Bangkok, If You’re Listening by Prin Sairungsri

I wake up face-down on cold vinyl tile, my sweaty cheek glued to the gray-specked floor. My mouth tastes like someone juiced a cigarette, poured it into a rotten durian, and forced it all down my throat. For a second, I think I’ve died in a stranger’s apartment. Then I see my crusty Jordan 1’s stuck on the ceiling fan.

The silence hits me. A morning in Bangkok and quiet are like tequila and Sunday church. Where had the tuk-tuks that shrieked terrible Thai rock gone? Who had kidnapped all the mortar-slamming grandmas? Even the soi dogs had stopped arguing.

“เชี่ย — ” I begin to cuss but end up burping out a chunk of last night’s joyride. Cheap whiskey, if I remember correctly. Or motor oil. Perhaps a mix of both.

I sit up too fast, and my room sways the same way my Thai uncle gets charged with a D.U.I — dancing under the influence. My hands smell like expired fish sauce and perhaps betrayal. I don’t remember whose place this is, but the Hello Kitty bedsheet tells me I should leave before she, or he, gets back.

Outside, Bangkok is paused. Motorbikes nap mid-turn. Vendor carts rust mid-roll. The air is thick with that warm, sweaty-hammock feel, like the city farted and nobody stayed to smell it. No one but me.

I yell, “ใครวะ?” Nobody answers. Just a couple of pigeons on the power line glaring down at me. Government spies. I squint hard at one.

“Tell แพทองธาร I’m not in the mood for presidential bullshit.”

It doesn’t blink. Figures. I light a cigarette, and the flame sputters mockingly.

The 7-Eleven is open, but the fridge hums a melancholic mechanical tune; the clerk’s striped uniform lays abandoned on the counter. I take a bag of Lay’s and leave exact change, because everyone in Bangkok holds a profound respect for the law.

I’m halfway through the chips when it hits me: maybe I missed the Rapture, or a military coup so polite, they evacuated everyone but the most drunk.

I wander. The streets stretch long and prideful like my bad decisions. A taxi’s turn signal blinks left forever. I knock on a random condo door — no answer. I knock again in a second. Still… no one.

At Lumpini Park, I lie down on a bench and listen to the koi flop around in the murky lake.

“What if I was a koi?” I muse. Life would be just breadcrumbs and vibes.

I could start a Koi religion.

Rule one: no pants.

Rule two: only crisp breadcrumbs.

Rule three: pending divine revelation.

Maybe I’d get a cult following. Bangkok Koi-ptists. Meet every Tuesday. Discuss water temperatures. No sermons. Just synchronized swimming.

I nod at a fat orange one. “My apostle.”

It burps a bubble and swims away. Betrayal.

The feeling of betrayal hits too close to home. Sadness french kisses me.

I try to call someone.

“แม่ {auto-translation: mom}” — no.

“Bitch” — maybe.

But it doesn’t even matter. My phone tells me, “No Signal.” Even satellites ghost me.

I find a bottle of expired Chang in a donation bin and toast the empty skyline.

“To the king,” I mumble, unsure which one I mean.

I wait for the breeze to carry back a joke from a God that’s still working. Quiet humor. The bottle warms in my hand, and I finish it anyway. The sad part isn’t that I’m dumpster diving; it’s that the beer doesn’t hit.

I scream like a mad man, like a drunk, like a junkie. It tears through my chest, bounces off empty condo windows, and dies in the jungle of wires ahead.

I press my forehead to the pavement. Bangkok breathes under me, warm and indifferent. My stomach growls; hunger feels honest.

I drag myself into a shuttered FamilyMart and lie down in aisle three, between the ramen and sanitary pads. I pull a pack of Toasty cheese sandwiches to my chest like a childhood blanket and close my eyes.

I whisper, “แม่, แม่อยู่ไหน…” My eyes close, heavy and automatic.

I reminisce about my father’s laugh at the beach; my sister smearing Tiger Balm on my forehead; a girl taking her toothbrush and leaving a plant she knew I wouldn’t water.

By the time morning stumbles in again, I’ve built a shrine of empty wrappers and hope. I leave myself there and walk until my legs shake. I pass my apartment and don’t stop. Nobody waits.

I reach the Chao Phraya river and stare into the depths of the water. It doesn’t shimmer like I remember. It just stares back, murky like me. I think about jumping. Would anyone, anything reach for me?

But my gut tells me no, and it’s the only thing I seem to listen to. I sit and borrow the river’s patience. One bar of signal stutters alive.

I record a voicemail. “แม่ ผมอยู่ที่แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา ผมไม่ไปไหน ผมสัญญา” My voice sounds like someone I could forgive. I stay on the line until the beep; I breathe with the city the whole time. The silence feels shared.

When I stand, the pigeons finally blink.

Prin Sairungsri

Image:Nik Cyclist from Bangkok, Thailand, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons lone person sitting beside the lake in lupini Park in Bangkok. Lights reflect off the water and in the background are tall buildings.