Michel de Montaigne.<\/p>\n
If you are eager to experience Game of Thrones<\/i> in real life try sleeping on the bottom bunk of the guy who drank your piss last night: you won\u2019t slumber but you will fight.<\/p>\n
Halfway through the night, I hear the crackle of his mattress\u2019 springs. Next thing, I see a hand carrying the remains of my bottled urine. Before he manages to unleash it upon me, I grasp his wrist and thrust my weight forward. He loops over my head, and falls flat on his back, the liquid spilling all over his face.<\/p>\n
At least one of us is engaging with the Big Sleep.<\/p>\n
I check his pulse and see the initials HH<\/i> tattooed on the back of his wrist. Then I see a shadow and my heart skips. Phew! he is not resurrecting, thank Dog.<\/p>\n
A greater miracle has just happened: Mae is back.<\/p>\n
If you wonder what a ninja is, she is the end of wondering.<\/p>\n
If you wonder about the pulse, Mae always knows better.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fiestaybullshit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/trunk.jpg\")
<\/b><\/h4>\nBorn in 1998<\/b><\/h4>\n
Mae, my life saviour, latest infatuation, and the Nippon\u2019s Zen Master kendo Sensei, has come to the rescue once more. She asks what I was thinking.<\/p>\n
I try not to think since the start of the century<\/i><\/p>\n
She considers me with unambiguous incredulity and orders to move fast.<\/p>\n
Your inventor was two years old at the start of the century! Seven corpses dude. You are pushing it! We must hurry up!<\/i><\/p>\n
It is heartbreaking to hear the love of your imaginary life calling you \u201cdude.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then she says:<\/p>\n
Remember what you were told right after landing, when the customs agents at the airport were grateful enough to let you in and spare you from prison?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, of course. They asked me to avoid getting into trouble at all costs.<\/i><\/p>\n
Exactly. And what have you been doing? Do you know how many death penalties have you earned in less than a month?<\/i><\/p>\n
As much as the lives of a cat, is it?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes. Seven. It was an auspicious number until you flipped it.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cSeven Samurais\u201d, I remember.<\/i><\/p>\n
Oh, not fucking Kurosawa, dude<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Would you please, please, don\u2019t\u2019 call me dude. You are my only samurai.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
Oh Lord, here we go again. We are in a hurry, but\u2026 Remember the last thing I asked you?<\/i><\/p>\n
Not to idealise you, my guardian angel?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
Mae drops her katana from her elbow to her wrist, lifts it up seamlessly, and tips it between my eyes.<\/p>\n
Call me your guardian angel again, and the tip of the sword will meet your brains, DUDE.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nLove after Dude<\/b><\/h4>\n
I can\u2019t conceal how much I\u2019d love her to do that. At this stage, I have spectacularly lost the plot.<\/p>\n
I know thinking is my enemy, so I engage with imagination instead: Mae and I are on the wooden terrace of our house on stilts overlooking the Mekong river. We are training Kendo at 5:30 AM, and the early sunshine lasers are outlining our moving shadows. She is about to Shomen\u2019Uchi <\/i>me (a vertical strike to the head), when I dodge her blow, move to her line of attack, and perfectly unbalance her with the tip of my sword. She falls straight into my arms; it is undeniably a perfect kissing position. I close my eyes, open my mouth and she extends her hand and dips the weapon into my heart.<\/p>\n
Bye-bye thinking \u2014or imagination for that matter.<\/p>\n
I know you know I can read your thoughts, but I didn\u2019t know how to crack your imagination. Thanks!<\/i><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fiestaybullshit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mae.jpg\")
<\/b><\/h4>\nDrive<\/b><\/h4>\n
Mae drives at her dramatic usual speed for five hours. I\u2019m back inside her trunk. I could live here forever if she were to keep driving. There\u2019s not much room for oxygen or thinking, but my imagination is running free. I visualize our offspring just to entertain her intercepting-imagination skills.<\/p>\n
I can tell she can grasp my abhorrent parenthood fantasy effortlessly.<\/p>\n
She is literally fuming.<\/p>\n
Thought Reading<\/b><\/h4>\n
She pulls the handbrake and lets the tyres spin for an extended amount of time. I bounce like a pinball, and see stars, daughters, lions, honey, and the big wheel. I say nothing: I can\u2019t help it but keep smiling and heroically resisting the throwing up lust.<\/p>\n
Next thing she stops, gets out, opens the trunk and we are on square one again: the Fox shrine is behind us, the coast is glimmering ahead, and the Nippon Zen Master arrives just in time to park her vintage Volkswagen to avoid us the clear sight of South Korea.<\/p>\n
The massive hatch on the forest ground opens up, and the unsullied army marches up again in their mandatory black kimonos.<\/p>\n\n\t\t