Sakit

©2011 Rudolf Helder

Today I'm "sakit." Sick. Don't know why. I just am. A few things may have contributed. Leaving, as the French say, "est mourir un peu," and they're not talking about "the little death."
In my case, the last month in Honolulu had been exhausting.

"Aren't you excited to go to Bali?" asked several friends who'd probably given an arm or a leg (not both, I know them) to up and leave in my stead. Indeed, several months in Bali doesn't sound so bad, not even to those living in paradise, as we Hawaiians like to call Hawaii. No, I wasn't excited and I didn't know even how that feels anymore, living in today's world of unlimited possibilities and fast jet travel. I already knew I could get there in little over 24 hours. It isn't exactly an undertaking like traveling around the world in a balloon, a papyrus raft, or a solar car. Thàt I'd be excited about.

In my case it was more a matter of getting it over with, the selling of broken belongings, the shredding of sensitive documents from my FBI informant days, the burying of loot under a tree somewhere I wouldn't forget. Indeed, these were all timed procedures, and if executed well within the timeframe I'd set for myself I'd automatically be ejected upon logistical completion.

But when that moment came I was depleted. Lacking a bed to sleep in I became dependent on the goodness of strangers. Well, not really, just a friend who's a little strange. So, when I boarded flight UA 873, or one with a similar sounding name, I'd become a little weak in the knees.
Imagine, the total weight of what was in my house had passed through my hands, from feather light to fucking heavy.

It began with an extreme allergy on the plane. Running nose, itchy throat, watery eyes. I knew my immune system was, as Dick Cheney would call it, in its last throes, although who knows, it could have been its first throes.
Anyway, throes and throat were in cahoots. And my only weapon of mass destruction was an antihistamine bought at an airport shop in Bangkok, manufactured by an American company I'd never heard of, but luckily extensively tested on animals that had experienced side effects such as vomiting, headaches (how'd they know?), and stomach ulcers. Aren't humans animals too? If you want you can get away with anything.

Long flight short, in a mini bus on the way from Denpasar airport to Ubud I had become physically frail, just no spitting image at all of my former robust self. When Trishna, the driver to whom I had been serenading all the Hare Krishna songs I know--realizing my mistake when he handed me his card later--made a wrong turn into Monkey Forest Rd, I knew the end was near. My end, not the trip's, as throngs of cars, moped, buses and walking tourists were reinventing American politics gridlock in traffic form. Maybe the word even comes from that, but who knows (for sure)?
By that time it had become abundantly clear that the nasi goreng I'd quickly eaten at the airport may had something to do with the worsening of my situation, but being forced to suck it back up my spine while stuck in traffic was contradictory to what my body was telling me, and I translate liberally: Mon, let's get the fuck to a toilet! Like, NOW!
Well, I couldn't obey nature's call. To my own credit I did run a few scenarios where I'd kick the door open, rush past a coffeeshop counter straight to the bathroom and exploding in privacy, but none of them seemed, well, doable without getting arrested less than an hour of touching down in Denpasar.
So I held it.

The body is a strange thing that we inhabit. We know our bodies to some extend, like we know it has a backside, but when was the last time you examined it? My point is, there's all kind of things going on in our vehicle of which we are supposedly the captain, high and dry in the cockpit, that we have no clue about. To exhaust the analogy of the pilot further, here's a gal or guy, who knows what she or he's doing while kicking the tires pre-flight, while most of us have simply no idea what goes on in our ever forward moving mobile.
While awaiting arrival I had time to visualize the worst: rapturing spleens, collapsing kidneys, intestinal knotting, billowing bile, and for good measure, tide pools of puss, all clearly contaminated with hastily chewed nasi goreng that had not even tasted good (which should have been a clear indicator of its value as food and stopped me).

Anyway, by the time I completed my tight-assed walk to my bungalow and stuck the key in the lock with quivering fingers I had become fully aware of major damage to several organs, something that became even more obvious when I had to flush a few extra times...

And that was only the beginning.

All of today was spent in the greatest discomfort, just the Bali experience everyone thought I'd be so excited about, but the good news is that it's going to be better--eventually. If not, this may be the last post you'll ever read from me, but don't hold your breath. Better yet, do what I've been doing, hold your nose.