Dex.

‘An accountant’ said Dex.

‘Really?’ said Jake.

‘Yeah, what of it?’ said Dex defensively.

‘Nothing, you just don’t look like one. I just thought..,’ There was a pause while Dex stared at him.
Jake smiled. ‘Done much travelling?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been to the States. That’s where I met Zane last summer. This is my first real trip,’ said Dex.

Jake shook his head. He even surprised himself with his gullibility sometimes. 

PEOPLE SKILLS

I try to put a feeling in his gut,
in his water or anywhere he’ll find it
To give him an inkling of instinct, intuition
or inner perception when he meets new people.
But he can never weigh them up.

He had Dex down as a seasoned traveller, probably working his way around the world. He tried to work out how two such different people could possibly have got together. But he supposed that travelling threw odd combinations of characters together. He told himself he would have to think faster, weigh people up better and trust nobody. 

‘Shareef don’t like it, Rock the Kazbar, Rock the Kazbar... That crazy Kazbar jive,’ crowed Zane like a cockerel, as he strutted down the Khao San Road towards the nightclub. Jake joined in, singing louder with each step.

The evening shade had cooled the deserted street. Jake’s arm itched. He held it up to the light and saw an ant. He flicked it off quickly. Then he staggered as if he was drunk. Scratching his crotch, he toppled over crashing to the ground. 

‘Aaargh, what the fuck?’ he shouted.

‘What’s up, Jake? What is it? You ok?’ asked Zane.

To the astonishment of Zane and Dex, Jake sat on the ground in the middle of the street and whipped off his jeans. He looked down his shorts and contorted his face in disgust. Shaking with his bottom lip quivering, he tried to brush the ants off like they were some kind of fatal disease. He slid off his boxer shorts as if they were on fire, cupping his hands around his privates and ran down the street.

‘Bad case of ants in his pants,’ giggled Dex. Zane held himself together for a few seconds but then doubled up in fits of laughter.

IT’S A CRUEL WORLD

What is your fascination
with humiliation?
Is it a comfort?
Does it make you feel good?
I’ve never understood.

Lek had left the ants. He was floating above Dex and Zane. Glowing whiter and clearer, he smirked like he had just invented the wheel.