Kampot

I was laying in my twinsized bed in Kampot, Cambodia, with my head and shoulders resting on some pillows behind
me, and my laptop, resting on the bottom of my ribcage. And I could hear some birds, perhaps swallows, twittering
outside, and the drone of the AC unit beside my bed. And I had google chrome open before me, with several tabs
of youtube open in it, and the clip I was then tabbed into and watching was called 8 Strict Rules Celebs Have to
Follow During the Oscars.
‘…So this is your life…’ I thought to myself as I looked into the screen. I then looked over at the half-finished
portrait of Marolyn Rawat on my tripod easel not far from the foot of my bed, ‘…Kind of stagnating at least a little
with your whole ‘Become Van Gogh’ idea…
Finished all the stories…’ there had been 6 novels slash novellas, and perhaps 20 odd shorter stories in total, ‘…And
no one seemed to give much of a damn…
But, ah well man life goes on, doesn’t it? You’re still here aren’t you?
…But just, now how do you fill your hours, man? In this queer little world of ours…’ I sighed, and watched the video
for a little longer, then hit the spacebar to pause it and then alt-tabbed into a blank word document I had open,
‘…Weren’t you going to try to write something?’ I thought to myself, ‘To try and make some sort of sense of it all
somehow, by writing something… Put some form to it all…
You just want to do something great man, to paint your café terrace scene or write your Fiesta.
Well you kinda, did that with a few of the stories, maybe? Doggo was quite sad, say, and no one gave much of a
shit so… What else have you got now? Getting drunk… Making an ass of yourself sending out messages and emails
to people who don’t really care?
It doesn’t matter. Life goes on. If it can be pleasant when people are interested in you, it can be unpleasant when
they no longer give a damn, so just, try to be a bit, impassive to it all, right?
...And I really don’t want to shop all these books around again, even if they are in, to your eyes, a decent state;
Thanks but we’ll pass,
Sent from my iPad.
And, all the while, you just, envisioning the movie and TV adaptions and yourself in the director’s chair, and maybe
having cameo roles and the fame and the women recognizing and coveting you and no longer being such a bum.
God, no poison like a dream right? And what is Liam doing now? And Demi and Beth and all of them just merging
in together.
…It doesn’t matter, that’s something that I’ve learned from this world at the end of the day, none of it matters,
people don’t matter…
Ugh. Philosophy, there’s a fine thing isn’t it? That’ll get you very far in this life, to just blow and beat thoughts and
theories around your head.
I’m sure that’s just what Liam would recommend; morbid introspection…’
I alt-tabbed back into google chrome. And I clicked the little blue icon of my onetab add-on beside my searchbar,
which collapsed all of my tabs into a single page, which catalogued them all in a long list of hyperlinks, organized
by date.
And I then ctrl+clicked the youtube icon, from my bookmarks bar below my search bar, to open the site up in a
new tab, then I ctrl+tabbed into that tab. And I started to slowly scroll down thru the main page of youtube, which
listed a myriad of different clips that I might be interested in.
One video from a production company called Simple History, which made narrated cartoons about history, was
titled, How to Survive the Spanish Flu (1918-1920) and I ctrl+clicked on it to open it up in a new tab.
And another video, from a news studio called Vice, was titled Charter Schools May Be the Future of Public
Education and I didn’t bother to ctrl+click on this one.
Another video was titled Chatting With Julian Casablancas and I ctrl+clicked it to open it in a new tab.
And I continued to scroll down thru the home page, and I also ctrl+clicked on a trailer for a new film called The Art
of Self-Defense as I found the girl in the thumbnail to be rather pretty.

‘What a silly little fucking world…’ I thought to myself, ‘everyone’s lost and confused and they’ve made a shitty
movie, for christ knows what end, and they have to turn a profit of it, and pay back the production company, so
how are they gonna get people to watch the trailer, put a fucking pretty girl in the thumbnail… Uh huh…’
I hit ctrl+t to open a new tab, then in its searchbar I typed, othello mind is like a garden nfs, NFS being an acronym
for No Fear Shakespeare, a website I knew of where one could read Shakespeare with the modern English side by
side.
A link to the verse from the play I’d been thinking of came up as the first result from google, and I clicked on it,
then began to read the passage to myself, ‘Virtue? A fig! Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners— so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many—either to have it sterile with idleness,
or manured with industry—why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills’
‘…Right?’ I then thought to myself, ‘it’s you in the fucking driving seat, but… I just feel like there’s not a hell of a lot of gas in the tank’
I looked over at my half-finished painting of Mrs. Rawat somemore, then tabbed back into the blank document I’d opened before.
‘So realism is feeling a little… Ugh…’ I thought to myself, ‘What were you going to do…?
All your big ideas of, ‘let’s write a Richard III-esque one about Assad…’ But while you were all writing it to try and
help, his attrocities would just continue to pile up, so…
Would be kind of odd…
I don’t know…’
I thought back to my proposed opening scene of the play, Mr. Assad, leaving his advisors and walking into a room
on his own, ‘Ah Lord, I cannot be here, it should’ve been him, not me. I am wearing my father’s suit and the tie is a noose’
‘Would be kind of weird…’ I then thought to myself, ‘Humanize a mass-murderer…
You’re 29… I think we just pack it in with the writing for now.
29, that’d make you two years behind his starting in earnest, better late than never, right?’
And by his I meant Vincent Van Gogh here, who was something of an idol of mine.
I stared at the blank document for a little while longer then tabbed back into google chrome.
And I started to watch as the portly British light night talk show host James Cordon talked with the rock star Julian
Casablanca about a strange black cargo vest he had on, and then about the upcoming birthday of his 3 year old
son.
‘…And you still need to take your breakfast’ I thought to myself as the clip continued to play, ‘your late breakfast or lunch or whatever…’
I picked my laptop up and sat up with my legs crossed and set it back down before me.
‘…Ok, ok so what do you want to do…?’ I thought to myself, ‘Go to some country bordering Syria, and sneak in and help with medicine and write some great story about it all like, For Whom the Bell Tolls—which you haven’t even read all of yet mind, but still…
…But short term, you wanted to finish all of the wood panels, and get more comfortable with realism and...’ I let
out a sigh and paused the clip and then tabbed back into MS Word.
I looked at the blank document for a little while then I began to write in it, ‘In Kampot, Cambodia. Before this I was in Laos, where I undertook the final read thrus of all my novels and I finished them all a month or two back.
As my Laos visa was about to run out, I headed on down here. I had a lot of painting stuff with me and it seemed
liked the path of least resistance. It was quite something when I was working on the novels. Putting in 10 hours a day, pretty much every day forabout month or two straight.
Anyway, since their completion, I feel I’ve fallen into something of a rut. Looking at the girls, thinking about the

girls, rearranging my fringe before mirrors, so as to make my slightly receeding hairline as inconspicuous as
possible.
I feel, I need, a way to fill my hours, to really get going at it with the painting…
Kampot is not too pretty a town to paint in tho, lots of trash, and bitumen and wires. Not a hell of a lot of nature
here. Not a hell of a lot of fine natural motifs to paint. Feel nostalgic for a world not too marred yet by industry, or
at all by dispossable plastic, which Vincent must’ve painted in. Ah well’
I hit ctrl+s to save the document and after a little bit of loading a Save As box came up and I saved it as Thoughts2.
‘Mnn…’ I then groaned to myself, ‘I’m fucking starving’
I tabbed into google chrome, clicked the onetab icon again to collapse all of my open tabs again, then folded back
down the lid of my laptop.
I got up, got dressed to go out, brushed my teeth, in my ensuite bathroom, then headed out to Douceurs de
Kampot, to take my breakfast of coffee, fruit juice, and fruit, museli, curd and honey.
The waiter there, a local man in his mid-twenties, is a rather warm and friendly chap, and after ordering I told him
that I would take my breakfast upstairs, then headed on up there.
The upstairs dining area of Douceurs de Kampot is rather pleasant, and it was then entirely abandoned save for
me. And I sat down on a turqouise sofa before a glass table. And the bright green leaves of plants which I didn’t
know the names of were falling down out of the occassional hanging pots around me, and there were also larger cermaic pots placed around on the floor of the place with other more robust plants in them, and quite a few padded chairs and sofas, all matching the place’s turqouise and blue theme, were also placed about the area. And at the far end of the upstairs dining area, however many yards away from where I was sitting I could see the street out as above the high bench that lines the far end of the dining area, with some stools before it, there is an open space, with no glass windows or anything mounted into the wall, and I could see a mess of black electrical wires going by a short distance before the end of the building.
And I think perhaps there are some shutters that can be pulled along this opening on a rail, should it start to rain
heavily out. And as I sat there waiting for my coffee and juice to be bought out, which always came out before the museli, I thought to myself, ‘…So this is a life right? So this is human consciousness…
And it could be better and it could be worse. But this, my friend seems to be the hand at play…’
Sometime later the waiter bought up on a tray my Americano coffee, a small white, blue patterned, china pitcher
of cold milk, and my small glass of juice. He set the tray down on the table, then transferred everything from it one by one onto the table.
‘Thanks’ I said to him, and he nodded at me with a smile, then headed on back towards the stairs with the tray.
I poured the milk into the americano and drank all of the rather small portion of juice in one go.
‘Don’t really have, a fire burning in your soul to write some fantastic story about all this…’ I thought to myself,
‘Don’t know about the realism, you kind of just, keep abandoning them, don’t you?
Oh you can paint better, be more free and reckless with it and it’ll bolster your courage too if you’re drunk… And
then you just get so drunk that you think, ‘sod it’ and fall asleep.
…So how about if, you just pack all the acrylics into your tote bag, and just walk around like back in the old day inPokhara, ‘er, excuse me, miss, but I was wondering if I might be able to make a painting of you?’
And why does that sound so perfectly acceptable and civil and ok to say now like that, and so daunting in the
street? I don’t see why it should be… I mean, you’re not attempting to harm or swindle people. You merely, wish
to paint women, and converse with them to abate your loneliness… And perhaps create a nice painting in the deal too… Is that, such a crime?
Worst case scenario the girl tells you to go to hell or has a suspicious air about her, or ignores you completely or
describes your behaviour as ‘kind of creepy’. But, I could give a shit about all that. What’s that old Marilyn Manson one? I don’t want to be a slave to a world that doesn’t give a shit? Something… Ugh’

After my breakfast I walked along the big main river that runs thru town for a bit, and later that evening, I took my dinner of a veg red curry, in my usual restaurant, Eccstatic Pizza, so named to subtlely let travellers know that they sell pizza with ground-up marijuana on top of them there.
And later that evening, on the flat screen tv, mounted on the wall before the end of my bed, I watched Tomb
Raider, which was playing on Fox Movies. It was ok, and I found it rather entertaining and the actress in it rather
attractive.
The following morning I woke up late. I took a shower, in my room’s little ensuite bathroom then got dressed.
I had an old tote bag, that I’d bought howevers many year back in Nepal. And at the bottom of the bag, had
originally been printed, in all capitals BAG MADE BY WOMEN, tho soon after purchasing it I’d gone over where
‘WOMEN’ was written with some white paint then in black paint written ‘CHILDREN’ over the top of it.
Also, during a rather isolated period in Nepal, I’d written ‘NO ONE’S THERE’ at the top of the bag. And I have since l always told myself, if anyone asks me about why that’s written there or even just so much as draws my attention towards it, I’ll buy them a beer, but no one since has.
I bent down and picked the bag up off of where I’d discarded it on my tiled floor, ‘Alright paints…’ I then said to
myself, ‘Shades’ I found my black and white tubes of acrylic paint in my box of paints and laid them out beside
each other over the tiles before the box, ‘…Primaries…’ I then said to myself, then I found and laid out my acrylic
primaries below the shades, ‘Auxiliaries…’ I said to myself, then I found my orange, brown and green acrylic paints
in the box and laid them out below the primaries, ‘Alright, that’s everything’ I put the tubes of paint into my bag,
‘Ok, water…’
I had a glass bottle of some Korean whiskey drink or another I’d bought awhile back in Vang Vieng Laos, stuffed
into the cut-off lower few inches of a pringles tin. The bottle fit tightly into the tin and there was still a fair amount
of water in it and I put it straight into my bag. ‘Ok’ I said to myself, then also added to the bag, my brushes with a
rag wrapped around them, which had been secured by a black hair-tye, a cut off rectangle of cardboard to use as a palette and a nicer, thicker sheet of light brown card, which used to be at the back of a block of watercolour card at one time or another, to use as a surface to paint on.
‘Ok, good… I think that’s everything’ I muttered to myself, putting the bag over one shoulder then I also grabbed
my collapsible tripod easel, in its black nylon carrybag and slipped it over my other shoulder.
As Doceurs de Kampot was closed that morning, I instead took my breakfast of museli, fruit, curd and honey in
Milan pizza, and whilst I was in there I noticed a very beautiful short, petite young asian lady.
She had shoulder-lengthed straight black hair and was wearing a loose yellow and red pair of tie-dye pants and a white crop-top button-up blouse and she also had an old film camera hanging on a leather strap around her neck.
‘Shit, she’ll do’ I thought to myself, ‘try’
Midway thru my cereal, I stopped eating and went and tapped the girl’s shoulder and said to her, ‘Hey’
‘Hey’ she replied in a friendly tone.
‘Uh, I was just wondering if I could paint you… I mean, it’s, a bit of a hobby of mine, you understand…
I’ve got all my painting stuff with me and yeah…’ I affected a slight laugh here.
‘You want to paint me?’
‘Sure…’
‘Ok’
‘Great. Great man, thanks a lot, eh?’
‘No problem’
‘Well, shit, that was easier than I expected…’ I then thought to myself.
The girl and I went and sat back down at my table and I prepared all of my stuff to paint her. And I learned of how
she was from China and of how her English name was Dani.
Dani’s English was rather basic. And over the painting she called the beautiful young Cambodian waitress over and
ordered two draft beers for us. And I remembered Liam once telling me a similar story of how when he’d been
busking in Sevilla once, a girl had sat down before him with two cold cans of beer. ‘This is my moment like that’ I
thought to myself, ‘Shit. Fuck’

My painting of Dani turned out to be a rather soft abstract one. I made it up of all pastel colours, for minimal
contrast. I put a series of spirals in off white paint for Dani’s nose, and I painted her smiling slightly and in the
background I put a wavy mauve and violet sky, with some curling yellow-green plants about it.
After it was finished, I suggested to Dani that she come back to my room to drop the painting off, for safe keeping, and that I too get a fresh wood panel to paint her again on.
She agreed to this, and we started to head back to my room.
Once inside, I set my new painting up against a wall, then showed Dani some of my other paintings and
entertained some lewd fantasies.
‘And you’re too much of a pussy to do anything…’ I thought to myself, ‘you wouldn’t have it in you to bring that up with a girl if she was laying naked on a bed before you…’
‘Anyway’ I said to Dani, then I picked up the new larger woodpanel, then on Dani’s suggestion we went out to get another drink together. I took her to Eccstatic pizza and ordered another red curry and a cold draft beer for myself, while I got started on my new painting of her.
I asked her about who she lived with back home as I worked, and she said just her cat, then showed me a photo of him on her phone. He was a beautiful white one and I told her that he was a gorgeous cat and that I should like to paint the photo maybe. And she asked me for my email so that she could send the picture of him to me and I wrote my email down for her in a note in her phone.
Dani ordered a blue coconut cocktail called a Shinoukville beauty for herself, and I continued to slowly work my
way thru my cold draft beer as I worked.
As it got later in the day Dani told me that she had arranged to hire out a motorscooter from a nearby travel
agency for around five and that she wanted to drive it to a farm or somewhere where she could take some nice
photos as the sun went down.
I suggested that I come with her, and she said sure, then I added, that I would need to pack my easel and all of my paints away first tho. She suggested that she got the bike first and then came back with it and I told her sure.
I began to pack all of my things away, then once I was finished I returned to my beer.
‘She might not come…’ I thought to myself, ‘You’re not too good with women are you? Not quite a confident, self- assured gunslinger. More so that type of chap to think, how’s my hair? Has she noticed my hair? Does she mind about my hair?
Ah well… Fuck it… If she comes she comes, if she doesn’t she doesn’t…’
10 odd minutes later, Dani pulled up on the street outside the restaurant on her rental scooter. And she had a
slightly lopsided pink helmet on, that looked like its strap was so loose it would not do much at all in the event of a crash.
I waved avidly at her with both hands and she waved back the same way, then, having paid my bed already awhile back, I ran out to greet her with my totebag and easel, inside its cary case over my shoulder, and my large half- finished painting of her under my arm.
‘Do you want to drive?’ Dani asked me.
‘Yeah. Sure. Up to you…’
‘No, you drive, is better, I think’
‘Ok, sure’
‘You’re not drunk?’
‘No I just had like one beer’
‘Ok’
I handed Dani my things then climbed onto the front seat of the bike.
The light was starting to fade a little by then and it was a rather pretty dusk out as we drove.
And we went across the motorcycle bridge that spans over the big main river thru town. And on the far side of the river I then started to head towards a youth hostel that I’d hitched to and hung out at awhile back, which also has a little bar on the river’s edge, and a little way down from the bar there is also this wooden raised viewing platform also on the rivers edge. And the platform is perhaps about a story and a half or so high.
And once we were at the hostel I parked the bike and then said to Dani, ‘do you want to see something cool?’
‘Ok’ she replied.
‘Alright, follow me’

And we then walked down this little sandy path which lead up to the platform, however many yards down from
the bar. And the platform was nestled amongst some overgrowth on the river’s edge, and totally out of sight from the bar. And it seemed to be totally deserted, but I couldn’t see up to its upper most level yet.
First we had to go up this short, about metre or so high wooden ladder up to the platform’s first level, and then up this taller, story or so high, metal ladder up to the upper most level of the platform, which turned out to be
abandoned. There were no guard rails around the edge of the platform, and up on the top level with Dani, I laid on my back for a bit, then got up and set my tripod easel up before me and continued on my rather juvenile painting of her that I’d started in the café. And she played some indie music from her phone. And took some photographs on her camera.
And I really did not much care for my painting or how it was turning out.
‘Ah god…’ I thought to myself as I looked at it, ‘the panel’s too big, and you have no energy and you’re spent from the first one and being careful not to offend her with it, and it’s going to be dark out soon, and all the acrylics have long since dried so you can no longer work them into each other and…
By rights you should be working with oils, but you try transporting a wet oil painting along a dusty road on a
motorscooter, or maybe…
And god damn it if I wouldn’t like to undo the buttons on her little blouse… Kiss her somehow…
Just like all the people on all the screens and in all the stories would do... All the normal men.
And of course, all the echos…
What about trying to form an emotional connection with her first?
Always try to form an emotional connection with the girl first.
Always try to form the emotional connection first.
But Ste would just, kiss girls right out of the blue and not give a damn, and they’d be attracted to that, the bad boy who just wanted to fuck them, not in a cruel way, but just, in something of caddish callous one. Not a wimp,
dancing around the issue out of insecurity. I’ll tell ya what, show me your minge, right now.
If you’re a man, then you’d better get your shit together and in whatever way create a social product worth buying because it’s an entirely different ball game to being a woman; you don’t get to select you have to prove yourself worthy of selection. Or, something maybe… But somewhere you’re going wrong. Too uncertain, too desperate.
Form the emotional connection first Max, always try to form the emotional connection first.
And you’re only sitting on top of a totally deserted viewing platform, with a beautiful young woman in a crop top.
And how many other men would just, go for it? I’d like to fuck her, let’s start taking some steps towards that end,
shall we?
And you’re just so petrified of scaring her, or coming on too strong or offending her, or making her feel
uncomfortable, that you’re acting like a complete and utter fucking eunuch.
I hate everyone. I hate my sister. I hate everyone. It’s all just some terrible machine. Be confident, be confident, be confident. Machine men, with machine hearts, and machine minds and women selecting whoever beats all the competition and it’s just survival of the fittest with no room or concern for the weak.
Always go about it by trying to form the emotional connection first. And how many damn emotional connections
will I need to try and form like some fucking fag, being careful not to offend her, and only vaguely hoping that we might get drunk later, and something might happen there after until something does. One great big terrible
machine made up of everyone and everything, consuming all, sucking all the oil out and turning it into plastic and blowing it thru the seas and the wind. It’s all fucked. Virtue tho we relish of it cannot so innoculate our old stock.
Believe none of us’
I continued to work on the painting. And after a little while I stopped work and looked at it. ‘…I’m not feeling this,
at all’ I thought to myself, ‘Some fucking puff piece. Too boxed up in your head. Too scared of how she might
receive it, to paint with any freedom—if it was someone like Marie’ this was an old platonic close fellow-artist
friend who I used to paint in Nepal, ‘or whoever you could just paint her totally naked, with all creative licence, and now just you’re in a box kid, while they—run about fields and roof tops and rooms at parties. Ah man, I just, can’t keep doing this, I’m just, not feeling it at all…’
Dani took photos of me as I worked. ‘Handsome’ she said to me.
‘Thanks’ I replied, affecting a slight laugh.
‘I like your…’ she pointed to her cheeks.
‘My dimples’

‘Yeah’
I continued to idly work on the piece. And I still did not care for it at all.
‘…You can’t make a move on here up here where she’s got no safe place to escape to if she’s not feeling it…’ I
thought to myself, ‘Right? Or is that you being chivalrous or you being a little fucking faggot?
Would it be, weird if she’s got no exit…
Or it’s not like you’re intending to harm her.
Could it not just be, something you laughed at, and ‘oh, I’m sorry, don’t I feel like a fool? Ah well…
How many times with women, would you have made love to her if only you’d had the fucking courage to try? A
myriad of opportunities, that a better surer man would’ve capitalized on.
So many people would’ve done something for sure; Ste, Liam… Just, ‘why not right?’ Then if it fucked up, ‘Oh, oh
shit, I’m sorry’
‘No, it’s no problem’ or her being totally into it and… Calling off her bus to, where was it, Sinhoukville? Later this
evening, or you catching it up there with her… I mean it’s only what, one hour a way? Or two.
The pleasures of a normal man right?
God you fucking god-awful pussy, what in the fuck is wrong with you? Huh?’
Dani played some shoegazey indie songs from her phone and I asked her if she could find Buckets of Rain by Dylan, and she tried a little, before handing me the phone, but her phone only had Chinese programs on it and her English was quite basic and I soon forgot about it and handed Dani back her phone.
I thought a little of Dylan and Liam. ‘What a romantic life, some chaps have lead…’ I thought to myself, ‘Romances and normalcy and adventure across the great American wilderness…’
I told Dani that I didn’t feel like painting and packed away my things and we stayed up on the platform for awhile, as Dani continued to play music and take photos, until she said to me, ‘should we leave?’ and I told her, ‘sure’ and she went down the ladder first, then I handed her down my art things, then went down after her.
Later that evening I found myself driving Dani and I alongside some second, perhaps different river or else large
body of water’s edge, and there were some golden scallops of sunlight tapering out over the water, towards where the sun was then sinking down behind some distant mountains.
I pointed the vista out to Dani and she said, ‘yeah…’ in a soft voice.
‘You will make a pass at her before this day is thru’ I thought to myself as I drove on, ‘Just positivity, positivity man.
Say it enough and it’s bound to come true, right? You can do it now, you’ll take her to a nice place, where she’s not stuck up on a little platform if it’s weird, and take a few drinks and make your move and maybe she might be really into it…’
We dropped the bike off at the travel agency, where Dani’s bus was apparently leaving from later that evening too, and she’d left her luggage at. We then went and got tacos in a place, not far from the travel agency.
And over the tacos I took a gin and tonic for only 1.50 and Dani took a draft beer for 50 cents.
‘A girl who likes to drink too, this could be perfect’ I thought to myself, ‘I mean, you’re no alcoholic but still… Ah
shit…’
I took another sip from my gin and tonic.
And a little while later I said to Dani, ‘…So when’s your bus to Sinoukville?’
‘It’s not Sinoukville, it’s Seim Reap’ she replied with a slight laugh.
‘Oh, how far is that one…?’
‘Maybe 11 hours’
‘Oh, oh ok. I thought it was Sinoukville’
‘No’
‘Maybe because of the cocktail’
Dani laughed a little at this then said, ‘yeah’
‘And they both start with S’
‘Yeah’
‘And it’s leaving later tonight?’
‘Yeah, but we have time’

‘Ok, cool’
‘Much time I think’
‘Yeah’
Midway thru my gin, I felt my confidence improve a little, and my disdain for myself fade a little from me too.
‘Y’know this book I’m reading at the moment, Fiesta, by Hemingway’ I said to Dani.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, in it the people have these little dice that they roll to decide who will pay for their rounds of drinks’
‘They have—dice to roll to decide who will pay for the drinks?’
‘Yeah’ I replied with a slight laugh then did a little mime, ‘Whoever gets the highest number pays or something’
‘You have dice?’
‘No, not on me, I wish I did, that’d be cool’
‘Yeah’
I took another sip from my gin.
‘…You know, that oil painting I showed you in my room, of the lady in the red…?’
‘Yeah, I think so…’
‘…Marolyn Rawat…
I, found the photo of her online, somewhere or another and I loved it and thought I had to paint it.
I think it must’ve been from like, a scan or photocopy from a magazine which came out, in the 70s or whenever,
when she married Prem Rawat, who’s kind of like—a guru maybe, this Indian guru guy that there are photos of up all around our house, back home in Australia, because my mom and dad were always really into him…’
‘Guru?’
‘Like a spiritual teacher, or whatever.
And anyway, the internet, y’know how it is, I was looking around and I found the photo and there was the most
lovely quote beside this photo of her, this Guru chap’s wife, from the article or interview in the magainze or
whatever. I mean, the photo, the photo was like, on one side of the two page spread, or whatever, and the quote of her’s was on the other, and, I’m trying to remember it…
Actually, I’ll just find the original photo on my phone rather than butchering it. I sent the image to myself so that I
could paint it, hold up…’
‘Ok’
I got my phone out of my pocket and soon managed to bring the image up ok. On one side of the two page spread was the black and white photo of Mrs Rawat, and then on the other page, inside an ornate border was the quote from her.
‘…I just saw the quote and the look on her face and felt like I had to paint it, y’know…’ I said to Dani then I began to read Mrs Rawat’s quote out to her, ‘…This marriage that has taken place is for all of us. Because in this marriage Maharaji Ji has truly joined all of us together. We are one heart loving our Lord. And also in this marriage he’s made me your new mother and even tho I’m a new mother, I really don’t know how to be your mother, but it’s the children that make a mother a mother, and so you must help me to be your mother, and I know by Guru Maharaj Ji’s grace that we’re really going to be the most beautiful family. And soon this whole world will be one family, the way it really should be and all this mother has to say is that every child should listen to their father, because their father is telling them what is the very best for them, because he knows, he knows exactly what each one of you need’
…Look, you can see where the two staples went, here’ I then added, as I showed Dani my phone, and pointed out the bold outlines of the two stapleheads, down the middle of the two page spread. Before it got photocopied’
‘Yeah’
And I left my phone on the table before Dani.
‘…So this was taken at her wedding?’ she asked me.
‘Yeah. I think so, I don’t know, maybe soon after.
But yeah, just, the bit where she says that soon the world will be one family… And if you accept that this
gentleman, her husband, is talking about peace and she says that that’s what we all need. The way I cut it, no man wants to live in fire or pain. I should think that we want to live by each other’s happiness not by each other’s misery, at each other’s throats. I just, and if you look at the expression on her face... I saw that and I thought that it might make such a good painting. I abandoned it out of lake of courage but, we’ll see. On verra’
‘Yeah…
She is sad…?’
‘…I didn’t get that from her. …Not necessarily sadness, but just, perhaps more so overwhelmed with emotion,
affection for life, man.
Or at the same time perhaps, saddened to see her children, as she saw it, what? Going to their graves like beds in Cambodia, I guess, this having been taken in the 70s or something, or the attrocities in Vietnam, Americans raining bombs on Laos and… All the rest of it. She’s just like, this is someone who sees herself as a mother to mankind and just…
She looks, almost on the verge of tears…’
‘Yeah.
You will finish it’
‘Thanks. Thank you’
‘And I think you have a good heart’ Dani then handed me back my phone.
‘Mm, thanks, you too’
I drained the last of my gin and tonic, then catching the proprieter of the restaurant’s eye, raised the empty, ice-
filled glass and said to him, ‘could I grab another one of these please?’
‘Certainly’ he repied.
A little while later, my second gin and tonic came out and I thanked the proprieter.
I took another sip from it, and it tasted rather fine and not too strong and I then said to Dani, ‘but yeah, that’s the
dream right? A peaceful pleasant world, something. People making art and music, over shooting and blasting each other. Or not even that, that makes it sound two sided but, shooting, blasting, gassing, on occasion, civilians. I don’t want to get preachy but, genocide is a, very—heinous thing’
‘Mm’
‘I think you have a good heart’
‘Yeah, thanks, you too’
I took another sip from my gin and tonic then said to Dani, ‘So Dani, do you have, a dream?’
‘I have dream, but it is just a simple one…’ she replied with a slight laugh.
‘Oh, what is it?’
‘Don’t laugh, but, I would like to own a drink store in my home town’
‘A drink store?’
‘A store, a shop that sells drinks’
‘What sort of drinks?’
‘Hot, cold drinks, coffee, teas’
‘Oh like a café’
‘Yeah’
‘Well that’s a fine dream’
‘Yes? Really?’
‘Of course, definitely. It’s good honest work, keeping people hydrated, making them nice drinks. Making friends
with your customers, little kids sipping from cups of tea out with their parents. It sounds a fine dream’
‘Thank you’
‘…It was Guangzhou you said you were from right?’ I asked Dani.
‘Yeah’ she replied.
‘How’s the weather up there? Is it cold, does it snow? What?’
Dani laughed a little at this then said, ‘yes it snows, but, just very rarely’
After our drinks were finished Dani and I paid, then we walked up a few shops to the tourist agency where Dani
had left her luggage. Her bus to Siem Reap was already there. The woman from the store told her to hurry and she went inside and picked up her small roller suitcase, and then went to the open door, before the little stairwell up onto the bus and I shook her hand, then watched her as she went up the little stairwell carrying her roller suitcase.
And I then waved at her as she stood inside atop the little stairwell and then watched as the bus drove off.
I still had all my painting stuff with me, so I decided to go to one of the lady bars I’d been to before. I forget the
name of the place, but I like it as there is a lady with dwarfism there, who has a hunch back and the most
wonderful smile. Also working there is a sweet young lady who is missing the lower half of one of her forearms,
from an accident with, from what I understand, some sort of machine that prepared food, when she was younger.
I had been to bed with one of the ladies from the bar, once a few weeks prior, and, for someone who has rather
infrequent experiences with women, the evening still played a little in my mind. The lady I’d been with however
was no longer working at the bar then, and she’d left to work at another one instead and I’d never been able to
quite find out where it was.
I took another few draft beers, and began to rework my aborted painting of Dani into something new, and without putting much conscious thought into it it slowly came to reform as a rather distorted looking schoolgirl with grey skin and bright red lips. I was working in very dim light. And after my painting was finished, I packed my things away, paid, then headed back to my hotel.
Back in my room, I noticed in my bathroom mirror that I’d gotten some black paint, on my new thrift-store short-
sleeved pastel orange and yellow pinstriped shirt.
I also noticed in the better light of my hotel room where I hadn’t blended the colours properly together in several places on my painting and where I’d missed applying the paint altogether to a few other spots on it.
‘Fuck’ I muttered to myself, then I sat crossed legged before the painting on the tiles before the end of my bed as I scrutanized it more, ‘Ah god damn it…’
‘Drinking yourself into a fucking early grave here…’ I thought to myself, ‘And for what? Does it make you fucking
paint any better at all? Does being drunk grant inspiration or just making everything a little more loose? Which,
might help sometimes but…? Ah hell, just shut up and sleep— or you’re gonna have to finish this first, you realize, of course…’ I sighed, then poured all of my art stuff out of my tote bag onto the tiles and I began to work on fixing back up my painting.
I took me quite awhile to fix up the painting, then once I was finished I went and lent it against a wall to dry, then
laid down in my bed, and turned the tv on before me. Die Hard 4, or perhaps it was Die Hard 5 was playing on Fox movies and after checking what was playing on the other couple of channels with English movies on them, I settled on it, with the sound down a bit.
‘Perhaps she writes you sending you the photo of her cat and you send her one back saying, ‘I had a crush on you and wanted to kiss you but was too shy to say— should we hang out more sometime perhaps?’ I thought to myself as I laid there, ‘Mmhm.
…Ah man, I don’t want to send out all of these query letters but, fuck it, just do it, not shit’ll come of it, then just,
scratch a line thru another dream and say ‘I tried’
Ugh. I fucking hate literary agents’
The following day shortly after waking up I went out to get lunch in town.
There’s a vegetarian slash vegan café called Simple Things, that I sometimes go to alongside the main walking
promenade in town, as their cappucinos are the best I know of in town, and also as there’s often pretty girls sitting inside, that if I’m feeling up for it and they happened to be friendly, I’ve on occasion tried to draw.
And that either late morning or early afternoon, I noticed one of the fellow who works in Simple Things, sitting on a bench, on the far side of the road from the café. I went and sat beside him, a shortway down the bench and said,
‘hey man’ to him.
‘Hey’ he replied.
‘…hey, uh, could I ask you a question?’
‘Sure’
‘That girl I saw you with on this bench out here the other day…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Is she your girlfriend? Just out of curiosity…?’

‘Yeah’
‘…How do you do it man? I mean, she was, beautiful and I wish I was better with girls sometimes… I just… I don’t
know’ I laughed a little at this.
‘…Hmm, I think the trick is to always take the lead with women’
‘Yeah…?’
‘Or well, let them take the lead sometimes too, but only let them think that they are, while you’re actually the one who’s still in control’
‘…that sounds, like a bunch of horseshit to me. Anyway I’m going to go eat man, take it easy, I’ll see you later’
The fellow didn’t respond anything to this, and I then got up and went into Eccstatic Pizza, which was only a couple of buildings down the road from Simple Things. And once inside I ordered myself a red curry with rice.
After my lunch I went back into my room. And in my laptop I searched my downloads folder for Midnight in Paris
and bought it up on VLC media player.
I paused it as soon as it opened, then tabbed into my folder of photos I wanted to paint, and idly scrolled down
thru it, one of the photos was of two girls, and I’d saved it a long time ago off of some pornographic sample gallery or another. They were both models for a site called Club Seventeen, and remembering the series, I opened up google chrome then searched Club Seventeen threesome tube, in one tab, opened a few links from the google page, then in another fresh tab I searched, ‘Club Seventeen threesome porn pics’
I then looked about my bed for the black little remote for the little flat screen tv on the wall before me, I found it a and turned the thing on. On channel 34, Fox Movies, Logan Lucky was playing. I had already seen it and found it to be a rather lousy and dull picture. Channel 35, Macau TV or something, which had played rather good english movies with Chinese subtitles for awhile was still giving no signal, as was Channel 69, which had played fashion tv,
with glamorous, entertaining, calming commercials featuring pretty ladies from fashion houses around the world.
On Channel 34, Max Movies, something called The Negotiator was on, featuring violent scenes, and a man getting
shot in a car, and I did not much care to watch it or find out what it was, and on Channel 32, AXN, the only other
English speaking channel that I knew of out of all 79 of them was something on called The Covenant that I did not
much care to watch either.
‘So, a movie on your laptop, or you could try querying the novel…’ I thought to myself, ‘You did write the letter,
have the cover letter and synopsis all polished up, so only thing to do would be to send them out to a hundred odd fuckhead agents, could say you did it... Or, what else, could try and throw yourself into the oils, try and become
Van Gogh at long last…
Finish off all the wood panels, the 5 half-finished projects, then just send them all home… Along with the projector and whatever other heavy shit you have, trim down your suitcase to 25 odd kgs, then jet off for Nepal maybe. Or back home, try and hang out with Laura again. Something. I don’t know man…’
I remembered the framing store in Pokhara that sold me the the thick red card, that they used as a border when
framing photos, and the sheets of card were unprinted on the back and made a perfect surface to paint on and
only cost 10 rupees, or 10 Australian Cents each and the chaps there also sold me the thin wooden sheets that
they used in the backs of their frames for 45rupees each.
‘What’d Van Gogh paint? 860 odd…’ I thought to myself,
‘That’s all you’d need to do. So you meet him 2 years out... Just add another two years to the end, inshallah, if fate
will let you. A decade that’s all you need.
Fuck the queries, that’s no fun. None of those fucking, parasites would give a shit about anything you wrote
anyhow.
Or at the very least I should like to paint a little before sending them out. Do something pleasant, then on the
come down from that high, you won’t care so much about the drudgery of it. Familiarize yourself with all of the
other writers we represent to make sure that your work is a good fit for us. Fuck books… Books are shit, there’s
been like 2 or 3 good novelist in all time. I don’t want to familiarize myself with the fuckheads you represent. Ugh.
What a world. People..’

I walked around not doing much for the rest of the day.
And later that evening, I brushed my teeth, then turned the television and the lights off in my room and laid down
in my bed.
I’d been laying there for awhile but still hadn’t fallen asleep.
I had gills and could see clearly underwater, and I was in a big sea at night, and I started swimming rather fast, I
think as my feet were of a queer, flipper like shape, and I looked up at the large metal hull of a cargo liner going by
overhead.
I woke up sometime the next morning, needing to use the restroom, and I went, then returned to my bed and tried
to lay in bed not thinking, for as long as I could.
After however long of this I eventually got up, took a shower, brushed my teeth, then got dressed and headed out
to Douceurs De Kampot again. It was rather cloudy and overcast out.
After breakfast, as I left Douceurs De Kampot, and walked down the street it was on, I noticed a rather beautiful
building on the far side of the street. I had seen it before and thought of painting it before.
It was a two story, rather dilapitated building, with faded creamy yellow paint, peeling in places.
And over the building in places, there were black dripped mould stains and in others places there was bare
concrete, where the paint had faded or peeled away completely. There were wooden, shutters over the building’s
large second story windows, and apparently the shutters had once been painted blue tho a lot of the paint had
faded or peeled off by then. And slightly down from the shutters, buried in some rolling greenery, which featured
many colourful flowers, there was an awning, above the bread store in the lower half of the building.
And I stopped on the other side of the street and looked at the building.
‘…I could…’ I thought to myself, ‘…shit, what is fear…? I can’t explain it, it’s not rational, just when you feel it you
know—it’s like being struck right in the stomach.
…Ah fuck just, go back, get your easel, your things, come back to it, all will, may fade once you’re—what, however
many minutes in, maybe 10, 20… Something…’
As I stood there looking at the building I noticed a pretty young woman walking down the street before me on her
own. ‘…Huh, where’s her friend…?’ I thought to myself, ‘…I guess she must be probably going to meet him or her
or something. Probably she just got a text, ‘ok, I’ll be there soon…’
…Or at the very least she’s got friends in her phone.
…You could maybe…
Nah, it would be no good…
You don’t have your paints on you for one. And you feel like all hell...
Well, fuck it. You’ve had your breakfast, go home, pick up all your painting stuff, come back, sit before this fucker
and get started, alright? What else you got?’
As I made my way back to my guest house I thought to myself, ‘what was that movie with the fucking, guy with all
the clones in it? And he was really bored at the start maybe—was that the same one? Where he just, sat around in
his fucking house and moved his armchair like six times out of pure boredom…?
And, you wanted to watch Submergable with James McAvoy in it too. And the Old Man and the Gun. All the
trailers… Shit…’
Back in my room, I got all of my art things and easel ready, then headed on down the stairs. At the bottom of them
I checked the date on my ipod, then in a note on my phone, which I’d been collecting various thoughts and book
notes in I wrote, ‘9-5-2019 the day Maxwell Williams started his impressionist career in earnest’
It was still rather cloudy and overcast out.
I found a spot on the otherside of the road from the ramshackled old building, I’d been wanting to paint. I sat
down on a concrete bench there, and overhead there was this large commercial umbrella, set into a concrete base.
It looked like something which had originally been designed for terraced seating, and it had some brand or another
printed on its faded plasticy material.
I started to set my tripod easel up before me and I noticed an old rectangular, closed plastic lided bin belonging to

perhaps a business beside me, and I decided to use it as a little table to set my old little glass jar full of turpentine
on.
I got all the rest of my stuff out then started to work on the painting, setting out an outline of the building first.
After working for perhaps 20 minutes or so I took my phone out and took note of the following thought in it, ‘I
think a chap knows he’s an artist when the most horrid thoughts don’t scare him anymore. They just come like a
short annoying add on a radio station… And you just tune them out…’
I continued to paint. And after awhile an attractive young couple went by on a scooter with the young man driving
and the girl on the back.
And as I worked I remembered a quote from Manet, ‘There is only one true thing: instantly paint what you see.
When you've got it, you've got it. When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug’
And as I worked I looked up at the sky, and it was rather thick with grey clouds by then. ‘Fuck, it’s looking grim’ I
thought to myself, ‘it might rain…’
I continued on with my work and after a bit it started to pitter patter, but the large old umbrella shielded the worst
of the rain.
And as I worked I remembered something Hildie had once said to me in an email, ‘You really shouldn’t worry about
yourself being a bad person, because whatever goes on in your head, I think you mean well. And you could be a
fine father and tell your children wonderful stories’ And I remembered too the last time we’d been together.
A sudden burst of wind caught the cardboard panel, that I’d been using as a pallet, and blew it into the side leg of
my black jeans.
‘Fuck’ I muttered to myself picking up the panel and looking at the paint all over my jeans, ‘shit, shit, shit. Fuck’
I packed back up all my things and headed back to my guest house. In the stairwell, I found a coarse little cleaning
pad, amongst some other cleaning stuff in a bucket and I took it back into my room, and doused it in some
turpentine, and used it to cleaned all of the paint off of my jeans.
I then watched some tv, and played some tetris on my phone, then headed back out again to the spot.
I worked until it was dark and raining rather heavily out, then went and got my dinner in the little hole-in-the-wall
French restaurant, a few buildings down, on the same side of the road, from where I’d been working.
The following day, it was also rather overcast out and I took all of my art stuff to breakfast at Douceurs de Kampot.
And after I’d eaten I headed on to my old spot beneath the umbrella where I set my easel up and returned to my
work. It began to rain rather heavily that day and I took a photo of the building, and spent the next two days working on it in my room.
The following day I felt like working on something a bit more light hearted for a change, so I took all of my tubes of acrylic paint, and my other painting things out to breakfast with me. After my usual breakfast at Douceurs de
Kampot I went for a walk around town. And I saw a young lady in the main tree lined promenade in town down
from Milano Pizza. And she was rather pretty and had curly blond hair.
‘C’mon man, just try’ I thought to myself, then went up to her and said, ‘hey, uh, I was just gonna ask if I might be
able to paint you. It’s like, a hobby of mine’
‘You’d like to paint me?’ she replied with a slight laugh in what sounded like a Russian accent.
‘Uh, yeah, I mean, if you got the time. I just, like to paint people, it’s a hobby of mine. I mean, just for fun, if you
want…’
‘Sure’
‘Ah, well thanks a lot, I appreciate that’
‘I’m an artist too you know?’
‘You are?’
‘Mm, yes. So if you paint me, here’s the deal, you have to let me draw you too’
‘Ok’
‘Do you have a spare paper?’