osmoala

I felt sad and lonely after watching Savages because my knee hurt.

   It had been coming and going for three months and when it got worse the pain was a spike thru the left side of my right knee. I would never run or surf again, or be the last man standing in a fist fight.

   Then all of a sudden I made the connection: it all had started when I bought the pair of Asics! I was doing quite a bit of walking here in Siem Reap and I was going to the gym all the time and they didn't like people wearing flip-flops there. It's the fucking runners!

I showed Nico the bandage I was wearing around the knee. ”I got this one for stability.”

   ”It looks a bit tight.”

   ”It's a medium size. They didn't have anything bigger.”

   He laughed at me: ”Look at you – you're a big guy, and you are wearing a medium size bandage! It stops your blood circulation and your knee gets even worse – hah hah haa!”

   We were sitting at the bar at The Sok San Street Boutique, sipping 50-cent beers and even though he thought Fidel Castro ”was a great man” we seemed to get along pretty well. He was one of those light-hearted communists you sometimes happen to run into by accident or sheer luck. He dressed like one too, always wearing particoloured shirts and baggy shorts. The long beard tied with a string. I had known him for a year now and he always seemed to be in a good mood.

   ”Maybe you're right. I bought the wrong shoes and I've got the wrong bandage. I feel like an idiot now.”

   ”Hah hah haa!” He waved to the pretty waitress for more beer.

   I had stayed here at The Boutique for a month and it cost me 450 dollars. Now I had a small apartment for 110 dollars a month in a nice neighbourhood with plenty of restaurants, only a ten minute walk down Funky Lane to Sok San Road, but I used to come here now and then for the ice cold draughts. And the staff was great.

We talked about Yvonne, the Dutch lady who had stayed at The Concept Residence last year when we all used to gather around the pool. Yvonne had died on the plane to China, where she had a connecting flight to Amsterdam. She was old but not old enough to die of old age. She hadn't been well for the last months of her stay though; she drank vodka heavily and chainsmoked Camels, and the joints too when she got them somehow; we brought food to her and we refused to buy her more vodka, but she wouldn't eat and the vodka she got by herself taking a tuk tuk back and forth to the supermarket.

   At the end of her stay she spent a few days in hospital for dehydration and for injuring her leg when she took a bad fall being drunk. Her son runs a small place on Massage Street selling Dutch snacks, but we never saw much of him.

   ”I think she was ready to go.” I had a sip of the frosty glass. ”Like she knew she was going to die. Hinu and I said goodbye to her when she was sitting in the cab; there was this shimmer in her eyes, like she had made up her mind.”

   ”Yes.” Nico looked philosophical for a moment. ”Maybe she knew... And she didn't have much of a life in The Netherlands anyway.”

   We said nothing for a moment, savouring the memories of the eccentric and kind hearted Yvonne.

   ”Well – the cleaning girl asked Hinu afterwards if Yvonne's son would have to buy the company a new aeroplane.”

   ”Why?” asked Nico.

   ”Because Yvonne died on that plane.”

I took a few days off from the gym and started taking walks using my flip-flops. The knee was already getting better.