A bamboo bridge over rapidsSeksan Prasertkul Some stories seem to be buried stubbornly in our memory. They usually come back to haunt us on nights of loneliness, at moments when we let our mind drift with the whisper of the sea or the sighs of the breeze. They return time and time again like whirling waters and form a sad melody of life, intruding faintly, regardless of place, whenever we are engrossed in the present. On the last day of September 1980, my eight friends and I were walking down a high ridge and, a little before noon, we reached the upper course of the Kha Khaeng stream. Monsoon rains had been falling for days on end, at times seeming to split the whole range asunder, at others melting in a fine drizzle that lasted from dawn to dusk. Even when the rain stopped, the whole jungle was still as dim and damp as a deserted theatre. The smell of old leaves and soggy rotting logs had filled our nostrils along the way. Taking the ravine near the source of the Khwae Yai River as our starting point, we had walked for five full days in the rain, up and down steep mountain slopes. We were coming from the west, cutting across the common borders of Uthai Thani, Tak and Kanchanaburi provinces in order to reach the jungle’s edge at a place called Sap Fa Pha. Another day and we would reach our destination, provided we could safely cross the Kha Khaeng rapids. It was the end of the rainy season, and the water was at its highest level. The stream, turbid like a sea of boiling mud, had overflowed its banks and spread wide. All along its course we could see a scattering of half-submerged bushes, which swayed about like drowning men struggling wildly as they called out for help. Whole trees – roots, trunks and all – drifted down, and some got stuck on bushes which the current hadn’t yet torn up. On the opposite bank, a little beyond our route, a large monitor lizard had been swept onto a branch, to which it clung, bobbing up and down under the thrashing of the current; it was unable to climb up the bank and unable to let go, as it would be whisked away by the rapids. What a pathetic sight! It was a fully grown lizard which must have gone through a lot before being caught in the stream… Before deciding to leave the mountains at the end of September 1980, I’d spent more than five years of my life in the jungle. It hadn’t been easy for someone who happened to be born and lived for nearly two decades in a village by the sea, and all the more so for someone who
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had always been conscious that his parents had hoped he would provide for the family once he had graduated from university. I was able to get rid of the first burden within a fairly short time: it took me no longer than two rainy seasons to feel at home in the jungle and mountains. But the second burden was different. During those five years, I shouldered it every step of the way, day and night, from high rocky ridges through to meandering brooks. I still vividly remember the day I had to leave. I had travelled to Bang Pakong, my birthplace, to bid farewell to my parents. Father was the only one at home that day. Mother had gone to a neighbouring province to buy fruit she’d sell at the market. As I sat waiting for her to return home, I thought about the days of my childhood, when we still lived together. The more I brooded, the more I felt she was an angel heaven had punished by making her the mother of someone like me. Mother spoke little and hardly ever had a harsh word for her children. She was nonetheless one of the proudest women I have ever known. Because she was abandoned by her father in her infancy, had no relatives and never went to school, she was used to relying on herself since a very early age. No matter how destitute she was, she never begged from anyone; even among her own children, she’d never ask for help to ease her weariness if we weren’t considerate enough to see it ourselves. She usually got up before dawn to take goods to the market and, depending on how much there was, carried them either by pushcart or in baskets hanging from a yoke balanced on her shoulder. After selecting fruits for a while, just before it was time for her to leave the house, she’d nudge me gently awake or call me in her usual tone of voice; under no circumstances would she shout, because she disliked making noise and, besides, was afraid to unnecessarily awaken my little brother and sisters, who were still very young. One day, she tried to wake me up three times, but I wouldn’t get up. I was already awake, but I still wanted to sleep late like any child who was growing fast and showing signs of puberty. After a while, I began to feel that Mother was unusually quiet. I got up and saw her busy carrying goods on her shoulder, holding this, grabbing that, and on her face, which had begun to wrinkle, tears were streaming down. “No need.” She whisked my hands away after I jumped to relieve her of what she was holding. Since that day, I never allowed her to wake me up more than once. This, however, didn’t mean the end of our sad story.
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There was a time during which my mother had no money to buy fruit to resell or pay the rent for her stall at the village market. She earned five to ten baht a day from selling shaved-ice with syrup and toasted bread at the parking bay for the minibuses that ran between Bang Pakong and Chonburi. During that period, my father had gone looking for jobs in the South and my eldest sister and elder brother were earning their living in other provinces; thus I was the oldest child in the house. With my three younger siblings, it meant Mother had many mouths to feed day in and day out. She had a plaster piggy bank, made in the shape of a horse, in which there were more than ten coins in various sizes and a five-baht banknote. Any day when she didn’t earn enough from her sales to buy food, she’d take the coins to supplement whatever she had, and whenever she had one or two baht left, she’d slip them into the piggy bank. Things went on like this for a long time. One day, she came home looking utterly exhausted. She grumbled that there had been no one at the parking bay all day. After resting for a while, she took out the horse-shaped piggy bank, turned it upside down and inserted a hair clip to retrieve the five-baht note she badly needed to solve her current predicament. In no time her face grew tense and she suddenly burst into tears. “To have come this low, and still have them doing this to me,” she said between sobs. I sat stock-still and stole glances at the tears on her weather-beaten cheeks. I had the urge to hug her and say something, but I felt that, for people like us who’ve only had sad parts to play since the day we were born, it would be overreacting. I knew she didn’t feel sorry about the money but was disheartened that we were harming one another at a time when society at large was wilfully tearing itself apart. That day – the day of my departure – I sat waiting for her until it was near dusk, but she didn’t come. Father, who didn’t know why I had come home, tried to get me to stay the night, but I had to refuse. An appointment had been made that could not be missed – an appointment with my destiny which was tightly linked to the future of the country. Father hobbled to see me off at the end of the alley leading to our house. As I walked away quietly, I didn’t dare turn around and look at his face again for fear he might catch on to the fact that this time our separation could be final. Besides, I knew he didn’t like to see any of his children cry. And certainly not his sons. While we stopped for lunch, we argued among ourselves about the best way to cross the rapids. One member of our party was my lifelong soul mate, and she couldn’t swim, so we
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had to discard the option of placing our knapsacks on our heads and letting ourselves drift to the other bank. But even if she could swim, I doubt we’d have gone ahead with that method. We had no way of knowing what could be submerged beneath these fast-flowing waters. I once heard the story of an able-bodied man trying to swim across some jungle stream only to be impaled through the neck by a piece of wood. I myself had once waded chest-deep through a flash flood, and besides having to fight against the current with all my strength, had to step with both feet on bamboo thorns underwater; by the time I reached the bank, I was in pretty bad shape. Our eyes couldn’t assess the danger of such waters. One method we thought might work was to ask the strongest among us to tie himself to a rope and swim against the current to the opposite bank, then fasten the rope to make a line for the rest of us to cling to as we waded across. To test this theory, one of my friends, who had been acting as my bodyguard along the way, tried to enter the main watercourse to check its depth and strength of current. In the twinkling of an eye, his big, tall body was swept away as if snatched by a ghost. I saw him toss and tumble in the current for what seemed like ages and by the time he managed to grab a branch near the bank, he had been whisked fifty metres downstream. The test had been conclusive. Even if we were able to throw a line across the rapids, clinging to it to reach the opposite bank was not a sensible thing to do. If one of us were to let go of the rope under the pull of the current, the rest of us would have to spend days looking for the body, and at least one more day digging a grave for it, not to mention the eons it would take us to get o
สะพานไม้ไผ่ที่ผ่าน rapidsSeksan Prasertkul บางเรื่องดูเหมือนจะถูกฝังอยู่ในหน่วยความจำของเราดันทุรัง พวกเขามักจะกลับมาหลอกหลอนเราในคืนของความเหงา ในช่วงเวลาเมื่อเราปล่อยให้จิตใจของเราดริฟท์กับ whisper ทะเลหรือ sighs ของสายลม พวกเขากลับมาอีกครั้งเช่นน้ำ whirling และแบบเมโลดี้เศร้าของชีวิต intruding รำไร ว่า เมื่อใดก็ ตามเราจะหมกมุ่นอยู่ในปัจจุบัน ในวันสุดท้ายของเดือน 1980 กันยายน เพื่อนของฉันแปดและเดินริดจ์สูงและ น้อยก่อนเที่ยง เราถึงหลักสูตรบนน้ำแข้งขา ฝนมรสุมได้ถูกล้มวันใน ครั้งด้วยแบ่งทั้งหมดออกเป็นชิ้น ๆ ที่อื่นละลายพรำ ๆ ดีที่กินเวลาจากเช้าถึงค่ำมืด แม้เมื่อฝนหยุด ป่าทั้งยังเป็นมิติ และชื้นเป็นโรงละครร้าง กลิ่นของใบ และล็อกหึ่ง soggy ได้เติมจมูกของเราไปพร้อมกัน การ ravine ใกล้แหล่งที่มาของแควใหญ่เป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของเรา เราได้เดินห้าวันเต็มในสายฝน ขึ้นภูเขาสูงชันลาด เราได้มาจากตะวันตก ตัดข้ามพรมแดนทั่วจังหวัดอุทัยธานี ตาก และจังหวัดกาญจนบุรีเพื่อที่จะถึงขอบของป่าที่เรียกว่า Sap Fa ผา อีกวันและเราจะถึงปลายทางของเรา ให้เราได้อย่างปลอดภัยสามารถข้ามแก่งคาแข้ง มันเป็นปลายฤดูฝน และน้ำที่ระดับสูงสุดนั้น สตรีม turbid เช่นทะเลเดือดโคลน มี overflowed ของธนาคาร และแผ่กว้าง รับหลักสูตรของ เราสามารถดู scattering พุ่มน้ำท่วมครึ่ง ที่ swayed เช่นจมคนดิ้นรนอาละวาด ตามที่พวกเขาร้องเรียกขอความช่วยเหลือเกี่ยวกับ ทั้งต้นไม้ราก กางเกง และทั้งหมด – ลอยลง และบางส่วนได้ติดอยู่ในพุ่มไม้ซึ่งปัจจุบันยังไม่ได้ขาดค่า ตรงข้ามธนาคาร เล็กน้อยนอกจากเส้นทางของเรา ได้รับการกวาดจิ้งจกจอภาพขนาดใหญ่ไปสาขา ซึ่งมันพืช bobbing ขึ้นและลงภายใต้ thrashing ของปัจจุบัน ได้สามารถไต่เต้าขึ้นธนาคาร และไม่สามารถปล่อย เป็นมันจะได้ whisked ไปตามแก่ง น่าสงสารเห็นอะไร เป็นจิ้งจกเติบโตเต็มที่ต้องมีผ่านไปผ่านมากก่อนที่จะจับในกระแส ... ก่อนตัดสินใจจะออกจากภูเขาที่ส่วนท้ายของ 1980 กันยายน ฉันได้ใช้เวลากว่าห้าปีของชีวิตในป่า มันไม่ได้ถูกง่ายสำหรับคนที่เกิดขึ้นจะเกิด และอยู่เกือบสองทศวรรษที่ผ่านมาในหมู่บ้านริมทะเล และคอยให้คนที่001111 พื้นฐานภาษาอังกฤษ 1/2557 (AEC)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page 3had always been conscious that his parents had hoped he would provide for the family once he had graduated from university. I was able to get rid of the first burden within a fairly short time: it took me no longer than two rainy seasons to feel at home in the jungle and mountains. But the second burden was different. During those five years, I shouldered it every step of the way, day and night, from high rocky ridges through to meandering brooks. I still vividly remember the day I had to leave. I had travelled to Bang Pakong, my birthplace, to bid farewell to my parents. Father was the only one at home that day. Mother had gone to a neighbouring province to buy fruit she’d sell at the market. As I sat waiting for her to return home, I thought about the days of my childhood, when we still lived together. The more I brooded, the more I felt she was an angel heaven had punished by making her the mother of someone like me. Mother spoke little and hardly ever had a harsh word for her children. She was nonetheless one of the proudest women I have ever known. Because she was abandoned by her father in her infancy, had no relatives and never went to school, she was used to relying on herself since a very early age. No matter how destitute she was, she never begged from anyone; even among her own children, she’d never ask for help to ease her weariness if we weren’t considerate enough to see it ourselves. She usually got up before dawn to take goods to the market and, depending on how much there was, carried them either by pushcart or in baskets hanging from a yoke balanced on her shoulder. After selecting fruits for a while, just before it was time for her to leave the house, she’d nudge me gently awake or call me in her usual tone of voice; under no circumstances would she shout, because she disliked making noise and, besides, was afraid to unnecessarily awaken my little brother and sisters, who were still very young. One day, she tried to wake me up three times, but I wouldn’t get up. I was already awake, but I still wanted to sleep late like any child who was growing fast and showing signs of puberty. After a while, I began to feel that Mother was unusually quiet. I got up and saw her busy carrying goods on her shoulder, holding this, grabbing that, and on her face, which had begun to wrinkle, tears were streaming down. “No need.” She whisked my hands away after I jumped to relieve her of what she was holding. Since that day, I never allowed her to wake me up more than once. This, however, didn’t mean the end of our sad story.001111 Fundamental English 1/2557 (AEC)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page 4There was a time during which my mother had no money to buy fruit to resell or pay the rent for her stall at the village market. She earned five to ten baht a day from selling shaved-ice with syrup and toasted bread at the parking bay for the minibuses that ran between Bang Pakong and Chonburi. During that period, my father had gone looking for jobs in the South and my eldest sister and elder brother were earning their living in other provinces; thus I was the oldest child in the house. With my three younger siblings, it meant Mother had many mouths to feed day in and day out. She had a plaster piggy bank, made in the shape of a horse, in which there were more than ten coins in various sizes and a five-baht banknote. Any day when she didn’t earn enough from her sales to buy food, she’d take the coins to supplement whatever she had, and whenever she had one or two baht left, she’d slip them into the piggy bank. Things went on like this for a long time. One day, she came home looking utterly exhausted. She grumbled that there had been no one at the parking bay all day. After resting for a while, she took out the horse-shaped piggy bank, turned it upside down and inserted a hair clip to retrieve the five-baht note she badly needed to solve her current predicament. In no time her face grew tense and she suddenly burst into tears. “To have come this low, and still have them doing this to me,” she said between sobs. I sat stock-still and stole glances at the tears on her weather-beaten cheeks. I had the urge to hug her and say something, but I felt that, for people like us who’ve only had sad parts to play since the day we were born, it would be overreacting. I knew she didn’t feel sorry about the money but was disheartened that we were harming one another at a time when society at large was wilfully tearing itself apart. That day – the day of my departure – I sat waiting for her until it was near dusk, but she didn’t come. Father, who didn’t know why I had come home, tried to get me to stay the night, but I had to refuse. An appointment had been made that could not be missed – an appointment with my destiny which was tightly linked to the future of the country. Father hobbled to see me off at the end of the alley leading to our house. As I walked away quietly, I didn’t dare turn around and look at his face again for fear he might catch on to the fact that this time our separation could be final. Besides, I knew he didn’t like to see any of his children cry. And certainly not his sons. While we stopped for lunch, we argued among ourselves about the best way to cross the rapids. One member of our party was my lifelong soul mate, and she couldn’t swim, so we001111 Fundamental English 1/2557 (AEC)
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had to discard the option of placing our knapsacks on our heads and letting ourselves drift to the other bank. But even if she could swim, I doubt we’d have gone ahead with that method. We had no way of knowing what could be submerged beneath these fast-flowing waters. I once heard the story of an able-bodied man trying to swim across some jungle stream only to be impaled through the neck by a piece of wood. I myself had once waded chest-deep through a flash flood, and besides having to fight against the current with all my strength, had to step with both feet on bamboo thorns underwater; by the time I reached the bank, I was in pretty bad shape. Our eyes couldn’t assess the danger of such waters. One method we thought might work was to ask the strongest among us to tie himself to a rope and swim against the current to the opposite bank, then fasten the rope to make a line for the rest of us to cling to as we waded across. To test this theory, one of my friends, who had been acting as my bodyguard along the way, tried to enter the main watercourse to check its depth and strength of current. In the twinkling of an eye, his big, tall body was swept away as if snatched by a ghost. I saw him toss and tumble in the current for what seemed like ages and by the time he managed to grab a branch near the bank, he had been whisked fifty metres downstream. The test had been conclusive. Even if we were able to throw a line across the rapids, clinging to it to reach the opposite bank was not a sensible thing to do. If one of us were to let go of the rope under the pull of the current, the rest of us would have to spend days looking for the body, and at least one more day digging a grave for it, not to mention the eons it would take us to get o
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