Writing Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

October 3, 2024October 5, 2024

True Face of Thai Dancer is Reflected in the Books

Now I have my tickets I head towards the big top tent of the circus. The tent has a maroon covered canvas and in one corner and on a platform there is a group of Thai dancers in long maroon tunics, colors matching the tent. There are both boys and girls there and they dance in a steadily rotating circle and wave their arms above their heads.

The platform is surrounded by a red and brown painted picket fence which protects them from falling and a ladder leads up to their platform. At the top of the ladder two stacks of hardback books guard the entrance either side.

I am standing on a separate platform the same height as them but a few yards away, and decide to take a picture.

I step down to ground level and walk over to the ladder going up to their platform and from the bottom, I hold up my iPhone and aim it between the two stacks of books.

The face of a Thai dancer comes into view in the entrance as she circles the platform and though my iPhone is almost out of charge I take the picture and it captures the partial profile of the dancer’s face between the books.

Another woman with same maroon tunic sees me capturing the picturing.

“Hey!” she calls out accusingly as I look down at the picture on my camera.

I need to escape to the canteen.

Although only the front of the dancer’s face and her nose was visible through the entrance (her hair and the back of her head being hidden behind the left hand column of books), and although the ledge of the platform hid her body, her face is visible in its entirety, visible square on, in the reflection from the books.

Her face is lit in a silvery light. It is flat and slightly square and is framed with short straight black hair. It’s as if the books were acting as a mirror.

I am standing at the doorway leading into the food hall when the woman who called me out catches up with me.

I show her the photo, show her dancer’s face fully visible in the reflection from the books and the woman holds up her phone.

“Air transfer it!” She says but my phone’s battery charge shows red.

The woman is taller than the dancer whose photo I took and I suspect she is the leader of the group.

I hold the phone up and at first the transfer will not go through. I check my bluetooth and try again.

But this time the woman brings her phone flat against mine so that they are face to face and touching. This time the photo transfers.

The woman turns away from the doorway and the food hall tables and calls back to the dancers, “Hey, I got a picture from Bethesda!”

Did I reflect the real picture of Anyamanee in my story about her?
Blossom photo by Brett Sayles via Pexels, saturated for effect.
Thai dancer photo by Neo Siam via Pexels.

September 25, 2024November 24, 2024

The Meet Up and the Rats

We sat at the top of a brownstone, a windowless attic given over to one of the weekly meetups for writing. The room had rows of brown varnished stiff-backed chairs that faced the lectern at the front. And the lectern was mostly used by the organizers so I didn’t read that night but some others did.

August 15, 2024August 15, 2024

Brutal Editor Provides Review in Chinese Restaurant

I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant located at the end of the main street of the village. It was late at night and the rain beat down hard outside.

I sat in the corner, furthest from the door.

The restaurant had plain green wallpapered walls that had not been changed in decades. Two large paper menus side by side were tacked up next to the entrance and they still reflected the older prices.

Two other men were there as well, though the restaurant was closing up for the night. They sat at separate tables closer to the large window in the front and they appeared to be listening in on my conversation. They both had their anoraks on, whilst they sat huddled over their meals.

I was on a call on my flip phone and it was one of the editors. He’d gone through the sample I’d given him and I had my leather bound notebook open on the table in front of me. I was taking notes while he talked.

The editor had ripped apart my story. It had been upsetting but I was willing to take his points on board. He didn’t talk loudly but his voice came out through the phone and projected through the restaurant because it was quiet in there.

I was sure the others could hear even though I didn’t want them to.

Behind me on a shelf in the wall was an old time radio with faded white plastic casing. Someone had pulled up its antenna. It felt as if the editor’s voice was projecting through the radio even though I held the phone close up to my hear to muffle the sound from the other restaurant goers.

The owner came out from some swing doors to my right.

“We’re closing,” he barked and this time we made as if to leave. It was the second time he’d come out to tell us.

I stepped out into the rainy night and held the notebook above my head with one hand while holding the phone up to my ear with the other.

“Look, I’ll have to call you back again. The rain is beating down,” I said to the editor as I followed the curve of the road away from the restaurant and past the closed up stores.

The yellow light of the storefronts projected dimly onto the sidewalk as I walked by. And the rain flecked in my eyes as I snapped the phone shut.

Photo of restaurant from my childhood referenced in Seeking Sanook.

March 7, 2024March 20, 2024

A Guest House in Alexandria

After the long walk along the Nile I arrived at the hostel. An old man, in a white jellaba led me through a warren of rooms. He had a greying beard and was a little portly. “There is a place,” he assured me, “only one pound.” The Egyptian pound was pegged one to one with the British pound in those days. Still, it was very cheap.

I just didn’t remember coming here before visiting Uncle Vartan.

February 22, 2024February 22, 2024

Inappropriate Reading

In the children’s section of a bookstore all is colored in fuzzy shades of pale yellow, the floors, the chairs, the walls, even the bookshelves and the books.

On the next to top shelf of the center display, where the latest books are advertised, there is a new book with the title “The Cocks and Cuns of Despair”.