The next morning I was brought back to life by a rumble in the stomach. For many days this is the first time I feel the hunger. Right this moment the door jerks open, Bruno comes back from breakfast with the morning paper wrapped in a roll that resembles a king-sized fries, if such thing ever exists.
'How are you feeling today?'
My belly calls out for food again.
'Starving. And yesterday you went out to Burger King without me!' I complain in a voice that can hardly reach out space beyong my lips.
His face soon puzzles up as if I'm talking in an alien language.
'What are you talking about? I swear I didn't go anywhere. Is there a Burger King in town that I don't know?'
My body all of sudden frozen up as a cold thrill rises from the backbone. He's right. Never saw a single Burger King around here. So all the fries, the tree and the octopus clinging in the jungle, they are all hallucination. Pink elephant. Thank goodness I'm still alive. For all the things I'm bound to suffer, I do need a good karma to put me through.
As I'm sinking deeply in trance, Bruno throws out two train tickets. 'Let's get out of here before you die. The burning ghat is too busy these days.'
Never been this superstitious but at the moment he said it, I do feel a wave of something indescribable seeping out of my body slowly floating skyward.
The evil deserted me and I saw the light.
Last minute before leaving Varanasi, I spend a rupee coin and all my courage on an auto-weighing machine in train station. Ticket comes out and shows a stunning number. That's how much I weighed back in sixth grade. Thanks to India.
As today stumbling into the comforst of Bangkok, indulging myself with Thai cuisine, my ambition to explore fades day by day in the smooth-as-silk Thai daily lives. In a moment like this, all the fears and loathing from Varanasi seem so surreal. Here floor is clean enough that you can lick. Nobody doing his bodily needs by the streets. Nobody bathing on the sidewalk. No cows roaming the town. No aroma of spices floating in the air. No spice in life. Something somehow is missing that I can't tell what exactly it is.
I guess India had planted a seed that leads to some kind of blossom in me while giving me illness. For the blossom that will come, noboday had a clue what it's going to look like. I may have to someday return to the madding crowds to find out.
Anyway this time I have no fear. Just keep floating and let things happen.
A winter day of 33 degree. Over a hot sweating noodle soup, I begin to read Sarah McDonald's HOLY COW! a life journey through India. On the first page, she wrote: ' India is Hotel California: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.'
Then I burst out in laugh, with goose bump from the head to the toes./ FIN