The Taxi

In a fun park with Patsaporn, my thinking beyond the minute was lost in good-natured, trite fun, which needed no prize. We rewarded each other with our company. Our eyes were on a target: each other! A small Ferris wheel and a rackety, clackety ghost train ride rounded out our fun.

Afterwards, we cosied on a bench in the shade. Opening her bag, Porn retrieved two apples and a paring knife. She used the small blade to work the apple's skin in a continuous ring. The skin curled and coiled before it broke. She quickly removed the rest of the skin, cutting out and throwing away a hidden, bruised piece not revealed by the apple's shiny red surface. She fed chunks of the apple to me as she cut them, placing pieces in my mouth with teasing fingers. I crunched the apple pieces, and their juice flecked my lips.

Porn gave me the second apple and the knife. I attempted to pare it in one piece until it unravelled under its hanging weight. I fed portions to her. I enjoyed the apple between my fingers and her mouth. As I gave her the last piece, she held it between her teeth and moved in to share it with my appreciative mouth. The apple snapped, juice dribbled, lips aligned, and eyes sparked with each other.

I love you.

Uncommunicated.

The time, the moment, I let slip.

She motioned we needed to stir, and I followed her. Together, we washed our hands under an open tap. I let the water run through my hands. We held our hands up, wiggling wrists, open drying fingers 'til they met palm to palm.

Porn grabbed her bag tight over her shoulder. She extended her hand, and we walked toward the gates.

Outside, several taxis parked at the stand. We filled the first. She gave the driver directions, and we moved into traffic. I squandered time as the looming unbridgeable space came between us.

I held her hand in the back of a dark-coloured taxi—no words from me. We drove back through unfamiliar streets until I finally recognised the area, the precinct of a week. The cab halted, its engine idling. Around the corner, I clapped my eyes on the backstreet of doors. I denied my eyes.

Her face hid her feelings; she applied her professional mask.

She politely requested, "Please, no tell my boss I spend the day with you, okay?"

We gave a last touch of hands before she vacated the cab.

Patsaporn, pint-sized and sunken, on the curb, holding her demeanour. Her bag was clutched to her chest.

Warm air flooded off the street and hit the air-conditioning within the taxi.

On the curb, she restated, polite, no wavering: "Please, no, tell my boss, I spend the day with you, okay?"

My slightest up, down head bob indicated, 'Yes.'

"Take care," I managed.

The heat soaked outside to inside became stifling.

A sudden whirl of dust, trash and pollen swirled through the street. Flurries of manufactured or natural life straggled or scattered. Scraps of paper and plastic, no longer belonging to anything, gusted, pushed and piled in corners by the warm breeze. Pollen caught in her hair.

She smiled, lips closed as she shut the taxi door.

The cab continued to my hotel. It hit an unavoidable pothole that rattled the cab door. The door vibrated ajar; I pulled it closed.

— Hindsight bears clarity, where my memory treads forever tentative yet alert. We shared the backseat of a taxi. We held hands. How did I let our hands separate? I defended myself once, her strength to go when I didn't ask her to stay. Does my conscience frame my impotent will?

Separate is separate, and I made no effort to curb her leaving. No, chase and seek by me. I sidelined the word love; I left it unreleased. She stood on the curb by herself. Patsaporn tried to close the taxi door. I know now because I hadn't opened another door. The unflinching reality remains I let Patsaporn vanish from my view. It's a fact: she made her way back to work.

The taxi arrived at my hotel within a few minutes. I collected my bag and departed through the lobby. Blocking my immediate steps, the pimp appeared from nowhere. He puffed his cigarette briskly.

His voice probed curtly, trying to catch Porn out, "Where have you been since morning?"

Irritated, I pitched, "Sightseeing," already brushing past him.

He slithered fast and prodded, his chest obstructing my exit, "Have you seen the girl today?"

This was accompanied by a volatile spittle spray, flecking sneeze-like from his mouth. His affronted ire was reinforced as the smoke between his fingers pointed at my chest. I glanced at the ash about to fall. His gold tooth glinted unattractively, and menace loaded at his curling lip.

I snapped, baring my teeth and using my slight height advantage, "Not since Patsaporn scurried off early."

We approached a nasty stalemate or worse until the doorman stepped between us professionally, tapping my elbow and nudging me towards my booked taxi.

The pimp, flotsam and jetsam in my wake, a dead-end conversation. The flesh-peddler who propped himself in a train berth door, I find it hard to texture his features. His tooth, voice and censure of Patsaporn remain.

He deserved nothing. I gave zilch.

I chose to plop myself in the back of the taxi, taking me to the train station. I picked at the peeling cheap leather on my travel bag, resting on the seat beside me. I let the flecked flakes fall and create a mess.

A mess, I heard the grinding of my teeth as I recoiled from the pimp confronting Patsaporn.

I rocked back and forth in an internal hell, only broken by the cab driver's hand demanding payment at the railway station.

The drive, I realised, was traffic jam slow, and my train was ready for boarding. I slumped on my compartment seat, about to leave Bangkok.

I contemplated my spread fingers; my blank face reflected in the window.

Suddenly, I placed my faith in Patsaporn's graceful hands, an urgent dutiful visit to an unwell aunt as her alibi to the pimp.

The train chugged out of Bangkok whilst Patsaporn never departed my memory.

— In deep remembrance, I confront myself—Patsaporn eddies in my soul. The young woman gave me direction out of the selfish paradise of self. I hoped she had tucked the ruby pendant into a drawer. Yet I wonder how she recalled me in her later life because the gift I gave without 'the word' is forever my contrite regret.