'Jesse gets caught in a desperate game of freedom and survival'
The evening sun hung low on the horizon, red and scorching, seeming to set the city itself on fire. This was home, Jesse thought, or at least the place he had adopted as home.
Since he had left his backpack and his young twenty years at Schiphol eight months ago, everything he had ever planned had slipped from his hands somewhere between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. He had found it, the feeling he had always been looking for and Thailand had given him that freedom. But freedom turned out to be an illusion. Nothing was free, now even that euphoric feeling had been erased by one harsh reality: he was broke.
He was sitting in a run-down hostel, his gaze fixed on a light bulb dangling from the ceiling, the fan struggling in vain against the tropical heat. Jesse's shirt stuck to his back, his brain seemed equally stuck in a tangle of thoughts, ideas, plans, all of which ended with the same question: How am I going to stay here?
The answer came faster than he could believe. Like a signal, an ominous handshake from fate, gold gleamed at him in a shop window on the corner of the street. A gold shop wedged between a fruit stand and a massage parlor, like so many shops in the city. The proprietress was a small, frail woman who always cleaned her shop meticulously and unconsciously had a routine that was almost inviting to anyone who had mastered the art of observation.
For a week, Jesse watched the scene. She arrived every morning at exactly half past eight and closed the shop at exactly six in the evening. He watched her sit inside, how she seemed to nod off to sleep every now and then. As the days passed, he felt the unrest give way to a strange kind of calm. It was as if his body had closed itself off from his mental battle, a wall of cold resignation had built up around him.
And one night, with nothing but the light of a full moon streaming into his dingy hostel room, he knew he would do it. He would rob the store and immerse himself in one last chance at a new beginning.
Dawn broke, and he stood nervously outside the shop just around the corner, his heart pounding in his throat. His hand slid to his face, his new sunglasses and cap feeling heavy and uncomfortable, but they would make him unrecognizable. Or so he hoped. He scanned the street quickly; the familiar chaos of motorbikes, honking tuk-tuks, and tourists unsuspectingly taking selfies with coconuts in their hands. No one seemed to notice him. In his head, an echo of his own voice resounded: “This is my chance. My last desperate chance.”
He opened the door, his backpack casually slung over his shoulder, as if he were just an unsuspecting backpacker who decided on a whim to pick up some jewelry as a souvenir. The bell above the door chimed and the woman looked up, not surprised, more curious. Jesse smiled briefly and at that exact moment, before he could think twice, everything went on autopilot.
His hands moved with a confidence he hadn’t felt since those first moments of pure freedom. His voice sounded sharp, louder than he’d intended. “Give it all you’ve got,” he heard himself say with a trembling confidence he could barely explain. The woman froze, the panic in her eyes so palpable it cut through his mask of bravado for a moment. He pulled an old pocketknife from his trouser pocket, the blade gleaming like a symbolic reflection of his lost innocence, and waved it without thinking.
“Don’t scream. Do what I say,” he said, although he himself could hardly believe what he was doing. The whole scene unfolded in a haze of adrenaline. And as the woman slowly began to put jewelry in a bag, he felt his own fear creeping to the surface. This was the moment, he thought. This had to be different. This was where he could go back. And just as he was about to leave the store, with the loot still unrealistically heavy in his bag, he heard something that sounded like the death knell.
A siren. Blue lights. The doors opened and in a flash he felt hands wrap around his wrist. Reality hit him like a sledgehammer. He was too late.
The courtroom, just days later, was silent. The heat of tropical Thailand seemed to have disappeared for a moment, replaced by the cold formality of the judge who looked at him with a mixture of disappointment and contempt. Four years, the condemning voice sounded. Four years in a Thai cell. The irony felt biting, almost like a punishment from fate itself. He wanted to stay, no matter what. And now he was getting exactly that, a prisoner in the country he had loved so much.
The prison was a very different Thailand. The walls were bare and damp, the air filled with the musty, pungent smells of sweat, rotten wood and mold. His cellmates, including an old man with a row of knuckles that looked like marble climbing stones, often sat muttering in a language Jesse barely understood. He didn’t look around, he didn’t speak, but the old man provided a strange, invisible form of comfort.
“Why?” the old man asked one night. His English was broken, but the question seemed universal, Jesse couldn’t help but smile at the bitterness of his own answer.
“Freedom,” he said softly, as if the word were a prayer, a lost dream. “I wanted… to be free, man.” The old man nodded slowly, as if he’d been given an answer he already knew. Their silence spoke, a mournful conversation shared only by those who knew what it meant to lose.
As the days faded into each other and the prison walls began to feel more like the armor of a trapped soul, Jesse began to reconsider his desire for freedom. The world outside that bright, chaotic world was becoming more and more of a memory, an old story he told himself to pass the time. Thailand had him, and he realized that it had never really been the freedom he had sought. It was something else, something deeper, perhaps the freedom of himself.
And sometimes, on the chilly nights, with only the sound of crickets scraping and his cellmates muttering, he could almost appreciate it. He could feel himself dissolving into the shadows of his own mistakes. Thailand had seduced him, numbed him, now trapped him, and he let it…
About this blogger
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My age officially falls into the category of 'elderly'. I've been living in Thailand for 28 years - try to do that. The Netherlands used to be paradise, but it fell into disrepair. So I went looking for a new paradise and found Siam. Or was it the other way around and Siam found me? Either way, we were good-natured.
ICT provided a regular income, something you call 'work', but for me it was mainly a pastime. Writing, that's the real hobby. For Thailandblog I'm picking up that old love again, because after 15 years of hard work you deserve some reading material.
I started in Phuket, moved to Ubon Ratchathani, and after a stopover in Pattaya I now live somewhere in the north, in the middle of nature. Rest never rusts, I always say, and that turns out to be true. Here, surrounded by greenery, time seems to stand still, but fortunately life doesn't.
Eating, especially lots of it – that’s my passion. And what makes an evening complete? A good glass of whisky and a cigar. That’s about it, I think. Cheers!
Photos, I don't do that. I always look ugly in them, even though I know Brad Pitt pales in comparison. It must be the photographer, I think.
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