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[triedunture]

17702 / 50000 words. 35% done!


About five hours into the journey up the river, the Frenchman said something to the pilot's wife, and the river boat came to a halt on the eastern bank. Leon watched while Jane and Chris slept: the old Frenchman took hold of his portmanteau and, with a delighted wave goodbye directed at Leon and the boat family, he stepped off into the thick black mud that lined the river. Leon scanned the embankment for the Frenchman's destination, but he didn't see one building, one road, one ounce of human civilization.

“What's here?” he asked the boatman's wife. “Where is he going?” He mimed “going” by making his fingers into a pair of legs and walking them along the wooden bench the woman was sitting on.

She laughed. “He wants the temple,” she said, and pointed to the top of the leafy green
mountain that rose above them and cast them into shadow. Leon stared at its summit, training his eyes to delete the green trees and blue sky until he saw the Frenchman's goal emerge: a stone temple, hewn from the rock of the mountain, twin statutes of dragon-snakes curling around its entrance.

“He is sick,” the boatman's wife continued. “He wants the temple to heal.”

Now that he thought of it, the Frenchman had looked frail and gaunt, though Leon had assumed that was a product of being French. Now he knew suddenly that if he had caught a glimpse of his palm, he would have seen the word "cancer" written there as clear as day. Death was following them; Leon couldn't shake the feeling it would always be following them.

“The temple. Will it work?” Leon asked.

She scrunched her nose and shook her head as if to say, “No, but wouldn't it be nice if it could?”

The river boat chugged along for several more hours before coming to a halt at Pak Beng. The pilot's wife explained to Leon in her wonderfully blunt English that they needed to stop for the night in the village called Pak Beng; tomorrow they could continue on to Luang Prabang, where Leon was certain he would find art.

Luang Prabang, the ancient home of kings and queens, the tropical time capsule ringed by swaying palm trees. Leon could picture it in his mind. Pak Beng was its polar opposite. From the river's edge, Leon couldn't even see the village, save for one or two thatched roofs. The sheer rock face that came down to the Mekong guarded it from sight. There was a rough, winding staircase carved into the stone, a nearly vertical climb.

"Hire men to carry bags," the pilot's wife suggested. "They do it for one quarter American. Worth your money. Yes, yes."

"No, that's all right. We can carry them," Leon assured her, not knowing if that was true or not. He shook Jane and Chris awake and told them about the stop for the night. They shouldered their bags, agreeing to save what little they could. After all, they needed a hotel room and dinner, and with their money pooled together, they would have enough.

A small crowd of Pak Beng men gathered at the dock, offering with hands outstretched to carry their bags. "No thanks, no thanks," Leon repeated continuously with a bright smile. Jane and Chris did the same with confidence. The men followed them in their bare feet and faded tee shirts with pictures of professional wrestlers on the front. They kept saying, "One quarter, only one quarter." Still, Leon, Jane, and Chris said no. They shouldered their packs and mounted the staircase.

They handed the bags over somewhere around the hundred and thirtieth step.

"Fucking hell," Jane gasped as they kept climbing.

"An elevator. That's what this place needs," Chris said.

The three lucky men that had seized their bags carried them to the inn attached to the open-air eatery overlooking the river below. The brown, sluggish water churned by, unhurried and slouching. Leon watched it as they paid the innkeeper for a night's stay. And he wondered.



Meanwhile, I'm on the NaNo diet. Have you tried it? I've lost 3 lbs. since the beginning of the month. Apparently I'm too busy to eat? It's kind of awesome.