Transitioning From Web Developer to Comic Book Author:

Thailand Fish

We are in Thailand again, this time on a ship. Muslim extremists have tampered with the engine and it’s starting to spin wildly toward a pier. We jump at just the right moment before it hits. Just like in an action movie, it happens in slow motion. There is enough time to think about how I want to land in the water. It’s far enough down that it might hurt my fingers to do a normal dive approach. I bend my fingers half way so the knuckles at the middle of my fingers will hit the water instead of the tips. It doesn’t hurt but it doesn’t feel ideal when the water finally jams up into my hands.
Upon entering the water, I regret for a second that I forgot to bring my camera on this trip. Then I realize that if I had brought it, it wouldn’t have survived the ocean. It wouldn’t have been able to capture the water, pure and clear as air, housing a shallow pool of mussels, anemone, schools of baby octopodes and strange fish, all sharing the same space, seeming to be planted in rows as if a garden. I swish up out of the water like a dolphin to get a better look at the multi-colored panorama and cut my foot on a piece of coral. I can see the blood filling up the water as red as the bright starfish around me.
I hear a guide somewhere telling us to remember this spot. This is where we would always want to enter the ocean if coming through the canal. We should note the old painted rock and the broken opening to the sea. This is the easiest entrance, he said. Across the canal, an old building is covered in some of the most beautiful graffiti in Bangkok. Again, I curse not having my camera, useless as it would have been.
We exit the water through the fjord and by the time we can walk rather than swim, night surrounds us.
At a hotel we stayed in on our previous trip, the girl at the desk asks us what district we think we are in.
“Isn’t this the Seoul district?”
“Yes, it’s not very safe. Do you have a reservation?”
“No. If you don’t have a room, we’ll find another place.”
“Oh, that would be much too dangerous. The Korean district is run by the Korean mafia. It is full of gangs at night.”
“You should come to Seattle.”
“I could give you a room but I will have to charge an extra room fee. I will have to create one for you.” I was starting not to like her fake smile. It feels like a grift. This place has changed.
“No thanks,” I say. It’s not worth the trouble.
Outside, we find ourselves in a bad neighborhood indeed. Vagrants are fighting over places to sleep, stopping only to glare at us as we pass. I suddenly become aware that my headphones are on and are connected to my iPod swinging at my hip. I tuck it into my pocket and slide my headphones around my neck. Several unsavories start following us and I realize why I’m here in Thailand. I’m on a mission. There is a gun in my pocket and I reach for it. Falling back and twisting, I fire it at one of the men following me. The gun, I realize, is a movie gun. It only fires bullets in variable slow motion. I have to plan on where people will be and how the action will impact the timing effect of the bullet in order to get a successful hit. I fire on all sides, hoping to lure the men into the place they need to be and some of the bullets mistakingly hit the outer walls of a power plant. The silos of the plant, noticing the security breach of bullet impact, activate their thrusters and begin their ascent into space. Fire spreads across the ground around us and we are all temporarily blind. I use this moment to fire again and this time I hit one of the men. Another man approaches me and fires but his gun is also a variable slow motion pistol. I dodge, he dodges, we exhaust our supply of bullets as he catches my last shot in his bare hands. Now we stand at an impasse, neither of us trained in hand to hand combat. The game is over. Nobody wins. He drops my bullet, smiles, and backs away.