Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

The temple dogs slept at peace. The birds roosted in the tree branches, all undisturbed by the jarring sound. It was evidently exclusively his. He followed it to its source, the destroyed stupa inside the blue wall. The closer he got, the more deafening the sound became, the more painful the pressure on his eardrums. He looked into the foundation of the stupa base lit by a generous moon but saw nothing. Yet instinctively he knew there had to be something in there inviting him to come closer.

He climbed over into the square of bricks and picked his way carefully to the center. There he cleared a place to kneel and began to dig with his hands. Beneath the rubble, the earth was soft, mulched, teeming with the warm bodies of earthworms. The deeper he dug, the louder became the sound.

He was so focused on his task, he didn’t notice what was happening around him. The destroyed stupa was slowly reforming. The bricks were reattaching, the mortar hardening. But Siri had only one thing on his mind: to stop the awful sound.

Although he couldn’t yet see it, his hand arrived upon the source of his discomfort. As soon as he took hold of the cool stone, he knew what had lured him there. He could feel the leather thong attached to its loop at the top of the black amulet. He knew the shape and the slight ripples of its indentations. He could feel the power of Phibob that now had a hold of him. It was pulling him-pulling with the strength of a thousand malevolent spirits-pulling him with the conviction of righteous revenge-to his death.

He felt his arm being wrenched downward through the soft earth writhing with the bodies of maggots and centipedes. They attached themselves to his naked skin and helped to drag him down. He couldn’t let go of the amulet even when his shoulder was flush with the ground. Like a man about to vanish underwater, he looked up to take a last gulp of air.

That’s when he saw that the stupa was complete and he was entombed. The air was musty with the exhalations of four hundred years. That was the last taste on his final breath. That lungful didn’t last him long once he was buried and traveling on down through the earth. He held it for as many seconds as he could, but he knew it was futile. He was packed in dirt. There was no point in trying to breathe again. All he could do was wait.

As a coroner he knew the process well. His face twitched as the muscles went into spasm. The death rattle rose in his throat, and he allowed himself one last agonized struggle until his heart stopped beating. Just before the machinery shut down completely, the metallic drone stopped and he heard his name called. It was a beautiful sound. Hearing is the most stubborn of the senses and the last one to leave a dying person.

He was aware that his pupils were dilating, and he could feel the warmth seep from his body. In another hour he would be stiff with rigor mortis. There was no more movement, just the calm that comes from sensing the cells and tissues dying at their own sweet pace, a process that could take weeks to complete. His goosebumped skin would be the last to submit to death.

In less time than it takes for a fish to fry, the nerves feeding the cortex of his brain would be gone and whatever feeling remained would come as an observer hovering outside the packet he’d once lived in. By then, it would be as useless as one of the plastic bags that floated down the Mekhong.

He looked up into the golden light that showered onto him, and through the beams he saw the smile of the Lord. He sighed and smiled back at his maker. It was a relief, after all. He felt no bitterness. He’d had enough of life. He wasn’t depressed, just bored. It was as if he’d read the book of living and knew how it ended. There was nothing more to learn. He abandoned the body and reached out to Buddha.

That’s when the Great Plan proved to have a page or two missing. The Lord’s head shook from side to side as if he didn’t want Siri after all. His face distorted and out of it grew a trunk. It snaked down to where the soul of Siri hovered and blasted the dead doctor with a torrent of warm breath that stank of stale peanuts.

Dtui, reflecting the bright sunlight from her crispy white uniform, stood at the gates of Silver City. This was neither a city nor silver. It was a walled-off compound two minutes’ walk from the new Monument to the Unknown Soldier. It was reputedly from here that the kgb did its spying. Some said it was the Soviet Union’s response in Southeast Asia to the American spy factory in Bangkok. But very few people had actually been inside to report on what other evils it contained.

Ironically, before they were turfed out, the American Secret Service had operated from this same compound. Some people speculated that “silver” referred to the glint of sunlight from the refined opium on its way to the troops in ‘Nam.

Dtui scanned the tall green gate and the walls to either side, but saw no sign of a bell. The paint was dusty, so she kicked at the metal. It sounded much louder than she’d intended. There were a few silent moments before she heard a soft “Who is it, and what do you want?”

“I’m nurse Chundee Chantavongheuan.”

Such was the name with which she had been christened, although it didn’t get a lot of use. At birth, it was customary in Laos to give your children ugly nicknames to ward off baby-hungry spirits. There were Pigs and Prawns and Camels and no end of Dtuis-Fatties. Many Dtuis grew up to be slim and beautiful, but Chundee Chantavongheuan lived up to her name. “I’m here to see Mr. Ivanic. I have an appointment.”

A small square spyhole opened near the top of the gate, and a man looked down at her. He was either very tall or standing on a chair. She held up her paperwork from Civilai.

“Okay.”

One flap of the gate was unlocked and held ajar, barely wide enough for her to squeeze through the gap. A second guard stood inside with a brand-new ak47. The stock was still in its plastic wrapping. Guard One wasn’t tall. He had a stepladder.

Dtui found herself between two sets of gates, like a security airlock. Before they could let her through the second gate, they had to lock the first and follow certain procedures. The small guard reached out as if to frisk the big nurse, but she took a step back.

“Think again.”

“I have to search you.”

“Over my dead body. Look in the bag if you like.”

He did look in the bag and found the agar molds.

“What are these?”

“Top secret.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There was a pause.

“Hot, isn’t it?”

“Damned hot.”

With that, they unlocked the second gate and prodded her into the compound. It was a sprawling area with lovely old jujube trees and a mishmash of buildings that made the place look like an open-air museum of bad architecture. She’d expected one of the guards to follow her in, but the gate was re-bolted behind her and she was alone.

She walked to the nearest building, a two-story wood-and-brick affair that was neither a house nor an office. She stood in the open doorway and called out: “Sorry. Is somebody here?”

There was the sound of scurrying, as if some animal had been disturbed, then silence. “Hello?”

A good-looking young man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, slacks, and bare feet came from one of the rooms wiping his hands. He stopped suddenly at the sight of the white-clad nurse before him.

“Eh?”

“Good health.”

Over the man’s shoulder she saw a girl in a military uniform emerge from the same doorway and head off in the opposite direction.

“My name’s Chundee Chantavongheuan. I have an-”

“-appointment to see Mr. Ivanic. Yes, I was expecting you. They didn’t tell me you were a nurse.” He shook her hand and smiled. “I’m Phot. I’ll be translating for you.”