Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

due to you.”
    “There were a few of us, but I don’t mind taking credit on their behalf.”
    She nodded, which I took to mean ‘thank you’.
    “There was something in his heart,” she leaped in with no preview or warning. “He wasn’t good looking or strong, not even a great scholar. But there was something in his heart that I could feel. I was thirteen or fourteen, passing through all those obstacle courses that teenagers have to suffer, not understanding my place on the planet. I began to ask him questions about life. Not even, ‘Why are we here?’ questions. Just small curiosities. ‘Do you think trees feel pain?”
    “Do ants wish they could be independent?’ That silly level. But he always had an answer that made me think, and it always made sense to me. He cheered me up.
    “And, as I grew older, I began to depend on him and his answers. We were friends, of course, by then, but he became the type of friend that is a part of you. I can’t call what I felt for him ‘love’, not in a physical sense. It was more like a wonderful peace to have him in my life. Perhaps my spirit was in love with his. Then he entered the monkhood. I wasn’t at all surprised. I knew he needed guidance to help him make sense of all the feelings we’d discussed. When he left I felt so terribly empty, not of the person but of the message. I knew that I was ready to search for myself. I was ready to accept a life of piety and modesty.
    “We remained in contact through friends. We didn’t meet for many years but we were in one another’s hearts. I always knew that. And then, to my surprise, I learned that I had a tumor in my brain. It was called a GBM and it was inoperable. It wasn’t devastating news because we will all move along into the next life eventually, but I mentioned it in passing in a letter to Abbot Kem. To my surprise, he invited me here to spend my remaining time with an old friend. So I came. And I wait. It’s started.
    You’ve already noticed my wonderful coordination. It won’t be long before my mind follows my painting skill. I won’t know which end of the brush to hold or what color is white.
    “He and Abbot Winai spent many hours discussing me. I suppose I should have been flattered to have two such eminent men invest so much time in me. Their final decision, made on the day of the murder, was that I should stay. So, here I am.”
    Two? Perhaps three large chunks of wood had become embedded in my chest. I could neither breathe nor cry. I had to saw a way through them with sighs before I could speak. Nothing profound fitted at that moment.
    “What was the answer to the ant question?” I asked. “Do they want to be independent? It’s something I think about too.”
    She laughed.
    “He told me to be patient. Eventually I’d be an ant and I could answer the question for myself.”
    The tears came slow as candle wax. I’d become a regular crybaby since my move from Chiang Mai. I was embarrassed for myself and in a hurry to leave. But before I could get away she opened the door to her hut and gestured me inside.
    “I was hoping you could do me one more small favor,” she said.
    In a cardboard box at the foot of her cot was a white bundle of fur, still as an ermine mitten. She put in her hand and lifted carefully. It was Sticky Rice, as limp as a hand puppet.
    “He’s not quite dead,” she said. “I’m afraid he might have finally swallowed something that didn’t agree with him. We lose and gain dogs daily but this tyke has found a way into my heart. I don’t think I can bear to watch him die.”
    The dams burst as I was carrying the cardboard box to the truck. I hated crying in daylight when everyone can witness my frailties. I put the last few hours of Sticky Rice on the passenger seat and drove like an imbecile into Lang Suan to see Dr. Somboon, the cow specialist.
    An hour later I pulled up in front of Mair’s shop. She was in there with her haunting group. They were rearranging shelves and cleaning and throwing out ten-year-old stock. The cassette was playing something called ‘Spirit in the Sky’. It was one of Mair’s oldies but baddies, yet the local ladies were swinging their ample rears in time to the beat. They all seemed very happy. I walked around to the passenger side of the truck and collected my Leo Beer carton.
    “What’s in the box?” I heard.
    Granddad Jah was sitting under the canopy opposite waiting for traffic to watch. I carried my patient across the