Читать книгу Not for Publication - William John Stapleton - Страница 3

The best way to kill off a story is to starve it of oxygen. Michael did his best. He failed.

And then he did his worst.

You had to be strung out on a thin strip of ice while lingering long in the Land of Hungry Ghosts to get a glimpse of anything beyond the rising howls of derision.

A desperately frightened intelligence crawling on a liquid surface of molten mirrors, Michael had been slow to understand the forces he had stirred.

You had to be there; in the dense, fervent ignominy, the dark malignant streets, to even glimpse the dour places where he had briefly, uncomfortably dwelled.

Some 100 Australians had died in Thailand during the previous 12 months. For citizens of the Great Southern Land, the so-called Land of Smiles was the most dangerous destination on Earth.

Many of the deaths were purportedly the result of accidents.

Sure, Michael thought wryly.

Drowned accidently after being tossed from a speeding boat. Died accidently after being thrown off the balcony of a high rise. Killed accidently while being robbed.

Or bled to death accidentally after becoming the subject of an assassination order from the Thai mafia.

That year some of the Thais would have dearly liked to see him become Australian death number 101.

The Buddha’s proscription against killing any living being did not extend to him.

Nor, on the other side of the ledger, had Michael paid much attention to the admonition: “Be heedful among the heedless, awake among the sleeping, as a swift steed overtaking a sullen nag.”

He had been none of those things.

Instead he was tired, depressed, erratic and barely “mindful”. His pursuers had simply been remorseless.