Detritus

Slowly the collection of Redbull canisters and water bottles filled to the brim with ash and cigarette ends has mushroomed around my bed like grassy moss. The scissors, fresh from an impromptu haircut made five days ago still tickle my feet at the foot of the bed. A few square inches of mattress are uncluttered just about allowing me to curl sideways. At the foot of the bed is my laptop balanced on juice cartons on a wooden chair. There are no windows. Time is going sideways and the dim neon tube never flickers, except when it does. Detritus. The satisfying splotches of squashed mosquitos dot the wall and ants, gorged to crummy satisfaction do not lose time relaxing. They are preparing for the winter perhaps? Or are they just preparing? Preparing for nothing in particular... Always preparing. Hastily making ready for a day that may never come. Preparing for preparation’s sake? An army of six legged boy scouts savagely storing surplus whilst I wait for China to come through.

And lo and behold they have at last. Long days have passed in waiting for the moment that I am handed a freshly stamped Passport; China in my hands. Hazaa. What a rubbery inner-tube of mixed emotions it is to see another stamp on my cocky little Maltese passport. And trust me it is a cocky little scrap of paper this passport. You can see it in the glint of the eyes of anyone who, on hearing that you come from Malta, exclaims “Oh, Maa-l-taa!”; tickled by the small victory, that they had heard of a country that they were not expected to have known about. Chuffed that they had somewhere crossed paths with this five letter word in some dark back-alley of their lives and been fortuitous enough to remember it; blessed to be able to show off their nominal knowledge of a distantly insignificant land to one of its inhabitants. It’s a bit like meeting a quantum physicist at a cocktail party and keenly saying something like “Oh quantum theory!? That must be an exciting job... it really just proves that anything is possible, doesn’t it?” as though one has spent every free moment of ones life deep in a lay person’s research of quantum mechanics.

And yet my passport bears no grudge. Especially not against those nice people at Bangkok Airways, who very nearly sent me away from the flight desk in Phnom Penh because “we nat shue Malta exist”. Thanks very much. Do invest in a pocket atlas before confronting me on the ontological status of my home country. It exists in as far as that 100kg light fixture above your head exists; you could argue that it exists because we allow it to exist, or that it is mostly empty space, or that the molecules and atoms that give it existence have no intrinsic being... but you’d step out of the way if it were starting to come loose of its hinges. In that sense, yes, it exists. As for its purpose? Well, if it didn’t exist our house would be some hundred feet under water... and that wouldn’t be good. Though, to be fair non-existence can be quite a good thing too.

For example when it is being expressed by a potential enemy. “I’m German” Well then you probably like beer and inwardly directed self abuse resulting from impossible ideals. “I’m Canadian” Well then you’re probably a jolly reindeer murdering, syrup guzzling non-aggressive American. “I’m American” Well then you must have more money than a diamond-sneezing iguana. “I’m French...Where do I surrender?”. “I’m Greek... I’ve got olives and amyl nitrate back at my guesthouse”. “I’m Swiss... I always know what time it is but I won’t commit to saying whether it’s early or late”. “I’m Spanish... and I’m pissed”. “I’m Maltese and....” Wait. What comes next? I’m Maltese and... I can be anything I want to be? I’m Maltese and you have no idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Just close enough in name to ‘Monaco’ so that I might be wealthy, and then again maybe I’m dangerous, or perhaps a bon vivant. Ah the Maltese passport, the great, blank, slate.

I spoke before about ‘non-existence’ and perhaps that is because I have spent a week in the land of not-being. The late night re-run of isolation and TV chatter. A fading glow of reality sputtering out like the last damp match in a hobo’s pocket. Lost in a world of waiting. Five days... or was it six? I’m not sure but the room bill will yield some clue. So many games of Yaniv played with souvenir playing cards with pictures of Luzzus and churches. A worthy score in ‘Red Alert 2’. The pallor of an internet junkie. My country a non-existent entity left behind to ‘make a sound’ or ‘not make a sound’ depending on whether or not it falls in a jungle and someone is there to hear it. Days are ticking off this Lao visa like hands on a bureaucratic grandfather clock and we are trapped between China, home and a cheap windowless room. We do not exist. Home does not exist. China glimmers in the distance like a fake Rolex on a hairy wrist fighting to exist. Either it isn’t a ‘Rolex’ or it is a ‘fake Rolex’. I sure hope it is something...
In the meantime, I should probably get some juice and step outdoors before the mushroom monsters and water bottle nasties receive the gift of life and choose to follow me around, worshipping me as their creator. I still need China to come true.