Another story from Isaan

[soalbundy]

THE NATURE OF EUTHANASIA

My village here in Isaan has a large ornate Buddhist temple and 100 meters away is a manmade lake used to supply water to the houses, around this lake is a keep fit concrete path for joggers or in my case walkers. The path runs parallel on three sides to the small village roads and so the lake isn’t a square but looks as if it would like to be. The fourth side runs past the village football field graced with a fire brigade one story house with chairs and tables and a bowling ball pit outside. On both sides of the path are trees and on the far side of the roads are houses interspersed with rice fields. It is a quiet pleasant place, ideal for contemplation especially at 4:30 in the morning when the monks start their chanting and the moon and stars are reflected on to the surface of the still lake, this is when I usually start my walks around the lake which I have measured to be 1100 meters from start to finish and I try to walk around 4 times before I go home for breakfast. It is of course still dark when I start off and I have several times tripped over a startled 400kg water buffalo which until I arrived had been sleeping comfortably on its side.

On the South-West corner of the path between the path and the road is a 3 meter square concrete platform set on to the earth and on this platform is a small 2 meter square hut built on top of 4 posts 1 meter high. It is well built of teak wood with a tiled roof which is populated by a family of pigeons. Three small wooden steps lead up to the very low interior which is where I sit after each round of the lake, at 70 my legs aren’t what they used to be and are grateful for a 5 minute respite. Inside the hut are several painted plaster figures, the largest about 80cm tall, are of an old man and his wife sitting in a relaxed manner, next to the man is a small figure representing a boy and on the right hand side of his wife is a girl. There are other figures, a large grey cobra snake adorned with flowers, some small elephants the size of toys and a few small deities. Amongst the figures are plates of food and plastic bottles of Fanta as well as incense sticks. The old couple are the founders of the village which dates back several hundreds of years and are revered by the local people, I often see them offering a ‘wai’ as a salutation when they drive by on their motorbikes or pickups. In front of the hut on the concrete floor are two large flower pots containing flowering shrubs which I have taken to watering each day, this has culminated to my cleaning out the hut and removing cobwebs and dust and so I have become the unofficial keeper of the shrine.

One day, as I had just finished my last round, I was smoking and watching the sun come up when I noticed a Pigeon sitting quietly on the concrete near me, this was unusual and as I stood up I saw it flutter weakly and move slowly underneath the hut it was obviously incapable of flying and I noticed a red abscess on one side of its neck. Death was probably near and it seemed to know it, it sat apathetically waiting. It was then that I noticed a large black crow sitting on a branch of a nearby tree observing the pigeon with interest. This could not end well, I felt a wave of sympathy for the pigeon, perhaps my age had something to do with this flood of emotion, although I am not doddery and helpless yet who knows how far off that may be. I watched in silence, the crow came to a decision and flew down to the concrete floor ignoring my presence and approached the pigeon with an arrogant carelessness, the pigeon made a few hapless flaps of its wings as a weak form of defence. I stood up suddenly and the crow now startled flew off but not far, it flew back to its tree and continued to observe the pigeon. I picked up a lump of mud and threw it in the crows direction who flew away leisurely twice around the hut and landed on a different tree which was further away. I stayed at the hut for another half an hour but the crow wouldn’t leave. I walked away down the path continually looking back and sure enough when I was 50 meters away the crow flew back to the pigeon, I hastily retrieved my steps and returned to the hut, when the crow saw that I was returning it flew leisurely back to its tree, watched me and waited, it knew this couldn’t go on forever. I looked at the pigeon waiting. It came slowly out from underneath the hut and I managed to shoo it up the steps and into the hut where it settled behind the grandfather. I sat on the steps again and looked at the crow in triumph, daring it to come down again. It seemed to look at me disdainfully and left flying high up to a water tank 8 meters high and 50 meters away, it settled down for a long wait.

I had to leave, breakfast was calling and so I walked away looking back now and again but the crow made no move. Having reached my house and had breakfast I returned to see if the pigeon was still safe in the hut, it wasn’t. It’s body lay on the path, it’s head had a hole pecked in it and it’s chest had been torn open the organs inside appeared to be missing, the crow was nowhere to be seen. I had been wrong to interfere, death had come swiftly, nature had taken its course, the crow had eaten and the pigeon was relieved of its suffering. The crow had done its job as efficiently as a Dutch doctor giving his grateful patient the cocktail drink of oblivion.

Edited October 19, 2019 by ubonjoe
changed to default font and color

[MrTrip]

Why would you type green text? It gives me a headache just looking at it[emoji85][emoji85]


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[transam]

Just now, MrTrip said:

Why would you type green text? It gives me a headache just looking at it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought it was big and blue....????

[from the home of CC]

any chance you sending a few of those shrooms' down this way is there?

[Vacuum]

18 minutes ago, MrTrip said:

Why would you type green text? It gives me a headache just looking at it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Never mind the color, to much text.

[wgdanson]

Just now, Vacuum said:

Never mind the color, to much text.

Yeh, good job I have a 90 inch monitor !    LOL

[PatOngo]

I hope you organised a tamboon and cremated the remains!

[sillyfool]

smoke em if you got em.

[katana]

Too few paragraphs.

[taichiplanet]

Once in a quiet park set back from a beach in Sydney, i watched as about 10 Myna birds were harassing a crow. It was obviously too close or had just raided a nest The crow didn't seemed bothered by it, just languidly flying around as the mynas kept swooping in on it. After about 2 minutes the crow got tired of it, grabbed and killed the next one that dive bombed it and dropped the body and just as languidly flew off. I was a little taken back at the callous nature of the scene.

 

Liked your story BTW,

[IsaanAussie]

Loved the story. Stories like that are the trigger for many discussions in the villages of Isaan. Especially with the location at the DaiYai shrine. The elders of the village would be asked to explain the meaning and the signs being given to you. Anamism at work. 

I would be very interested in hearing what the verdict is, good or bad sign! But as suggested in a previous comment, be prepared to offer tamboon and hold some sort of ceremonial event.

[Longcut]

So I guess the big question is, what does the story say about what the winning lottery numbers will be?

[SunsetT]

On 10/19/2019 at 10:34 AM, IsaanAussie said:

Loved the story. Stories like that are the trigger for many discussions in the villages of Isaan. Especially with the location at the DaiYai shrine. The elders of the village would be asked to explain the meaning and the signs being given to you. Anamism at work. 

I would be very interested in hearing what the verdict is, good or bad sign! But as suggested in a previous comment, be prepared to offer tamboon and hold some sort of ceremonial event.

The elders said that the village founders ghosts instructed Soulbuddy to write in green in order to transmit a curse to those TV members who like to complain about just about anything., e.g., text colour. Any whingers will then spontaneously combust within 24 hours!

[soalbundy]

I do apologize for the text size and colour. This was a cut and paste from an email that I sent to my sister in Australia, she has a cattle farm in the outback and once a month or so we send each other small stories of things that have happened in our lives in the countryside. She likes the blue colour of the text (it is light blue on my screen) and the larger text size although there is nothing wrong with her eyes. She has written me some wonderful emails concerning cutting firebreaks during grass fires and floods, being left in the outback at night with a dead horse and sitting with a rifle, scared of wild dingos, waiting for her husband to find her with the jeep etc. She likes me to write it in the manner of a story as she collects them and has made them into a book form for her family.