It was the most disgusting joint in all of Cambodia. The place was almost empty, occupied only by a handful of half sleepy regulars who had nowhere else to go. They enjoyed the shade and the vaguely cool air that the place offered on this hot afternoon. A skinny Westerner sat alone at a table in the back, under a ceiling fan that would come down sooner or later. He was scribbling something in an old notebook with a thick leather cover.
A slight commotion at the entrance to the establishment made him look up from his page. Two children, about seven or eight years old, entered and fought over a piece of paper. His neighbor’s sons. They ran up to him.
“Mr. Doc! Mr. Doc! I’m the one who’s going to give it to him!”
“Mr. Doc!… No, it’s me! Give it to me so I can give it to him!”
The two boys kept pulling the sheet of paper towards them, and arrived at the man’s table with a torn piece each. They sheepishly handed him their half and ran away without even asking for a treat.
“It’s your fault!”
“No, it’s yours!”
“If he tells Dad, you’ll get a good beating!”
The man let out a small sigh and laid the two torn pieces of the telegram side by side on the table.
There was no signature, but the coded message left no doubt as to the sender.
How did they find him? Here, deep in the asshole of the world – even the smell proved it!
He didn’t really care. What mattered was that it was time to go back. It was time to leave this pile of shit where he had been vegetating for months. Years even? He lost track of time.
What had he hoped to find in this country of poverty and corruption? A country with a past it was trying to forget and no future. His false hopes of being of some use to the local community had vanished within the first few weeks. He often wondered why he had stayed, but never found an answer. Was it the hope of a shotgun wedding with a girl from the neighboring village? What for? To provide for his in-laws?
He chuckled. Behind him, another regular, a former Khmer Rouge, began to giggle. The European nodded and smiled politely as he stood up. He had always been wary of the toothless old man, but he could never quite explain why.
He walked out of the dilapidated building, avoiding the languid arms of a few girls whose youth had been stolen too quickly by this place.
Yes! It was high time to get the hell out of here.
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Frenchman, exiled on the other side of the planet, DavidB writes. It's not always very good, but who cares, the goal is to write. Sometimes, he also does other things.
MetaStructure is one of his longest-running projects. It was started in the early 2000s. Stopped many times. Started over a few times. Let's hope this time is the right one.
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