Sunday 13 November 2016

Twenty-five thousand days



Alone for the first time in a month of my Asian travel, I sat in the small garden restaurant across the street from the condo. Last night my travel companions had raised a glass to my twenty-five thousand days on the planet.

I finished the meal of khao pad moo and pak boong fai daeng (pork fried rice and greens with chilli).

The second bottle of Beer Lao eased the pain in my knackered foot.

The waxing moon was within hours of its perigee, closer to Earth than at any time since I was five months from entering this wondrous world.  

King Bhumibol the Great, Rama IX had been less than two years into his reign. The National Health Service was not yet begun. A catastrophe was about to unfold on a peaceful people in the Middle East. 

One John R. Pierce was soon to suggest a name for a new device, the transistor, that would eventually lead to the transformation from fifty ton valve computers to the small laptop and smartphone sitting on my table.  So I had flown ten thousand kilometres to sit in an atmospheric local eatery in an exotic country - and what was I doing with these amazing tools?  Scrolling through a day's Facebook posts.

I was rescued from my banal idleness by a small lizard, taking a chance against discovery, that darted out from under a kitsch table ornament to check out the remains of my meal. 

The ascending moon lit  the silvern scene.  If that was not enough to nudge me into a greater consciousness, a yellowing leaf fluttered onto the keyboard, followed by another. 


No more tapping or scrolling tonight. It was time to wake up.

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