thailand Archives - The Cracked Door

The Woman in the Green Dress (A Short Story)

I stood there transfixed. I didn’t know why. I hadn’t been dumbfounded like this before for a long time. What was it about her?

She stood in front of me smiling. She had long, straight black hair down to her shoulders. There her hair ended with a slight fold like a J on her shoulder, and the straps of her green dress started. It was an elegant green shawl with a matching green gown that extended all the way down to her legs, where it seemed to almost transition into the green from the forest.

“Why are you dressed so nicely to walk through the jungle like this?” I asked. And at like 6:00 am, I thought to myself.

“Oh thank you,” she chirped back. “I’m on my way home from my night out.”

“Where do you live? I see nothing but banana trees.”

“Come. I can show you.”

She grabbed my arm and started walking. I hesitated at first, but I had nothing better to do. I wasn’t really feeling my morning jog anymore anyways.

As she walked, it seemed more like she was gliding through the shrubs rather than taking steps. She moved with the ease of someone who was at home in this place.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

I explained how I am an American on vacation to Chiang Mai, needing a break from the constant churn of work.

“Humanity just constantly spins in an endless cycle,” she replied.

“Where are you from, and what do you do?” I asked, but she just grabbed my arm.

“I’ll show you,” she beckoned. I got confused as she took me deeper into the forest, where it seemed even less likely someone would live.

Suddenly, she stopped, in front of a massive banana tree.

“This is my home,” she explained. I began to reply, “Where? In the tree?” There was nothing here, just the forest. But as my words came out, she waved her index finger in front of my mouth, whispering “Shh.” I got really sleepy all of the sudden and collapsed into her arms.

Next thing I remember, I woke up on a bed in a bedroom with yellow walls.

“Where am I?” I screamed.

She walked over and sat on the bed next to my feet. “This is my home.”

“What?! Where did you take me?”

“This is my home, inside the banana tree.”

I screamed confused, but she whispered to me to go back to sleep saying she would explain when I was ready.

That was how I first came here. When I woke up next, I learned that she lived many many years ago but now inhabited this tree.

She said she once was a living person, but after her death, she realized how much humans stress themselves with the constant churn: to produce more, build more wealth, gain more status. Like a wave constantly hitting against the shore in an endless cycle. Now, she lives in the banana tree in peace and tranquility. She can go out and visit the humans when she wants to watch our flurry of activity, but she has mostly just enjoyed the peace of being in the forest.

“You sound like you need a break,” she explained. “So, you can stay with me as long as you’d like. I have everything your mortal body could possibly need here: food, water, a bed to sleep. But you can leave anytime you like.”

Sometimes I do go out for a few days to see the human world again. But mostly, I find peace in the tranquil state of existence under the banana tree with her by my side.

When I do go into the city, I find signs with a picture of my face labelled as a missing person. By this point, the humans must presume I’m dead. But they can only view “living” as producing within their system of constant churn, so it makes sense they would view my existence as a type of death. But I have really never felt more alive in my life.

The Ghost among the Banana Trees (A Short Story)

Hello, let me tell you my story. I think many don’t understand how and why I live my afterlife in this forest. Many don’t really seem to understand the forest either or the things that live in it at all for that matter.

I am here to respect my community. There is little left of it, so I cherish what remains. My community was once the center of this place, full of families and their homes, animals, and markets. That was over a hundred years ago. Now, all that is left are the trees. I can still hear the whisper of my kin from the banana trees. That’s why I live in these trees.

History has taken much from us, but time can do that. Society around us changes. Now, Thailand is a country, whatever that means, and people in this area have moved around quite a bit, preferring to build their cities where their lines of stone that they call “roads” meet rather than in the networks that existed in my time. Sure, whatever, but I will not forget this village tucked into what is now a forest.

As I tend to my trees, nearby men almost intrude me with their existence. What fantasies do they conjure in their minds when they feel my presence? I notice their desire and energy gives me more power and reality. I prefer the invisibility; what need do I have from you living humans? Nevertheless, I have never felt as eyed as when men hike through my forest.

It reminds me how the attention the King and those court officials would give me when I was alive. When the Thai king brought me to his palace, his newest wife, oh you wouldn’t believe their stares. His many male officials took one look at my beauty and just assumed I was a slut, sleeping my way to the top. Why else would a woman enter their court?

My community, that was why I was there. My community were the ones who sent me. When they noticed that the king had taken an eye to me, I didn’t even want to go, but they said I could be the community’s ambassador, their hope. They said I could advocate on the community’s behalf at the court. The Thai Kingdom had spent too long trying to ravish our area. Standing on the edge of its borders, his army came after us whenever he wanted to prove his glory through war. The buffer between him and the enemy kingdom, he would slowly absorb us all, one village at a time, squares to capture in his diplomatic chessboard. They convinced me that it would be best for our community for me to go, the marriage might convince him to think twice before sacking us again.

But, the court officials practically came after me from day one. I had some allies, but many took one look at me and seemed to become my sworn enemies. Some opposed my community and wanted to keep it down; I think others were just jealous of how my beauty seemed to give me power. They made up some charge of adultery to get rid of me, finding some guy they could claim I slept with. I did have one lover who kept me warm from the chilling fires of political intrigue, but it was not who they accused me of loving. I was clever enough not to get caught with my actual lover. No, they picked someone who they also wanted to execute, a way to kill two birds with one stone.

I find the big struggles that living humans put themselves through perplexing. Over the years of my afterlife, I have realized how pointless it is. Men most of all. They seem to be caught up in grand narratives of gain and glory. They still do so now. All I see in this modern world is destructive fire, coming to consume my community from all sides. Deforestation, pollution, your society seems almost designed to destroy all I hold most dear. I guess that is how the world works; you can only build your world on the ashes of other worlds’ pasts. But I will keep my coal burning as long as I can. Then, I too will splinter, becoming the seed of whatever comes next.

Likewise, many Thai men seem to become entranced by me when they see me. They notice my beauty and my traditional green dress and project their fantasy for what they consider the simpler, Thai “traditional woman.” Many men in your current world seem to live what they consider unsuccessful lives. I am their solution, their simpler times. If they want to come live with me, to live out this fantasy, I tolerate it. That is their choice. I have more important things to think about to keep my community going than their little mortal lives.

I know others say that I entrap these men in a spell, keep them as a type of prisoner, and make them forget their past lives. I do nothing of the sort. Most men are initially drawn by my beauty, and those who stay do so because they see in me a beauty of Thailand’s past, or what they consider to be Thailand’s past. It’s not my fault if some get lost in their nostalgic world and slowly forget the present.

I am still largely indifferent to the ways of men, after seeing how destructive they can be, but I still enjoy sex with the men who join me. Well, at least with some of them. What the living don’t know about me is that I have multiple banana trees in the forest with multiple men, and you wouldn’t believe how easy it is to hide that fact. Some men are more considerate than others, but for most, they are not used to thinking outside their own world. All I need to do is dote on them. A few minutes of pampering a day, and they assume I will serve them always. Then I can leave for another home with another guy and do the same thing, and neither is the wiser.

Over time, I can slowly pull back my devotion, and they will start doting on me instead. Many men are not used to thinking beyond their quests, their desires, or their cravings enough to ask too many questions about what I am actually up to. They aren’t used to thinking of me as an independent person. To them, I represent the beauty of a bygone past, or what they think the past was like, when women supposedly quietly honored and served their husbands. I am the sense of success that they felt they could never get in the cruel world around them given their lowly positions. I can use this to my advantage.

Some might consider me exploitative, even predatory, but I’m not. They are like pets to me. Dogs live far shorter lives and possess neither as much wisdom or intelligence as humans, but humans still keep them around for their own amusement and affection. They give the dogs great lives in their care. Just like that, a regular human is far younger, less wise, and less mature, and unless they become a centuries-old ghost like me, has no real chance of catching up. I give them a great life, full of a sense of pride and pleasure, removed from the troubles of normal life that the current world throws at them. The mature ones with enough, without the insecurity and self-absorption eventually desire to escape, figuring out the ultimate emptiness of what I’m offering them. In time, they leave. Their choice, I don’t confine them against their will. To the others, life within my care seems to be what they want, so I give it to them. Little do they know that their energy and desire help preserve the trees they live in.

Chīwit Understands Her Ghosts (A Short Story)

There was a Thai woman named Chīwit. She lived in a big house with her dog, and everyday she would see ghosts that no one else could see. Mostly, they were friendly, and she felt drawn to the ghosts to learn about their daily lives and their world.

Others in her town told her to stay away, that the ghosts were scary and dangerous. But that wasn’t her experience. They were like normal people living their lives with hopes, dreams, concerns, and yes flaws.

One day she decides to move to New York, and as she adjusts, she gets lonely and starts missing the ghosts. She tries calling her closest ghost friend so much that the ghost just ends up coming to New York to see her.

“I don’t understand this city and this culture,” she explained. “But most of all, I don’t understand why I don’t see any ghosts here. People don’t seem to believe in them.”

“The ghosts are everywhere,” the ghost responded. “But most choose not to see us.”

“Why don’t people see ghosts? Why are they so scared of you?”

“When people see a ghost, what they are really seeing is another way life could have been. They think their current life is the best life they could have, so they can only see our lives as scary and as a threat. That’s why they think we haunt them. Really their own minds haunt them with what could have been.”

That was when she realized that her ghosts were really people too. They were living the lives she and the communities had rejected when they made each decision over the course of their lives. Each other decision they could have chosen makes a ripple, and out of that, these ghosts appear embodying what could have been.

With that, she started seeing them everywhere. In every community, town, and city, ghosts would burst forth. Some promising, and some desperate, some scary. She noticed people only paid attention when the ghosts made a better choice and thus lived a better life than they are, these ghosts being a sign of regret for what they did. As she started paying attention to all the ghosts, though, she would see the ones that were less fortunate, that looked to her with longing for the choices she made. Her version of herself was in the middle, with better and worse versions of herself, which gave her comfort that she was doing all right.

And she realized that every single day, she would have to understand and make peace with these ghosts. As all they were doing was helping her figure out how to live her own life.