Fluctuation

Prologue

'Cut the arm out or I will kill all of your family members!!' A voice said threateningly.

'Please don't make me to do this.' I cried out.

'You have no choice, take up the scalpel and cut it out, now!! I wanna see fountain of bloods, ha ha ha...'

'Nooo!!' I screamed then startlingly awoke by someone hand tapping on my shoulder.

'Your turn sir.'

Soft woman voice ran through a hot and humid air into my auditory system. I opened my eyes slowly. A young nurse approached me with a semi-robotic smile on her face. Her eyes were like a Barbie-Doll, beautiful but lifeless.

'Sir, it's your turn.' She repeated.

The feeling of her touch was an adequate proof that I was already out of the gruesome daydream of mine. I looked at her face bewilderingly, then give her back a robotic smile in return.

The next thing I remembered was, I found myself obediently followed her on the way to the examining room. The picture from my unpleasant daydream still vividly stamped on my mind, it popped constantly and steadfastly up disturbing my reality. It was the same dream that I had experienced last night, and because of this realistic dream that took me here, in this musty and gloomy hospital, to see my doctor or to be more precise, my psychiatrist.

'Oh...my...god...it's been a long time.' The doctor greeted me with a semi-exclaiming tone.

'Hi doc, I know, I was a bad patient and I am sorry.' I said and sat down on the cold metallic chair in front of him. 'But it's because my conditions was getting better and better since we've met the last time. That's the reason why I chose to be away fro m your face for a while' I said and smiled apologetically. 'You were great, doc.' I continued to compliment him.

'You are lying my friend.' The doctor said and smiled. Then he started reading my treatment history files.

'I heard that you start practicing some meditation as a self-help remedy. How is it going?' He continued without looking at me.

'It is going quite well, it's doing just fine.' I said and had a little wondering how the doctor knew about my little secret.

'Good to hear that, so, what can I do for you today?' The doctor went straight to the point.

'Urr...I have been having a dream.' I suddenly I felt like it was quite difficult to start telling the doctor about my troublesome conditions.

'A dream? Are you talking about a nightmare or something?' The doctor inquired.

'No, just a dream. Not a bad dream. But it seems very real to me.' I said seriously.

'Seems very real? How real was it?' The doctor said.

'It's like after you have slept for awhile and suddenly, you woke up again in the different place and felt like living in someone else life, a completely different person. In the dream, you would play a completely different role to your real life. And all the pictures and events in the dream were very vivid and real, which could easily convince you to believe them. You could even smell the smells in that dream.' I elaborated.

'Sound like fun, huh?' The doctor tried to make a joke.

'No, it was not fun.' I said sternly. 'Because the problem comes after I was widely awake, I felt like I haven't slept even just a bit for nights. It was a very exhausting experience. Actually, I feel like I haven't slept for awhile now.' I continued.

'You dreamt about the same topic every night or in many different situations?' The doctor inquired.

'Only the same subject.' I said and frowned.

'I see. For how long have you been having this problem?' The doctor asked and twirled his pen across his fingers back and forth. I was his fixative behavior.

'About five days now.' I said.

'How about any other symptoms, do you have any?' The doctor inquired.

'Yeah, a headache and a little dizzy. It always happened when I woke up and always occurred at the same position on the back of my head here.' I said and pointed the doctor where the pain occurred.

'Anything else?' Said the doctor then he wrote something down on my treatment record.

'I don't think...oh yeah, one more thing, a nose bleeding' I said

'How often?' The doctor said.

'I have had just a little blood come out form my nose but it occurred almost every morning and it's always come out from my right nostril.' I elaborated.

'I see. Do you have any dramatically increasing of your stress or worrying for the time being, maybe at your work or about your personal life or something like that?' The doctor said.

'No, my life is perfectly fine except for this dreaming shit.' I said confidently.

'I see. What did you usually do before you get to sleep recently?' The doctor inquired.

'I've been doing some meditation since the day I turned down the modern way of mental curing.' I replied sincerely.

'Does that mean every night?' Said the doctor.

'Almost every night, but only when I have a chance to do it, you know, for some night when I had a visitor, I kind of chose to skip it.' I replied.

'Interesting. For how long each time?' The doctor said.

'One and a half to two hours, why? Does my meditation have something to do with the dream?' I said curiously.

'Nothing, I just ask about my patient's routines. For the treatment records, that sort of thing. You know.' The doctor said and smiled.

After that, the doctor began to write something down on my treatment history. I guessed it must be my medication prescription. He closed the file and sent it to the nurse who standing beside us for all that time. But it seemed to me like she did not have any participating feelings toward our conversations. Her existence was a nonexistent one. Her robotic smile was still on her face when she left the room to submit my prescription.

'Okay, I will give you a new medication this time in order to help your sleeping. Just take it fifteen minutes before you get to bed and you will sleep like a baby. There will be no more dreaming, of that I can guarantee.' The doctor said and smiled gently.

'Sleeping pills?' I asked.

'No, much better than that, but you need to take it seriously and strictly only five days, no more no less. Because it has an addictive side effect, so I don't want you to get addict to it. And on the last day, I mean the fourth night. You have to take it double doses of this medication to end the first dosage, okay?' The doctor expounded.

'Okay, I got it.' I replied.

'And if your symptom is getting worse, you can come back to see me anytime.' The doctor assured.

'Thanks a lot doc, always good to see you.' I said and presented my hand intended to shake with his.

'No, we are not quite done yet. About your headache and nose bleeding, I recommend you to have your brain CT scanning.'

'A CT scanning? Is that serious?' I said puzzlingly.

'No, nothing is serious. I just need to make sure that your symptoms are not caused by the physical conditions of your brain. Because headache constantly at the same position and one side nose bleeding could be a sign of a brain tumor.' The doctor said.

'So, in that case, I don't have any other choice, I guess? So, let's do it now I want to get to know the result either.' I said adamantly.

'Good, you are a decisive person as always, I will have a nurse to escort you to the changing room. So you can change your cloths there. And you will be ready to scan within two hours.' Said the doctor.

And that was the last thing we talked about before I left the consulting room. The pictures of the gruesome dream still vividly stamped in my mind when I left the consulting room.

1.

Raindrops were running down in the gravitational direction outside my apartment windows. It was a damping morning. The gray melancholy sky was leaking. This gloomy scene was almost always the first conditions of reality that I had seen for the last two months. I took a glance at my bedside alarm clock. It was five forty seven in the morning, and yes, I was just awake. Is it going to sound oxymoron if I am going to tell you that the season at this time was in the middle of summer? A summer storm is an ordinary phenomenon here for the country, which locates in the tropical-climate zone like us. Oh, I almost forget to tell you that, this morning, I was in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand.

Actually, from the forecasting of the Department of Meteorology, the day supposed to be the hottest day in the year. However, in front of me, it was a deluge. For myself, if that goddamn department said anything about weather forecasting. I just prepared myself the other way around. Believe me, it works just fine here in Thailand. My thirty-four years of experiences attests.

The day was so young and I felt like I might need more time to huddle the pillows on my bed and dispelled her out of my mind for another while. She was the girl from my dream the last night. I considered the dream as a closest-to-reality dream that I had ever experienced in my life. However, I knew I had no plenty of time this morning. I was supposed to be at my precinct quite early to attend the morning brief. It was the day after my day off, and showing some signs of diligence to the supervisors must be a smart thing to do.

I bounced myself up from my bed and staggering to my apartment balcony. Buried in the drowsiness, I burned the first cigarette of the day. It was the first thing that I always did every morning. Fainted smoke curtain was in front of my eyes; I looked through it to afar. My apartment located in the old city section of Bangkok, on the area called Rattanakosin Island. It is a unique conservatory neighborhood. The area is packed by a long history of the city with conserved communities scattered throughout it. In front of me, the Chao Phar Ya River Line looked vaguely like a big snake slithering through the dark and hazy city. The river could easily compare to the Theme River in London or the Hudson River in New York City. It cut straight through the heart of Bangkok and find its end at the estuary of the gulf of Thailand. Bangkok was now beginning to awake and so did I.

First of all, I think it is quite a decent manner for me to introduce myself to you, because we have just met for the first time. My name is Mark Wongthai. Mark is my name. Wongthai is my mother's family name. It literally means 'Thai family', simply that. I currently am a police detective of the Metropolitan Police Bureau or MPB that has its responsibility throughout the Bangkok area. MPB separates into nine sections. I was posted at the first precinct of MPB since I started my career as a police officer and based here since then.

My rank is police captain, not big as a captain in the western police world I would say. My specialized field, and I am proud to say, is every kind of homicide investigations. It is very easy to reckon that my name might pique your curiosity a bit about why it sounds more like a western name instead of Thai name. My answer, if you care to know, is because I am not a hundred percent Thai.

My biological father was an US Marine. Thirty-four years ago he came here to Thailand to attend the joint training program between the Royal Thai Marine and the US Marine Corps, which occurred every year in Thailand's eastern seaboard area. However, I have never been so sure that it was my fortunate or unfortunate fate that I had never met my father even once in my life. Perhaps it is because I never have a chance to try the other choice. But I am so confident to tell you that my life was perfectly fine, living only with my mother. Even though she was an ordinary Thai girl. My mother was a daughter of the guesthouse owner in Pattaya.

The city held a long history about the relationship between Thai and US militaries. The origin of the city could be traced back to the Vietnam War era in the mid 60's. In order to satisfy, at that time, US GIs desires for the recreating venues during their duty-free times, after and before, going into the war zone. The local people there could see an opportunity to conjure the money out of their blue eyes guest's pockets. They turned the small fisherman village into the city of nightlife. Nowadays, Pattaya has every kind of happiness a human being wants, from the pure white business, such as, restaurants and spa until the downright shady like drug and human trafficking. Located near the Royal Thai Marine base just only thirty minutes by car, Pattaya has always been the place where those Marines come to have their dopey contentment after the long and arduous trainings. So, that was how and where my parents met thirty-four years ago. But please do not misunderstand about both people relationships.

It was not just a short term non-serious one like it has usually been happening between westerners and Thai girls in that city. According to my mother, my biological father asked her to escort him back to America the day his duty in Thailand was over. He wanted to marry her there in his hometown. However, my mother rebuffed that to-die-for offering. For your information, in those days, almost every Thai girl in that city yearned for that kind of opportunity offered by my biological father. A new life in any western countries seemed like the only ticket for them to running away from their poverties. Nevertheless, my mother told my father that she had a duty to take care of her ailing mother. She was too old and too sick to travel anywhere even just going out of the city let alone another country. Yes, I am talking about my grandmother. She died when I was very young.

During a short period of time before my father's departure from Thailand, my mom found that her menstrual had been absent for sometime then. However, she decided not to tell my biological father about her pregnancy. She kept an existence of mine as a secret for all that time. Even though after my father had already left Thailand, both people still kept in touch by mails for a short period of time. But not long after my birth, my mother got a letter from her lover telling her that, he was about to marry a new girl in America. From that point on, my mother decided to suspend every kind of communications with her lover forever.

My mother was a strongest woman I ever knew in my life. I always hope that I will have my wife just like her one day. She raised me up in a single-mom fashion since I was born without any second lover. Again, according to my mom, my biological dad name was Travis. He came from the place called Brooklyn and I found it myself later that it is a part of the famous New York City. My mom told me that my dad was a big guy even compared to his fellow Marines and this quality must have been transferred to me by the fifty percent of his genes in my body. And I guessed they must be the dominant genes. I am six feet four inches tall with two hundred pounds in weight. My body size is far beyond any standards of Thai mature males.

I grew up and had my education in Thailand for all my life, even that, my look is more like a 'Farang' than a Thai. Please allow me to tell you that 'Farang' is the term, which Thai people use to call any Caucasian foreigners. No matter you are an English guy, an American girl, a Russian lesbian or a Germen gay. You would be the same 'Farang' in Thai people's eyes. I guess it was because of my distinguished appearance that created me many nicknames since I was in high school until I graduated from Thai Police Cadet Academy. Some of them were 'I Hia Farang.' which roughly translated as 'a white bastard' or 'I Hia Young', which means 'a tall bastard'. But please do not misunderstand that my friends hated or segregated me anything like that. Quite contrary, I was one of the most popular and beloved guys among my friends, my teachers and even much more, among the female students. I was a head of the class since high school until the cadet academy. In Thailand, being the head of the class means statistically a lot about a child future. That recognition supposed to be an adequate proof toward the love of my pals upon me. However, the reason behind those bad nicknames was because, it was a kind of youth cultures in Thailand at that time that we always called our close friends with bad nicknames and called our closest friends with even worse nicknames.

But for the people whom we were not familiar with, we could be extremely polite with them. I have to admit that this look of 'farang', which actually means 'guava' in English, benefited me in many aspects from that time until today. I reckon it is because Thai people have an embedded stereotype of adoring westerners. It happened more than five hundred years ago when we first contacted with the first group of westerners- the Portuguese.

They have far more advance technologies when compared to us in the things like, big vessels and superior firearms. That was the reason why we were quite intimidated by them. So, I have that effortless advantage from my biological father and I considered it as the only heritage he left me before his departure from Thailand. However, it also has some kind of shortcoming inherited with it too. My appearance has always been an obstacle for Thai people who just met me for the first time.

Those people have a tendency to avoid having a conversation with me because they thought I am a foreigner. They might be afraid that our communication was going to be a devastating and annoying one. But if they only have seen the stockpiles of my high school debate trophies, they would suddenly realize that my Thai is far better than them.

Nevertheless, I thought it was because of my father's genes again that made my auditory system could automatically understand English language without any serious effort of studying it. I could understand it naturally like I understand Thai in my formative years. I began to understand English when I was five and when the time I graduated from the high school, I could speak English like a native speaker while most of my friends still painstakingly tried to memorize the vocabularies. You may wonder why I have to tell you about my brief backgrounds. My answer is because, it is a crucial reason why I have been posted here at this first precinct of the MPB since the first day I began my law enforcement career.

The first precinct of MPB has its responsibility on the most cultural vibrant area of Bangkok. Almost every importance tourist attraction spots are in the nosy eyes of my precinct. I dare to bet you that, if you come to Thailand for the first time, especially for a travelling reason, you must need to see the Royal Palace. Yes, it is located in my precinct responsible area and also the famous Kao San Road. Yes, you are right, the place was on the first scene of the movie 'The Beach' where Mr. Di Caprio huddled on the bed in one of those ramshackle guesthouses on the street. Of course, the area is crowded by the foreigners mostly tourists. And in the eyes of the law enforcement officers like us, more tourists mean inevitably more crimes. And when it came to a foreigner interrogation in the first precinct area, I certainly am the one who would take that responsibility. It has been ten years now since I was first posted here in the first precinct of the MPB.

I have already mentioned that this morning was in the middle of summer, right? In summer of every year, and to be more precise, it is a week in the mid of April. Thailand would definitely have a chance to welcome the tourists from all around the world in the festival called 'Songkarn'. During that time, if you are in Thailand, you don't have to think about anything much, just buy a water-squirting gun or buy many of them if you want to be called a squirting Rambo. After that, you just squirt water to everyone or everything that appears before your eyes. The event happens a whole week of the hottest month of the year.

The law that prevented you from infringing other people wellbeing or to be infringed by other people is expediently suspended for a whole week for the sake of fun alone. Even the police officers like us are also in the unsafe conditions. My subordinates like the traffic control officers in my precinct experienced the situation first-handedly every year. The underlying concept of the festival is that you are in the hottest month of the year, so why not just splash water to each other, simply that. The city's famous spots for playing the 'wet game' as I always called it, located in a couple of places around Bangkok inner areas and Kao San Road has always been hoisted on the top of the list. Three full crazy days and nights of non-stop splashing water to one another, the level of happiness is intensely high in the air for every tourist and civilians. However, for the law enforcement officers like us, especially for my precinct, it was our most terrifying time of the year. As you can imagine, it was a hectic week in the aspects of the crime rate both trivial and major from pickpocketing to murders.