I am 26.
[4:00 on the clock.]
Staring at the 00. Look at that.
[Eyes close.]
[Someone’s staring at me.][Eyes open.]
Yes, someone do be. I’m supposed to turn around. She keeps pointing at me to do it. I’m taking my time for some reason. These pants are huge. I wish I didn’t have my trunks on. Trunks – weird word for swimming attire. Kelly got the old girl this time. Hers will be better.
[Eyes close.]
5 dollars for this massage, for an hour. I almost feel bad. I come from the land of the rich. They have no idea. Well they know. They still have the weather. Well I only know about their winter. They all die in summer probably. Monkeys on the roof. Trying to meditate but I don’t know how. Breathing, in and out. Just concentrate on that. It doesn’t work. It’s supposed to clear your mind. Well then why is it racing like a pronoun? Try again. Or maybe I should just try to remember everything I’m thinking. It could be gold. If I can retain it all. Can I pick up my phone and write notes in it? That would disrupt something. She’d get confused. I should write an hour-long inner monologue about what’s happening right now. I’d read it. Thoughts During a Massage, that’s what I’ll call it. Doesn’t have to be clever. Thoughts of me, thoughts of she, asking what happened to the villain that her and me had, sorry Miss Jackson, ooh. I wish I didn’t think of that, now I have to put it in. Oh shit, I hope I don’t think of really weird shit. She’s been working on my legs for a while now. Feels alright. She must be bored though. Thoughts during a message. Messages of a massage. Probably better, but it doesn’t matter. I already picked the title. Can I write all this in an hour? Just transplant what I’m thinking now and type it all quickly. I don’t have the memory for that. I’ll practice, with meditation. I want silence. Little voice, go away-DHD. I’ll probably have to try to put myself back here and it won’t work that well but even just trying to do it will give me more thoughts and I’ll pretend that I had them then. Like this one. The ranting will be fine. Nobody to impress, just some thoughts of me, thoughts of she. Jesus, Outkast keeps getting in here. Free mind. I used to think Erykah Badu and Dr. Dre had a kid and Outkast wrote a song about it. Big Boi can rap fast. I saw some guy set the record on YouTube. I mean the YouTube. It’s not funny if I try it. Is it? Is anything? Open the mind so I can close it. That’s some Buddhist shit probably. Confucius. Confucius say a bunch of shit. Anytime I want to lie down to relax I should be getting a massage too. I just re-read a bit of this. No way I actually thought of the word “transplant” back then. When I think to myself I probably use simple words, if I use words at all. This is straying a bit from only thoughts during the massage, but the ranting is there. No lies, no time for lies. Only what I think. I type faster than I think. Maybe that’s how all this happened. Me thinking I could write. Jack Kerouac types, he does not write, says Truman Capote. They, the Jack Kerouac-types. I watched the shitty Capote movie and so I never brought myself to watch the Philip Seymour-Hoffman one. I’ll get to that. So much to do. Synecdoche, New York. So much time, but I waste so much when I have a lot. The food here. So much good food. So cheap. Fresh. I can be happy here. Food, massages, nice. Can’t feel cool in jean shorts. You can’t feel cool in jean, shorts. Weather.
[She taps me.]
[Eyes open.]
[4:25 on the clock.]
[I turn around.]
Kelly looks like she’s enjoying this. She’s asleep maybe. The woman doing her looks bored. She probably does too many of these. Oh man, I bet she’s good though. Do I have any control here? No thinking like that. Back to being in the present. Nothing else but me and someone making my muscles feel better. I could sleep during all this. Time doesn’t exist during a massage. It does for her, because she’s working, but not for me. I’m done with time anyway. Oh no, it’s happening again. Euh, e-uh, head spinning around noise.
Back scratch, arm tickle company.
[Eyes close.]
That one’s gonna sound weird when I write it. Pretend no one will read it. Maybe no one will. I want Kelly to. She wants to see what I write but then she wants me to explain it because she thinks it’s all based on something real. And I can’t. God, she’s wrecking my neck. Neck wreck. Not as bad as in Khao Sok. I thought it was all over then. I guess I can handle it. She knows what she’s doing, right? For 150 baht she could have no idea and could almost kill me and there’s not much I can do. My face is squished, probably looks like that guy in Spongebob whose nose looks like a limp dick. Oh no, I was afraid this might happen. Over the bush, around the pond, the penny tree grows.
I can’t see anything. That’s probably a big part of meditating. Or am I supposed to see visions or something, go to some other place so that I stop thinking? The thoughts blend more in real life but it’s hard to convey that when I write. I’m prepared for that. Clown in black and white on my eyelids.
There’s a girl in the distance getting attacked by six pigeons. We’re in a mall. Someone should help her. Ooh, I’ll combine my massage thoughts. Different colours maybe, intertwined.
What are they talking about? Like Elaine with the Korean nail ladies, I assume they’re talking about me. Probably talking about that soap opera, the only thing anyone watches around here.
It sounds like a mall in here. That makes sense. I don’t like the sound. Try to put it out of my head. Walk-in plastic surgery next door. And 25-cent ice creams from Dairy Queen.
[She taps me.]
[Eyes open.]
[4:53 on the clock.]
[I turn around.]
The other girl has Kelly in a full nelson. Good movie. Kelly just said “Oh no, that’s fine” as a response to something in Thai. Probably not, because I doubt she learned Thai in the last 53 plus minutes I’ve been thinking in my own head. I feel like I should help her somehow. She’s getting twisted around. It kinda looks fun. Around the world. Holy shit, her back just cracked nine times. Or somewhere around 9 times. Do I think in letters or numbers when I think about numbers? Probably letters.
[Eyes close.]
Do I even think words, or just ideas? That I have to turn into words so that others can make sense of them? Or so that I can make sense of them without thinking I’m gone crazy. Yes yes, organization.
I wonder how long I can keep my eyes closed without opening them.
[Eyes open.]
[5:00 on the clock.]