Nightmares Of A Whoremonger

'You should be ashamed of yourself you naughty, naughty boy. Been to Thailand have you? Thai food, lovely weather, beautiful beaches? My arse. I know what you came for. Tut tut.'

Single male tourist in Thailand speaking jokingly to another on the plane journey

Down on Sukhumvit, Pattaya, or whatever dark corner of Thailand you go to, to wash away your loneliness through depravity, you are walking the streets in a state of primordial bliss. You paint whatever picture you like, knowing it won't change the fact that you're painting on an already black and rotten canvas. Desperate and deviant devilish serpent with blue jeans, polo t-shirt, and bright white snickers. Fashion sense is something that deserted you along with your integrity.

The further into your seedy world you wander the further the neon veil crumbles and leaves the faded trace of a young girl's face, petrified, alone. A distant whimper of a child's tears drifts forth upon you. The sordid tone of a male voice in broken English with a persuasive Thai accent swirls around your head. The sound of distorted echoed laughter erupts from all around and flashes of large western men with deep, pained, and alcohol glazed eyes, pass before you on their way to the bar to avert their guilt and shame with another beer and another sleazy bargain fxxx. Beat it down, beat it away, beat it anywhere but here. On this night you're happy. You swear you are. Honest.

The streets are narrow, dark and mysterious. They hold wicked secrets. Once beautiful women and children, now objects of twisted attraction, call out from doorways, dragging you to your decline, smiling with grey teeth and holes in their faces. Inside, wrinkled half dead relics sit in dark corners with beady eyes, motionless. Youthful, unspoilt travellers feel the sting of temptation and battle it with boisterousness. The spectrum is complete. All the colours, a neon light for every face. In slow motion, girls shuffle on stage. They are not here. Something else is there instead. Shadows of life.

A cloud passes through the crowd, everything is silent, everything is moving. Nobody can hear or see you. You notice through the mist that the old sickly bony man in the corner is watching you with a smirk on his face. A young woman is on his lap with only a small skirt. He is molesting her supple body. Her face has a fixed doll like smile. His pale skinny hands follow the contours of her body and pass under her skirt. His smirk develops into a demonic smile and his eyes turn black as they pierce your conscious.

The young woman has tears rolling past her smile she turns and looks at him with questioning, confused eyes. He raises the finger on his free hand and points accusingly at you. You find yourself on the street again. You need to find something. Something that will relieve your need for contact, intimacy.

You hear some homely country music lazily sauntering amongst a large group of outdoor bars. The woman look friendly. You sit down and drink some more. An Asian woman with a warm smile and casual cloths strikes up a conversation. She is amazingly charming. She sympathises with your every strife and compliments your every attribute, real or not. You don't care what's real or not though. The tension in your head is melting away with every flirtatious touch and loving, caring comment.

You wander to the toilets in a daze of satisfaction. While you release even more tension in the toilet at the urinal a harsh weathered voice comes from behind you. 'they'll take it all, I swear to god, they'll take it all!'

You turn to see a middle aged scruffy bearded western man with long matted grey hair and dirty shorts and t-shirt. He looks like an itinerant. He has shuffled into the toilet, drunk and angry. Before you can reply you hear the screams of protest come towards the toilet. 'that's heem, that's HEEM!' Two burly Thai men burst into the toilet and begin to beat the life out of the frail man leaving him in a pool of blood.

As they leave, the woman who was talking to you watches sneeringly with glee through the door. She enters and checks his empty wallet cackling to herself. 'Fxxxing stupid farang!' She notices you. Looks you up and down with scorn and leaves.

Somebody is shouting loudly and urgently from somewhere unseen as you venture further into the darkness, 'THE PATH TOO NIHILISM! THE PATH TO NIHILISM!' You notice others have taken notice but wander on, too old or broken to care. Beery and weary you lose your footing and fall over and hit your head.

Everything stops.

You look up to find yourself on a bed in a dimly lit room. It's small and box like, the air is damp. The sound of distant traffic is soothing. Calmness had descended through your body. Looking around you notice a light creeping out from under a door that leads to a small cubicle within the room. A familiar whimpering sound creeps from within.

Getting up from the bed is extremely difficult. Your head feels like feathers but your body is like lead. Your vision blurs as you try to focus on standing. The calmness has left you and is replaced by a feeling of increasing dread raising in your chest.

Stumbling slowly towards the small door to the cubicle the whimpering is louder now, more like crying. It's hard to tell if it's a child or a woman making the sound. It is becoming more and more intense, closer to a screeching wail.

As you push open the door which is slightly ajar, you see that it is a small bathroom. A slow trickle of blood is pouring into the drain in the corner. The sound now is deafening, hysterical screaming and crying with intermittent gasps for breath. Your dread escalates to sheer horror as the open door reveals a small late adolescent Thai woman covered in her own blood streaming from her open wrists, a small blade in her hands.

You turn away in shock to look for something to help the situation. You bump into someone. Disorientated and confused you do a double take. You are looking at yourself, pale and frightened. 'I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't know ! She seemed fine in the bar! It's not my fault! Fxxx, fxxx! Its can't be my fault!" Everything fades, sound, touch, emotion, memory, reality, sanity, morality, love.

Stickman's thoughts:

Shades of Calibra there, awfully dark.