THE BUMP
The rising dawn heralded yet another fine day in this ‘Land of Smiles’ and friendly demeanor. The girl turned in her sleep, and a few strands of long black hair, caught in the draft from the ceiling fan, drifted across the man’s face, gently arousing him, prompting another rising in the probe of life force, but an overfilled bladder necessitated a further rising from the bed and a reluctant leaving of the warm still sleeping body lost in tranquil dreams of the future and the coming new day. Later, after the chores of ablutions and breakfast, the man looked at the girl, so peaceful and calm, lying on her side, with the mane of black hair spread over her back. He kissed the cheek of the sleeping face, and left the house stepping quietly, avoiding the all-the-time sleeping cats fluidly sprawled in the porch.
The car purred into life at the first turn of the key; he backed it down the short drive, feeling the familiar thud as the wheels bumped over the steel rail for the sliding gate. He backed across the lane just enough to avoid a collision with the wall opposite, then full lock forward, which barely avoided the waste bin, and into second gear down the lane to the main road. He stopped the car at the junction and sat waiting for a break in the traffic, consciously staying calm in the face of suicidal Thai drivers. He eased out on to the main road and drove slowly, thinking that apart from local driving standards, how fortunate he was to live in such peaceful surroundings; the road curving, rising and falling following the natural contours, in rhythm with the countryside, with no scarring cuttings and embankments. Blue sea could be glimpsed over the grass verge and through the thinly spread trees, and the scattering of single storey houses emphasized rather than detracted from the vibrant living nature.
The traffic thinned, going only in his direction, the opposite side of the road was strangely empty. There was something ahead; people standing around, just looking; stationary cars on the other side of the road; the traffic ahead reduced to creeping, forming a queue. The man joined the line, inching along, and saw something lying in the road. As the queue moved, the something resolved itself into a figure, feet towards him; the figure seemed to be sleeping, so peaceful, on its side, with a mane of fine blond hair spread over the back, shiny and carefully groomed as it would be after the ritual morning brushing. As he slowly passed, the face came into view. It was an ugly lump of gore on the road, an obscene deposit dumped just ahead of the figure. On the head where the face had been was a scramble of raw flesh and bone. There was no blood, neither on the body nor the head. It was as though she was sleeping, lying on her side on the road, near the heap of her face; no dreams of future happiness for her, death lay under the groomed hair. The wisp of black hair on the man’s cheek that morning had the intimacy of the sweet smell of life. The smell of death lingered under the fair hair of the girl’s body lying on the road.
Further on, a motor cycle on its side, and another figure, this one a young man, unmarked, just lay there, dead. Did he kiss his fair-haired girl’s cheek that morning? A kiss, probably their last; was she awake to savor that last kiss? They could not know that it was the last kiss, and now they lie apart, separated by the road, and death. Only the gathering flies could kiss that scraped flesh, on the road, and on the skull.
The road was normally free of pedestrians at that hour. As the flies hovered, so people appeared, and as the flies feasted, so people also hovered, and feasted, open eyed, absorbing every detail of the horror; to be repeated and retold, and in the telling the two bodies were torn to pieces by the accident; more gory details were added, to give extra flavor to the tale, so that the horror became entertainment for friends of the onlookers. No thoughts of sorrow, no pity for the young couple robbed of life by the ignorance of the untutored driver who mowed them down, and drove away. No thought of family and friends in Europe, their shock, and their grief: after all they are only foreigners. They can’t spend money here, neither when they are alive in Europe, nor dead on the road in the ‘Land of Smiles’. No matter that a young couple lie dead in the road, their bodies being devoured by flies, and by gaze of people.
The traffic moved on gathering speed, and the scene was left behind. The man, numbed by the experience, instinctively drove his car to his destination went about his business, and returned home by another route. Meanwhile, the police removed the bodies, and spread sand on the scrap of face. All that remained of the young lives was a small heap of sand.
The next day the man drove past the scene, and felt a thud as the wheels bumped over a small pile of sand in the road, and he realized that he had driven over the remains of the face. For a long time, on later occasions, when he drove out of the drive, and the wheels bumped over the steel rail, the memory of the fair hair and the scraped face would haunt him. To lose one’s face in Thailand is a social loss, easily redeemed by an appropriate gift to the local Wat (temple). To lose one’s face in death is unrecoverable, the horror indescribable, and the stuff of future nightmares.
