Graham Lawrence

Writer, Publisher, Retired

The Eggman

It was around seven or eight years ago that I first noticed him, this aging man. Quite exactly how old he was, was hard to tell as he had the start of a curved back and looked constantly at the floor with his bewhiskered jowls hanging from each side of his mouth. His hair was white or silver, but not in a distinguished looking way, but more in a mop of short but unkempt hair hanging over his head and flopping down onto his forehead as he shuffled forward with his brown scuffed sandals around his brown feet and his blue fisherman pants swaying with movement and breeze. His arched back inside his plaid long-sleeved shirt was letting out a little perspiration as he lugged the wide basket containing his collection of about thirty boiled eggs. He manoeuvred from table to table along the stretch of seawall at Laem Than where the young people sat and drank and chatted trying to sell an egg or two or three at each table for the drinkers to snack on. Occasionally he was even successful in getting someone to buy three eggs in a little plastic bag with a small sachet of sauce as he manoeuvred surprisingly rapidly between the jovial groups.

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Holding Rice

The sky was darkening by the minute as the clouds turned from white to light grey to a darker shade, to charcoal and now indeed black with a rapidity rarely seen. A wind had suddenly sprung up. Starting as a light breeze with a vague hint of coolness. Then gradually becoming a more noticeable breath of cool on face and exposed skin. A stronger blast. And now strengthening as its power is rediscovered, moving the branches on the trees surrounding the village and sending out a siren of rustles and creaking wood as it further strengthens and trees start to sway and bend. The sound of a branch falling through the foliage to the fine red dry dirt on the ground breaks the whistles of wind now flowing through not only every open space but finding every gap between massed trees, the smattering of houses on the dirt red packed mud road, that they were built along. The red dirt from under the trees, the road and even the rice farmland down the end of the pike now becoming airborne and coating the floors of the rude wooden houses on stilts, passing into the communal areas and under the houses where the farm tools were now coated in red. Visibility falling as the black darkness seemed to descend around all. With the rise of the wind, now a crescendo of whistles, crashing boughs, falling tools and pieces of slamming houses. The air now filled not only with dust in the air but pieces of tree, house, tile and detritus. Doors not fastened blown closed and open, crashing in rhyme to the beat of the wind.

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Jesus

When I was a child my sister had this picture bible for kids, which had been given to her by her god mother. It was a large hardback book with many pictures and some chosen stories extracted from the bible such as Moses and the parting of the waves, some parables, Jesus and the feeding of the many, and ones like that. But what I mostly remembered it for was the picture on the front. The hardback book had one of those glossy front and back covers that tucked into the front and back book covers. On the front of this was the name and a picture of a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with a hand held out with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him was a blazing sun that left a halo round his head.


I was sitting at one of the stone tables at Mr. Bow’s just off of Tanao Road looking down the soi past the dogs, motorcycles and the occasional worker who were drifting in and out of the shophouses. It was hot, but the sun was falling and the temperature would soon drop. For now, though the sun was blazing lower into my eyes causing me to squint and think of moving bench. But the benches round the table were taken by the others sitting with me, but they were chatting to each other. I was both alone and surrounded at the same time, but in one of those late afternoon thoughtful, quiet periods that hit you in the tropics just letting my mind run over whatever came into it as I looked away from the table and around where I was but not really taking in the run down shophouses, wooden buildings and greenery or the little alley off the side that led back to where I had come from.

At some point my wandering gaze caused me to look back down the soi towards the road that ran past the distant post office and barbers and on towards the cheaper guest houses where some of the growing African community stayed. There was someone coming towards me. At first, they were a silhouette or shadow with the sinking sun right behind them. The intense light caused my eyes to struggle at first. I squinted as little drops of water ran from my eyes. But this quickly passed and I saw the figure near with a vast light around their head. The closer they came, the more I saw. The approaching figure was a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him the blazing sun still left a glowing golden halo around his head.

This was my first ever encounter with Jesus.

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Family

Nim was a family man. Like many poor farmers in the villages of rural Thailand he held strong beliefs. All he lived for were his wife, daughters, nephews and any other member of the extended family. Not a wealthy man and one who was blighted by every farming venture he tried turning to dust in his hands, but one who surrounded by family remained happy and upbeat.

Now a few years ago it just so happened that Nim’s latest venture into a new piece of farming machinery, or was it a new crop had gone disastrously and predictably wrong resulting in another pressing debt that needed to be paid off. It wasn’t a time of year when work was plentiful in Uttaradit, so being illiterate the only option was a trip to one of the building sites of central Thailand for months of daily toil until enough was saved to cover the lost farm investment. Leaving the family would be hard but having the family land repossessed would only leave them landless and forced to leave the village, so there was no option. Tum, Nim’s friend, recommended a site in Rayong in the industrial east of the country where they could both go.

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Cuz

I met Jenny Lawrence, cuz, while working in homelessness in a winter night shelter for young adults in Sydenham, South London. The shelter got an extended life beyond winter under a Housing Association, and it would carry on as a homeless shelter for a few years. The building was pretty impressive for a homeless night shelter. It had been the training dormitory for a bank previously. There were single rooms for each guest and the building was divided into two parts – one for men and one for women. There was a communal TV room, a large canteen with a large kitchen, a laundry and a store for used for donated clothes.

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Help

I knew Neil about twenty years ago. I did not know him well. I did not know him badly. He had had a long and interesting life and had seen dark times, but come out the other side a positive and kind person, which if you knew his story is quite an achievement. I was in my 40s back then and he a lot older and from a different time to me. He was now happily married and settled, doing a part-time job and was one of the people to help me with work, although now he was thinking of retirement.

I was sitting in a Pattaya bar with Neil drinking a beer, and he a coke. He had long since stopped drinking the grog as he liked to call it. He had asked me about what I had done before coming to Thailand and had talked about his life. We talked about the challenges of life living away from home. It was then that he told me this story, which had happened a few years before.

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Twins

I stand looking into the deep blue azure sky with the sun blazing and reflecting off of me and twinkling and blinding and heating, and I gaze at my not so distant twin and see the same. Both of us so proud and tall in the early morning sun that is warming us both from a long night before. And down below such an amount of movement and sound just like on so many days.

And knowing of the good and the bad that I exist for as it spins, and moves and churns all around me. At times so tired of it all. At times so in need of change. At times so much wanting not to be part of it. And always the bad remaining uppermost. Why oh why do they have to do bad?
Now busier and noisier and dirtier and with rising smells and odours and sounds that only serve to disillusion more as I wonder how long? How long must this incessant repetition go on for? Not just for me but also my own identical twin. Identical in virtually every detail. And with what some would say was perfection that my own father my own mother my creators and the creators of my replica were so very, very proud of. And for some reason that neither of us understood so many who lived near us were so proud of. Why?

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The Eggman Lives

It was around seventeen or eighteen years ago that I first noticed him, this aging man. Quite exactly how old he was, was hard to tell as he had the start of a curved back and looked constantly at the floor with his bewhiskered jowls hanging from each side of his mouth. His hair was white or silver, but not in a distinguished looking way, but more in a mop of short but unkempt hair hanging over his head and flopping down onto his forehead as he shuffled forward with his brown scuffed sandals around his brown feet and his blue fisherman pants swaying with movement and breeze. His arched back inside his plaid long-sleeved shirt was letting out a little perspiration as he lugged the wide basket containing his collection of about thirty boiled eggs. He manoeuvred from table to table along the stretch of seawall at Laem Than where the young people sat and drank and chatted trying to sell an egg or two or three at each table for the drinkers to snack on. Occasionally he was even successful in getting someone to buy three eggs in a little plastic bag with a small sachet of sauce as he maneuvered surprisingly rapidly between the jovial groups.

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The Excitement of Life in the Time of Covid

Mundanity becomes everything

Graham Lawrence

22nd August 2021

And so, after around 18 months of this covid pandemic, things are really not getting any better sitting in a small apartment in Bangkok. Every wander to the supermarket or market to get food is just an exercise in walking past the bankrupt, boarded businesses, the increasing number of homeless and the hordes of beggars if you approach the underground stations. Of course, apart from markets and supermarkets, food stalls and stand-alone necessary shops, nothing is open. Nothing of course except for the shops breaking the rules and massive buildings that will not force closure in their tenants’ operations.

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Wistful

Wistful How things change, Banglampu Area Thailand
wistful

It has been some time since I went back to the Banglamphu area. It was the place I first stayed decades ago when I came to Thailand. Things change.

Back in the day, Khao San was lined with mostly shop house guest houses renting rooms for less than a pound a night. There were a few higher up the market such as the Chart (now a run down looking dingy place to eat and drink, the Marco Polo, which has long since gone and the hotel. Now Khao San is lined with mid-range “hostels” and “guest houses” that look like something from a theme park dedicated to “travellers”, but with every mod-con you would want and of course at a price to match it. Things change.

Back in the day, there was no internet. You had to make international calls from a phone in a shop or post office or send letters. Now there is little need even from the ubiquitously offered wifi. Everyone has a data plan on the array of phones and tablets they carry. I wonder if somehow the romance of travelling has been lost, but I am probably just a relic from an age gone by. And things change.

Back in the day, the alleys running parallel to Khao San Road itself held the most run down and sketchiest of hang-outs, guest houses and characters both local and foreign. Now they are in a market beyond what the original Khao San was itself, or are vast building sites awaiting the next five or six storey building. Things change.

Back in the day, the small local school near Tanao on Khao San Road was surrounded by market stalls selling pirate brand name gear or tape cassettes and within meters of bars. Now the school is surrounded by market stalls selling pirate brand name gear, DVD dance mixes and within meters of bars. Things change but not everything.

Back in the day, there was a beautiful old wooden house on Khao San. Now I find myself sitting in the garden of the house with my wife drinking a single bottle of beer watching the guests of what is now a guest house come and go. Things change.

Back in the day,…

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