In the interest of testing the extent to which the parasites have affected my powers of reductive reasoning (if indeed such a thing exists), I have decided to dedicate the next batch of Blogs to Jules Verne. And Rambo. And John Glenn. And the dude who wrote Momento, and all the others out there who tried, with differing degrees of success, to turn back time.
So, in the terrible mirror image of exercises that might actually have occurred once upon a time in Brother Michael’s second floor, Grade Six classroom at Daniel O’Connell Elementary school on a fall morning in 1975, I give you:

Vacation Summer My On Did I What: Chapter Final The

Aug. 13.
The brain drugs weren’t quite as effective this time ‘round and my pineal gland was obviously not up to the task, so I’m kinda staggered and forgetful and dozy and strung-out all at the same time. No two hours of tennis under the hot sun followed by Welfare Wednesday pitchers of Molson at the Biltmore for this kid, or whatever the local version of the same might be.
And the phone’s ringing and buzzing off the friggin’ hook with ‘Welcome back’s and ‘How come every time you leave the city something big happens’.
And, there’s a series of increasingly hysterical SMSs from various (unidentified) clients that despite my tri-band-enabled, digi-picture-taking, Lynyrd Skynyrd-playing super-phone, failed to penetrate the blanket of smog and humidity hanging over the Lebanese net café on Boul. St. Laurent ten days ago.
Here’s one: Desk is wondering when you’ll have final body count. Any confirmation on the type of explosives? Pls check you email and call asap!!!
How can it be that some messages pinball their way ‘round the world: New York-to-satellite-to-Southeast Asia-to-satellite-to-Canadian exchange-to-satellite-to my phone, whilst others taking exactly the same route never make it? Maybe it’s Electronic Darwinism, sorta like the salmon or something: “Some’ll make it up over the Skookumchuck’s first set of class three rapids and others, well, they just won’t”. Cue: The Arrival Of The Bears.
All said, always nice to get home. The airport is the same zoo as always and there’s no obvious sign that the government is any more vigilant than it was before I left. The bag check is cursory (none of YVR’s explosives-detecting magic wands here), the customs guy doesn’t even look at the form, there’s a mob at the arrival gates waving placards and pieces of 8 ½” x 11” office paper with kanji script written in black marker. The cigarette girls have disappeared, the one’s that greet your successful negotiating the immigration wolves with a free pack of kretek smokes, but that’s just as well as I gave it up five hours ago in Hong Kong. There are none of the soldiers or police that I expected along the Sukharno-Hatta concourse but there’s definitely a lot fewer of the ghost-cab drivers lounging around. Maybe the last blast outside the Korean fast food joint scared ‘em off (not likely) but whatever the reasons for once I don’t have to run the gauntlet to escape the stifling heat for the cool, polite confines of a Silver Bird.
Ask the unfamiliar driver how the things are in the city since I left. All he says is: “I lost five friends in the bomb. Young men with families. The oldest in his 50s.”
The next 40 minutes passed in silence.
The Rembang house is looking tidy if a bit overrun with flowers and bushes. Once the orchids start to go though, it’ll be very fine. J too is looks good enough to eat, standing glowing amid the few remaining thin, hard blossoms, and Ning comes out to welcome me back. Never steps foot out of the kitchen, mind you. I guess Nan is in school, and Juliana, at work.
Like I said, no rockin’ night tonight. Gotta sleep, eat a bit later, sleep some more and by Thursday I should be all right.
It is sometimes hard to believe that the world I spent the past couple of weeks in is really only 24 hours away at any time of the day or night. Seems a lifetime and five minutes.