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  1. #1
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    A religious experience

    We seem to be having a general run on threads with a spiritual bent to them so as I hate to be left out I thought I'd post something on a somewhat experience I had a while ago.

    It's a bit long so I'll split it into four.

    Part 1:
    I hadn’t mentioned it before because, well to be honest I felt at the time that it was a bit of a joke and you would just laugh and say I had been taken for a ride. Not an expensive ride mind you, I just bought the guy a few drinks after all. But then to talk about it later, it just seemed like he was a bit of a con merchant with a long tongue. That is, until you hear the whole tale.

    OK let me start at the beginning, or at least enough of the beginning so the story makes sense.

    What I want to tell you about happened on the evening before the last-time I left Bangkok, but I suppose the story really starts the evening prior to that.

    Unless you are into CNN news or Thai soap operas that are totally incomprehensible even if you DO understand the language, which I don’t, drinking in bars is almost compulsory for foreigners in Thailand. And as I have been to Thailand about fifteen times in the past on business, I know most of the decent bars in the various nitery areas.
    But I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have never really been bothered about picking up any of the girls. Not through prudery or fear of catching the clap you understand, it is just that …….. well, although the girls are often very pretty, I have never seen any that really appealed to me. The fact is I like a bit of romance and passion, and the sort of cold blooded deal that you are going to get from the average bar-girl is not really a turn on. So if I went to the Carousel bar in Nana that evening it was not with the intention of finding a midnight companion but really just that it’s a fairly large bar and its usually pretty busy, so there is a good chance that I can get a drink, get lost in the crowd and not have to fend off the girls every five minutes.

    If you don’t know it, Carousel is one of the bars that has a big revolving stage, well I guess you could work that out from the name, right? They have some sort of lesbian show every night where half a dozen girls writhe about doing a bit of tit and pussy sucking and pretend that they are getting it off. A turn on the first time you see it but fairly mediocre when the same routines are acted out every night of the week at ten o-clock on the dot, so while the punters crowded the stage for the best views I grabbed my Kloster and pulled up a stool at one of the small circular bars that dot the place. There is a small stage at the other end of the room where there is just the conventional dancing going on and I hadn’t drunk more than half my bottle of beer when one of the dancers caught my eye. I say caught my eye but it was more like I was harpooned. She had the most incredible eyes I have ever seen on any girl anywhere. She was generally attractive, but no stunner, not old, but not a schoolgirl either, she had a nice figure but she would never make it onto page three. It was her eyes that held me. Honest to God she had the sort of look that was not just smouldering, it was more like she could burn her way through a bank vault door. She saw me staring at her and smiled and when her turn to dance was over she threw on her wrap and came over to me.

    ‘Hallo handsome man’

    It was such a cliche that we both laughed out loud at the same time. Her English was reasonably good, far better than my Thai which is limited to understanding such phrases as ‘What hotel you stay in?’ - How rich are you? ‘What job you do?’ – How rich are you? And so on.

    She had proper answers to questions and had none of the dull mono-syllabic disinterested responses which I have found all too common. In short, I liked her. Only once did the question of money come up when she said. ‘I no like lady drink but boss get angry if I talk to you and you no buy me cola. Buy me one and I no ask you again’

    You would have to have a heart of stone to say no to that.

    I suppose her story was not untypical. She came from Issan had a young daughter who lived her with her mother. Her husband had walked out when the baby was three, she had never seen or heard from him since. But there was no resentment, no sense that she had had a raw deal, just that she had made a mistake, that was life and you got on with it. I asked her if she enjoyed her job and she looked up at with me those eyes, laughed and said ‘What you think? It’s a job, I get paid OK, I can save money and pay for my daughter to go to good school so she can get better life than mama. What else I can do?’

    Then she paused and gave me a look that seemed to go straight through my head and out the other side, and asked ‘You like YOUR job?’
    I couldn’t answer for a minute and she quickly threw in ‘What different then? We both get fucked’

    She was absolutely right, I hate my job, it has become a drudge that I do because it pays the rent, I can save money and enjoy myself four weeks of the year on holiday. And let’s face it, every other damn job I could do, would be the same.

    We chatted till about one o-clock and she never once asked outright or hinted to me that I should bar-fine her but when I finally yawned she stepped slightly back as if to look at me better and said ‘Time to go now?’
    Well this was the moment of truth wasn’t it? I told her I had never bar-fined a girl before. She shrugged her shoulders ‘Girls see you here before. They tell me you no go with lady. Up to you.’
    Again, I felt I could hardly refuse could I?

    ‘What do I have to do?’ I asked her.
    ‘Easy darling. You give me 500 Baht. I pay the mamasan and then we go back to your hotel and make love.’

    ‘And what about for lady?’

    She tilted her head to one side and smiled ‘Up to you’ she said.
    I won’t go into all the gory details. Let me just say that she was everything that I hoped she would be, responsive, energetic, enthusiastic and imaginative. If she was faking her pleasure she should have been on the stage. There was no urgency in our foreplay, we kissed like lovers who had been apart for weeks not strangers who had only just met. Even the action of putting on a condom, always an act that I have found particularly off-putting, was done with skill and sensuousness. When we made love instead of urging me to hurry up, she asked me to slow down so that when the orgasm arrived it was our orgasm and not just mine and hers. In the time when passion is cooling but the embers of the fire are still warm we lay in each other’s arms and just held each other till we slept.

    I was woken in the morning by the sensation of a mouth on my cock and as I quickly stiffened she wriggled up the bed with a huge grin on her face as we started again to make love equally as fiercely and energetically as the previous night. And once again the orgasm, when it came, was both bliss and a relief, pleasure and pain mixed together in a way that only making love can combine.

    After all the sexual exertions were over, we showered and she got her things together. This was one of those awkward moments when I knew what was expected but wasn’t quite sure of the details. I picked up my wallet and took out two 1000 Baht notes.

    ‘OK for you?’ I asked. She smiled and took the notes, folded them and transferred them to her bag. I gave her another 100 for the taxi and she gave me one last lingering kiss in which our tongues collided, fought and caressed and then she broke away.

    ‘You come see me again tonight? She asked ‘Maybe you like to meet my friend too’

    For the third time I thought, how could I refuse? That night was going to be my last night and I wanted it to be something special. If her friend was half as good as she was, with the two of them together I would be able to die a happy man.

    So that was my exciting night. My first night with a bar-girl was not at all the sordid business like experience that I had expected. Well OK you say she was maybe a bit more articulate, a bit more experienced both sexually and socially but still a bar-girl experience. What is so special?
    I have only thrown this in to give you some idea of my state of mind, how I felt about the whole thing and to explain how I came to meet ‘the friend’ and what happened with ‘the friend’ because that is really what this whole story is about.
    Lord, deliver us from e-mail.

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    Part 2:

    I spent my last day in a bit of a dream. My emotions were in a bit of a whirl to say the least and a lot of things were now clearer to me. Like, I could now understand why so many western men have given up jobs and such to go and live in what is a very alien and often uncomfortable city like Bangkok. Maybe they had all found someone like Noi.

    Noi’s matter of fact philosophy of taking life as it came and getting the most out of it flew in the face of all the tenets and beliefs that I had been brought up to believe in that life was meant to be struggle, that you had to kick against it constantly and that if you were enjoying yourself you were somehow failing to play the game properly.

    During the day I went shopping to buy the obligatory tee shirts and fake watches, as ordered by sundry nephews and nieces, but my mind was not on the necessary haggling and my thoughts constantly turned to Noi and the evening ahead.

    That night found me at the Carousel bar early at nine o-clock. I rationalized to myself that I could bar-fine Noi straight away and come back for her later, and anyway if I bar-fined her it would mean that I would have an easy excuse for getting rid of the other bar-girls. So I duly presented Noi with a 500 Baht note, which she accepted with her customary shrug and ‘Up to you’ expression.

    At this point there was no obvious sign of her friend and so I enquired straight out which one she was. Noi stood up on the bar of the stool she was sitting on to give herself a bit more height. ‘No see. Maybe come later. You come because of me or for friend?’ she asked.
    I must have blushed because she giggled and kissed me on the tip of the nose. ‘I have to go dance now. You waiting?’
    I assured her I would wait and so off she went to do her obligatory gyrations and wiggles.

    And it was while I was waiting that I became aware of one of the other customers. Let me take a minute to describe him. He was about fifty years old, had greying hair that must have once been light brown, stood just under six foot tall and was well built without being over muscled or over weight. He was good looking without having that sort of smug contentedness that often goes with both men and women who know damn well that they are attractive. He had about half a dozen girls around him and he, and they, were having a great time He joked with one, bounced another on his knee, then got up to dance with a third. And he was a good dancer too. How often have you seen an old man with a young girl trying to behave like a twenty-something swinger and making a complete arsehole of himself, but this guy was good, he had grace and style and seemed completely natural and at ease. I guess that what really was grabbing my attention was his so obvious confidence in what he was doing, it is a characteristic that I have always envied and will almost certainly never be able to emulate any more than I could be a concert pianist or an eye surgeon. After about five minutes he stopped sat down and said something to the girls in Thai and they immediately formed a little queue in front of him, whence he pulled a few notes out of his pocket and presented each one with a 100 Baht note. Each girl took her reward gave him a little wai and went off into the body of the bar. When he reached the last girl however, who looked to me to be the youngest of the group he had only a 20 Baht note left which he looked at before looking at her to see her reaction. Well I tell you she was pretty crestfallen but he closed the note into her fist and with his left hand and then made a sort of curious gesture with his right hand in which he reached down to her ear and gave it a little tug. Then he reopened her fist and bingo the 20 had become two 100s. Now that was a neat trick, and I was watching the whole display but I’ll be damned if I can say how he did it. You know that if you watch sleight of hand tricks you can usually spot some point where the guy puts his hand in his pocket or straightens his tie or something and you know that is where the switch is coming from, but here there was none of that. Very slick, very professional, in fact it occurred to me that if he was that good he might have been a professional. Of course little miss went off like a dog with two dicks, waving the two notes above her head like they might have been a sort of banner or something.

    The conjurer came over to where I was sitting and sat himself down on a spare stool, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. As a waitress went past he leaned toward her and asked her in Thai for a beer and then turning to again he picked up my bottle in its little cooler sock, extracted the bottle a little to see the brand and then said something more to her while gesturing at me. The waitress walked off smartly and he said ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

    As conversation seemed inevitable and in any case I felt I had some time to kill I just nodded.

    ‘Your Thai seems pretty good.’ I said.

    He responded with a non-committal shrug
    ’I get by. It is not an easy language to learn and of course the Thais are not too keen on you becoming too proficient, so I try to make sure that I restrict myself to the sort of things farangs are supposed to be able to say.’

    ‘Do you live here then’ I asked.

    ‘No’ he said ‘but I travel quite a lot and Bangkok is always one of the better stops so I try to get a few days break whenever I am here.’
    He gestured towards the area of the main part of the bar. ‘The girls are great aren’t they and it takes so little to make them happy.’

    ‘I saw your trick with the note’ I said ‘I would really love to have the patience to learn something like that.’

    He smiled ‘Like picking up languages, it is just a knack and sometimes in hotel rooms in places with’ he paused slightly ‘less entertaining surroundings, you have to learn to amuse yourself.’

    The waitress arrived with the beers, took away my dead one and put the new one into the cooler.

    My companion raised his glass ‘Chok dee’. I took a sip and then suddenly remembered my manners. Sticking out my hand, I apologised. ‘Sorry I am forgetting my manners. My name’s Dougal, thanks for the beer.’ We shook hands and he said. ‘Nice to meet you’ he said ‘I’m called Luke.’

    I had been trying to place his accent but without success. I don’t know if you have had the same experience but I find in Thailand that you sort of adopt an involuntary pidgeon English way of speaking that makes talking even to another Brit confusing. So I just said ‘Where are you from Luke, I can’t place you by your accent?’

    He chuckled for a moment before saying ‘The fact is that I have been travelling for so long, that I do not think of anywhere particularly as home and my accent changes depending where I am. Most people plump for South Africa and as I spent many years there when I was younger I’m happy to say that there is where I come from.’ He took another pull of his beer and went on ‘But what about you? You sound very British to my ears.’

    I told him I was indeed English. I suppose it is curious that none of us really think we have any accent though of course we all sound quite different to a foreigner or someone even from a different region in the same country.

    I asked him what he did for a living and he told me he was a collector. This intrigued me so I pressed him to be more specific but he continued to be sort of deliberately vague.

    ‘The fact is that I collect mostly want people don’t want or have no use for anymore and to be honest I usually find it is not much use to me either, but occasionally, just occasionally I find a real pearl and that makes it all worth while.’

    This of course was quite intriguing and I was not going to let it rest there, so I pushed him further.

    ‘Are you buying and selling, or just collecting as a hobby?’

    Again he gave a chuckle.

    ‘More like a compulsion than a hobby. I don’t have what you might think of as a regular job but I think of this as work too. You see I was closely involved with a family business years ago till I fell out with the boss and started up on my own. It was hard going for the first few years but I got some good people working for me and now things run pretty much without my having to put too much personal effort in at all. Which leaves me free to, again that slight pause for effect ‘collect things.’

    There was a silence while I digested this last comment. Was he playing games with me or just trying to arouse my curiosity before pitching in with an offer to sell me some gems I wondered.

    He was staring at my quite intensely before going on ‘Tell me about yourself …..’ but then before I could speak he said. ‘Actually I have a confession to make. I know a little about you already.’

    And he told me what I did for a living and where I lived and how old I was and so on. There was only one source I could think of that could have supplied those details. He nodded towards Noi who was now chatting with one of the other girls against the far wall.

    ‘Noi has told me a little and said you might be here again tonight.’ He saw my expression change so continued

    ‘Oh! We are old friends, I helped her out once when she had problems and was very down.’ He leant his head towards me ‘She told you about her husband running out? A very bad thing. I have never been able to understand how a man can abandon his wife and children. But I was able to give some small assistance and I think you see now she is better off without him. Noi says you have a good heart but not too much money’ he ended.

    ‘Now tell me the rest. For instance why do you hate your job so much?’

    Now here was an easy question. I have had a few jobs and I have had a few bosses and they seem to me to fall into one of two groups; either pleasant but ineffective tossers or ruthless but efficient bastards. And I would be hard put to say which I thought was worse. But the one thing that the all my jobs have had in common is the sheer mechanical drudgery of working for a machine that neither cares for, nor tolerates, the individual.

    ‘Dougal you are like many people’ Luke said ‘You dream of winning the lottery so you can tell your boss to poke his job up his arse, but of course it is just a dream. In fact it is worse than a dream, it’s a con trick. Who can win against those odds. Do you know how many, who do win the lottery, claim that they don’t want it to change their lives? Good grief, of course it is going to change things, if they don’t want it to change anything why bother. So once a week a few people are plucked out of nowhere and get the chance to spend more time in their garden or take that holiday of a lifetime and then sink back into nowhere again. A waste.’

    ‘Perhaps if you were religious life would be easier for you. You see the Buddhists here for example calmly accepting their lot.’

    ‘I don’t believe in religion’ I said.

    ‘You mean you don’t believe in God’ he said ‘you are either very brave or very foolish. God exists and so does heaven and hell. Maybe not as a fiery furnace or fluffy clouds with harp and things, but they exist just the same.’

    ‘You have seen them?’ I smiled.

    ‘Sure I’ve seen them.’

    ‘What are they like?’ I asked him. I didn’t think he was dangerous and I was finding the conversation amusing.

    He didn’t answer for a moment, then when he did it was to abruptly change the subject.

    ‘Would you like to work for me?’ he suddenly asked

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    Part 3:

    ‘Me? What would I do?’

    ‘You would be a sort of head hunter for my organisation, I am always anxious to meet people like you, people who are ….’ he paused as if searching for the right word ‘…individuals. Noi works for me, she told me she felt you could be useful. Noi was herself identified as a recruit by another of my people. You would do the same.’

    ‘It sounds like a sort of pyramid selling scheme’ I said.

    ‘Dougal I’m not selling anything. I told you, I am a collector. I collect people.’ He paused for a moment to let this sink in.

    ‘You collect people?’ I repeated stupidly. The beers had been coming and going, I wasn’t drunk but I wasn’t sober either.

    ‘Yes Dougal. Don’t you know who I am yet? Haven’t you guessed who I am?’

    I had a sort of horrible sinking sensation that I was getting in way over my head, but I was not going to commit myself to any suggestions just in case they turned out to be right.

    ‘I have many names. Here in Bangkok I am Madakorn. In Islam I am Shaitaan, while the Christians call me Lucifer or Mephistopheles or just …. ‘The Devil’ - always the bad names. But I just like to think of myself as God’s competitor, the truth, for what’s its worth, is that I am more like a business rival than anything else. You remember I used to work for a family business? I used to work for God. I was his right hand man until I made the mistake of suggesting some changes. And like you, I found that the boss doesn’t appreciate individuals. So I set up in opposition. It is a bit like Hertz and Avis, God is number one but we try harder. Do you think that as God’s lieutenant I would suddenly become a cloven hoofed monster with horns and a tail because I was replaced? Have you ever been made redundant or sacked’

    I nodded

    ‘Well did you ever feel the desire to go out and destroy the world afterwards or want to make a change in your appearance any more radical than having a haircut?’

    I was speechless. He was a lunatic. I must have been drunk, because it sounded like he was talking sense. But he was still a lunatic.
    You asked me a while ago what the difference between heaven and hell? Well like I said God and me we’re competitors so some people choose to go to heaven –‘

    ‘You get to choose?’ I interjected.

    ‘Sure you get to choose. You buy all that – Follow the scriptures and don’t break the rules and you’ll go to heaven or else the boogie man will get you stuff? – no one would get to heaven if that were true.’

    ‘Heaven is a place where everyone can be anyone else or anyone can be everyone else, if that makes sense. No? Well you really need to be there to understand. Tell you what, have you ever wanted to be Mother Theresa of Calcutta?’

    I shook my head.

    ‘Me neither. A wonderful woman but not for me personally. Well in heaven you get to be Mother Theresa. Which reminds me. Leprosy! Leprosy was nothing to do with me. Why God created leprosy is beyond me. Getting rid of it was one of those little improvements God and I fell out over.’

    ‘And hell?’ I asked.

    He pulled a bit of a face.

    ‘I would not want to lie to you, hell is not perfect. In hell you have to be you all the time, you don’t get the same opportunities to participate. Have you ever been to a party and been the only person who did not have a dance partner?’

    It seemed a strange question but then it was a strange conversation. I nodded.

    ‘Hell is a bit like that; you don’t get to dance much. Hell is more for individuals.’

    ‘So what about that job then?’

    I really did not know what to say, so I said nothing.
    He had a world weary expression on his face.

    ‘The trouble is people want miracles. You saw me turn the twenty baht note into two hundreds, isn’t that good enough?’
    I started to say that it was a good trick, but a miracle, well that was taking it a bit far.

    ‘You cannot explain it though, isn’t that what a miracle is? The sun comes up every morning, isn’t that a miracle. The fact that scientists can dismiss it in terms of helium and hydrogen being reformed in a massive nuclear reaction, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle. But it happens every day - so it’s just a fact. Now, if it didn’t rise one day that would be a bloody miracle wouldn’t it?'

    He didn’t seem annoyed. Although he was talking earnestly he still had his half amused expression.

    ‘The fact is miracles are just unusual occurrences. If God and I performed miracles every day people would just accept them as part of every day life so we have an agreement – we don’t try to outdo each other in the miracle department.’

    He thought for a minute.

    ‘What else can I show you? Water into wine? How about if I turn Singha into proper beer? No, better than that, here is your own personal miracle.’ He stepped back and spread his arms wide.

    ‘Here is a deal for you. Here is the pitch’ he was talking very earnestly now.

    ‘Your chance to be in control of your own destiny.’ He took a pen and what looked like a business card out of his pocket and without stopping to think for a moment, wrote down six numbers. He handed me the card. It was blank except for the numbers he had just written. I turned it over expecting to see a name on the other side but it was blank there too. He asked me if I knew what the numbers were. They looked like lottery numbers and I said so.

    ‘Wrong Dougal! They are winning lottery numbers.’ He leaned back and looked at me closely. He had placed heavy emphasis on the word ‘winning’ and now he said it again ‘Winning, Dougal. Use these numbers and I guarantee they will all come in.’

    The conversation, which had become more bizarre and surreal as the evening wore on, seemed to have no limit in its scope. It was all I could do to prevent myself from laughing aloud. But I managed to get out ‘Which week?’

    ‘Any week’ he replied ‘When you are ready to work for me, use the numbers, they’re your wages. Use them wisely, wait till there’s a big prize going, a rollover, but Dougal be sure that is what you want. You work for me and you work for life, literally.’

    ‘I know, I know. You cannot believe it. You think here is this middle aged bar fly who shoots a good line and now he’s trying to make a monkey out of me.’

    He wasn’t far wrong but he had been such good company and I sensed that the evening was coming to a close so I did not want to end on a sour note.

    ‘Luke’ I said ‘you’ve been great. I haven’t had such a good evening in years, sitting here I can believe every word you’ve said. But I know damn well, that in the morning it will all seem like a dream and I’ll laugh at myself. I know, I’ve had a few to drink but even here, half cut in a Bangkok bar, you cannot expect me to really swallow that you are the devil offering me the winning numbers, in the lottery of my choice, in exchange for acting as a sort of talent scout for you.’

    His expression never really changed, he just said

    ‘Of course it’s not easy, the truth never is, especially when the truth flies in the face of years of conditioning and especially’ again that pause ‘for an Englishman. Tell you what’ he went on ‘this is not unexpected and does you no discredit. You’d have to be a gibbering idiot to believe what strange men tell you in sleazy bars even if it were a tenth as easy to believe. I will tell you what I’ll do. I will give you a free shot. Just use any three of the numbers and that will guarantee you ten pounds and no commitment on your part one way or the other. What have you got to lose? There it is, one measly pound and you’ll know for sure if I’m the king of the bull-shitters or who I say I am.’

    He held out his hand ‘When you are ready, use the numbers and I’ll come to the celebration party.’

    We shook hands and then he was gone and I was alone.

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    Last Part:

    I was suddenly aware of the noise of the bar had changed. The raucous techno music had suddenly gone quiet and the bar was nearly empty. I could hear the clatter of bottles and glasses, and a waitress came up to take my bottle saying - ‘We close now. You go home.’

    I shook my head stupidly in effort to clear it and looked at my watch. It was five past three in the morning. Where was Noi I asked?

    ‘She go home long time. She see you sleeping. Say you no good for her tonight. She ask me give you this.’

    The waitress pulled a crumpled five hundred Baht note out of her blouse pocket and handed it to me.

    ‘You pay bill now.’ She rattled the plastic cup that held my bar tab.

    I looked at the total and gave her the note back and reached into my pocket to get the rest of the money. As I pulled out the notes I saw Luke’s card fall to the floor and stooped to pick it up. There were the six numbers written in a neat hand on the otherwise blank card. I passed my fingers over the card, there was no raised writing, I held it up to the light and twisted it this way and that in case the card was printed with some smart fancy printing ink that reflected light. But there was nothing.

    ‘What time did my friend go, did you see him leave?’ I asked her.

    ‘No see friend, you drink by yourself. Too many beer. You pay now, I want to go home.’

    She rattled the cup again and I handed her the money and then put in a few loose coins as a tip. She wrinkled her nose and turned away. ‘Hang on.’ I said. When she turned back I quickly scooped up the coins and replaced it with a hundred Baht note. Instantly her expression changed to a big smile and she gave me a little wai before going.

    She was happy, but I left the bar feeling flat and dejected. Noi had gone home and instead of my last night being one to remember it turned out to be one in which I seemed to have forgotten a lot. Was I drunk or had I fallen asleep? Had I really been drinking with Luke? After all I still had the card in my pocket. As I was walking I could feel the hard edges of the card between my fingers; that was real enough, perhaps it was the only thing that was real. Most importantly at the time was the feeling that I had been made a fool of, Noi had led me to believe that the evening was going to be something special and here I was going home alone. Half of me thought that Luke and Noi had staged the whole thing together as a sort of elaborate prank, perhaps now they were in Thermae together having a good laugh with their friends at the dumb Englishman who had had a few too many beers. All these thoughts passed through my mind that night and the next day I still felt in a pretty foul mood, not helped by a hangover and a tongue that you could comb.

    Anyway, I packed, went to the airport and soon put it out of my mind with the activity of catching my flight, last minute shopping at the duty free and grabbing a late breakfast.

    And there it might have ended, till a few weeks ago I picked up the book I had been reading on the plane and that had lain by the side of my bed where I had dropped it when I got back home. It was one of those heavy duty novels that gets nominated for prizes because no one wants to admit that they can’t understand it. I couldn’t understand it either but I hate leaving things half done so what with answering three weeks letters and ploughing through two hundred e-mails, it had been gathering dust waiting for a night when even the television was less interesting than the book. And when such a night arrived, I reluctantly found where I had finished reading only to discover that my bookmark was the card that I had been given by Luke.

    Instantly I was back in the bar in Bangkok going over in my mind what had happened. Was it joke? Did it even happen at all? The card was the only solid thing I had and even if Luke was a fantasy, curiosity said that one pound was hardly going to compound my folly, if that was what it was. Chances are that if it was a practical joke Luke and Noi had already forgotten it and had probably tried it on a dozen or so more dumb ass tourists, so what the hell.

    That Wednesday night I used the first three numbers from the card and then picked three more at random, making a nice little symmetrical pattern on the sheet. I paid my pound, went home, got out a beer and settled down to watch the draw.

    OK you already know what’s coming next – none of the fucking numbers came up. Damn they didn’t, do you really think I would take all this trouble to tell you I had gotten taken in by a couple of jokers in a bar.

    Those three numbers from the card fell out of the drum in order bang, bang, bang. And just in case you are entertaining any lingering thoughts about coincidences, laws of probability or any of that crap, look at the other three numbers. In each case the ball that fell out was one higher than the number I had used, like I put fifteen and ball sixteen dropped, I put twenty and it was twenty one that scored.

    Let me tell you that if I had a heart going like a steam hammer when the three winning numbers came through, I nearly passed out on the floor when I saw the other three.

    I was shaking like a leaf and it took the rest of the evening AND the whole of the next day before I could sit down for more than three minutes at a stretch. I walked down to the newsagents to get my ten pounds and I was in such a state as I handed the ticket over that the guy behind the counter thought it must be the jackpot. He fell about laughing when he saw it was only a ten quid win. Only a ten quid win, if only he knew the truth. But I tell you that when he gave me that ten pound note I stuck it in my trouser pocket and walked like that with my hand jammed in there till I got home too afraid to look at the note in case it was Luke’s head on it instead of the Queen’s.

    Well what to do now? I put that card on the mantle piece and put a big heavy weight on it, just in case a freak hurricane went through my front room and blew it away. Then to make sure, I copied the numbers out and wrote them in thick pen on the floor under the mat so no one else would see them. Then I phoned in work sick and sat and just stared at that card wondering what to do.

    It seemed to me, looking at the mantelpiece, that at times it was like a great weight that was bending the shelf down under the load and at other times it seemed to be so hot that the wood that the shelf was made of was smouldering and the card would burn its way through. All imagination of course, I picked it up and turned it over it was still as blank as ever. I stared closely at the numbers. Was it my imagination or was the ink, which I had fancied was red in the dim light of the bar, fading to a dirty brown colour. I remembered when I was kid and used to scrape my elbow or knee sometime and clean myself up with a bit of the clean corner of my handkerchief. How three days later my mother would pull this crumpled rag out of my trousers pocket and point to the dried blood and say ‘How the hell am I supposed to get that clean?’ It was that same sort of reddish brown colour now.

    And there it lay for two weeks while I tried to decide what to do. I didn’t go to work didn’t eat much, slept on and off at odd times and didn’t even answer the phone. What I did do was watch the lottery every week, Wednesday and Saturday, watching to see if any of those numbers came up again and of course you know that there was no jackpot winners for three draws in a row till the jackpot stood at a cool eighteen million pounds.

    How is it going to end?

    Temptation! I never even knew the meaning of the word before. You would think that after two weeks of doing nothing but sit and sweat it out I would have the answer to everything up to and including the meaning of life. I am convinced now, that if you cannot get an answer to a problem within five minutes then you might as well give up on it, because you ain’t ever going to work it out.

    That I had the winning numbers was now pretty clear but whether I ought to take the dreadful step of using them or not was a different matter.
    It was bad enough knowing that God and the devil really existed after all, let alone that I might be on the point of throwing in my lot with the second. Could I believe what he had told me? Could I believe anything anymore? I had been strolling along through life thinking that when your life was done that was it, finished, now suddenly I had to plan for an afterlife.

    I think those were the hardest two weeks of my life. But one morning I woke up and did something I haven’t done since I was a child, I went to church.

    I felt somewhat abashed going through the door, it was quiet and I was the only one there so I sat down at a pew in the corner closed my eyes and let the serene atmosphere of the church wash over me. No one else came in and I eventually looked up as the light from the sun started to stream through the stained glass windows onto my face. All this could be mine I thought, the silence, the calm, the inner peace I thought about people through history who had sacrificed everything for their beliefs, What was it Luke had said? I could be like Mother Theresa. I could BE Mother Theresa. Well maybe not her but what about St Francis of Assissi? I’d always liked animals.

    In that moment I seemed to gain strength for what I knew I had to do. I couldn’t leave that card sitting on my mantelpiece a moment longer. I walked hurriedly home, my mind made up. And, to my credit, I did not flinch or waiver for a second once the decision was made.

    And so that’s that. One thing is for sure my life will never be the same again, and I do not intend it to be. I could not go on as I was; knowing what I now know. We get through life because we doubt, but when you KNOW that there is an afterlife and that heaven and hell DO exist, well what more is there to say. Except of course to tell you that I have quit my job and put the house on the market and I’m going to go travelling for a year, which is something I should have done a long time ago. But before I go I’m going to have a farewell party and you have got to promise me you are all going to come, because …..…well…….. the fact is there is a friend of mine I’d really like you to meet.

  5. #5
    ding ding ding
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    wow, love it!

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    So do I. Excellent read.

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    still got those lotto numbers..err.....ummm....buddy old pal?

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    Damn fine story...
    Damn fine read.

  9. #9
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    I've never ever read a thread that was this long before.Even read it twice!Got to ask the question though, which side would anybody vote for.
    Last edited by Little Chuchok; 25-10-2006 at 02:45 AM.

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    Bubbly Sales Girl
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    Wow!

    This story has truly taken my curiosity.

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    bloody great read mate.

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    Interesting read !
    I understand that you are not going to use those lotto numbers so can you please PM me them ?

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    Northern Hermit
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    Except of course to tell you that I have quit my job and put the house on the market and I’m going to go travelling for a year, which is something I should have done a long time ago. But before I go I’m going to have a farewell party and you have got to promise me you are all going to come, because …..…well…….. the fact is there is a friend of mine I’d really like you to meet.
    Gee, am I the only one that took this to mean he used the numbers??

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    punk douche bag
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    Excellent so far and i've only read part 1.

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    ^^ I thought so at first,but then his friend could have been "god",so he might have run home and torn up the numbers etc....

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    i don't think he'd have bothered putting his house on the market if he'd used the numbers.

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    wow, i never read a thread that long either. very very interesting

    when is the farewell party and can you please confirm that your 'friend' is not kerux

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    excellent ending...i love the ambiquity...what was the name of the bar again!!

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    Great writing Dougal. Well done.

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    Quote Originally Posted by buadhai View Post
    Great writing Dougal. Well done.
    sorry to be a doubting thomas - but did u actually write that...?

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    Quote Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by buadhai View Post
    Great writing Dougal. Well done.
    sorry to be a doubting thomas - but did u actually write that...?
    i was wondering that too

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    Quote Originally Posted by slimboyfat
    i was wondering that too
    Glad you enjoyed.

    I can assure you, hand on heart, that it is all my own. If you find the story anywhere else, then it was pinched from me.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by slimboyfat
    i was wondering that too
    Glad you enjoyed.

    I can assure you, hand on heart, that it is all my own. If you find the story anywhere else, then it was pinched from me.

    excellent work. i am seriously impressed

  24. #24
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    So am I. Although I appreciate the gesture Dougal - seriously, what are you doing publishing it here when you could get something going with Asia Books or some other publisher.

    Your stuff is about 10 times as good as the crap detective stories from the bar scene that have been bestsellers in the airport for some time now.

  25. #25
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    So is this a work of fiction or non-fiction?

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