Do you have sawdust in your head? A short story by Sila Khomchai

1957 famine in Isan, denied by Bangkok. 'It's all right' and 'Isaners are used to eating lizards.' In the years 1958-1964, the Bhumibol dam was built (Government Sarit) and an immense logging scandal came to light. 'The lumber swindle' took place under the reign of Plaek Phibul Songkhram (1897-1964). In the seventies riots with deaths. The writer lived through the turbulent 1970s and fled to the jungle. 

Author Winai Boonchuay (วินัย บุญช่วย, 1952), pen name Sila Khomchai (More information); see the explanation by Tino Kuis: https://www.thailandblog.nl/cultuur/kort-verhaal-familie-midden-op-weg/

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The story (fiction)

The youngest printing clerk makes a mess when he prints paper. He is called sawdust head. Due to his mistakes, photos of people and animals are printed on top of each other, which produces undesirable effects. All the more so since it concerns the election poster for a boyfriend of the field marshal dictator, a wealthy, influential mining boss of Chinese descent. 

The printing press made two or three different noises that were repeated throughout the day. On the pressure plate, two galvanized pressure rollers moved quickly away from each other. White sheets of paper fed in on one side were printed out on the other side as beautiful color posters. 

The low-rise building was filled with the musty smell of ink, kerosene, paper, and other odors that hinted at the work going on there. The soft hum of the printing press did not get on anyone's nerves. 

A thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy sat on a chair with a tight stack of solid, unprinted sheets between his knees. With his hands he folded a large sheet into sixteen parts, one for each page. He glanced quickly at the front door where three men were walking through; two of them were his bosses. Seeing this, his hands started to work faster.

'Could you hurry up my order, chief? I've told the delivery service they'll get it next week.' That's what the man said, wearing a faded sweater tucked neatly behind his belt and carrying a worn leather briefcase. The other man was well dressed in a rose-red, long-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt, tie, black slacks, and polished shoes. “Uh… Well, be patient. We have a lot of work at the moment.' he grumbled back noncommittally.

"What are you printing now?" asked the man with the worn-out briefcase. 'Posters' and the three men walked to the printing press. "Why didn't you do my job first? When I came with the order you said there was room. I don't see it yet.'

The important rush job

“But this is a rush job. And paid in advance in cash. There were more of those poster jobs but I didn't dare to take them; I first check who didn't pay last time and they get blacklisted.' said the man in the rose-red shirt, picking up one of the freshly printed sheets to take a closer look.

'Hey! That's the wealthy mining boss from my hometown. Is he running in the elections?' The worn-out briefcase gentleman stretched out his neck to get a better look. 'How do you like it? Looks good. His face looks good. Those royal decorations on his chest, don't know if they're real.'

'Think they're real… That stinker is damn rich… When the field marshal (*) was still in power, he filled his pockets well. He offered the field marshal to plant rubber trees for him free of charge on a few thousand rai of land, but asked for all standing wood in the region as compensation. It was pristine forest full of hardwoods. The thousands of rubber trees were huge and their circumference was three to four men with outstretched arms. There was tropical hardwood and other types of wood. The forest was cut bare, as bare as a baboon's butt….' The owner of the worn-out briefcase spat those words out.

The third man was wearing a shirt; his stomach barely fit into his shorts. Showed no interest in the discussion but looked at the working press and at the operator. He looked around; a young man washed the printing plates, a fat man pushed stacks of paper, workers smoked cigarettes while they waited, a woman bound books with a machine and another finished corners.

He walked over to the young boy who was folding paper. Towered over him, arms at his sides, big belly forward and with his mouth half open in surprise he looked at his hands. 'No! Not so…!' he cried, almost screaming. "First fold it in half...left, then right...No!" His hands did it. Finally he pulled the skin from the boy's hands.

'Don't you see the numbers? When you fold the paper, the pages should run from 1 to 16, look. Can't you count?' The man showed the boy how to do it. The boy followed the man's hands with uncomprehending eyes, as if his brain was unresponsive. Then when he wanted to fold the paper like the man he still couldn't.

'No, just pay attention. So… this way.” He emphasized every word. The sheet of paper in the boy's hands turned over and over again, crumpled.

Sawdust in your head?

'What's wrong with you? Do you have sawdust in your head? Look, they're all wrong.' He took the finished work and inspected it. The boy turned pale. 'What a waste! You've been here for a week now, but it seems like you can't do anything right. What can we make this bunch of sawdust brains do?' His eyes looked stern, his menacing voice croaked. The boy flinched and shrugged.

"Don't fold anything anymore. Let someone else do it. Go pack books. Get rid of that messed up pile. What an idiot! Yesterday I asked him to buy fried rice with soy sauce and got stir-fried noodles with egg!' grumbled the fat man. The boy cringed even more as if to hide from those unpleasant words. 

Why isn't this as easy as planting grain somewhere in Loei? A hole in the ground, throw in three or four seeds and kick some sand on top. You wait for the rain to come. The leaves that emerge above the ground are beautiful green…

'The man amassed enough capital to open a mine. He sold ore both legally and illegally. He got so rich, no one cares about him,' the man with the worn-out briefcase continued at the other end of the workspace.

Do I really have sawdust in my head? The young boy thought of this with a stack of papers in his arms. The teacher at school mocked me and once said that helping me was more difficult than dragging a tree by the crown. Mother is also ruthless; she kicked me out of the house as soon as Uncle said he would teach me how to earn my living. I miss my mutt; who feeds him now? Does he have to catch lizards to eat again? Anxiety and frustration filled his mind. It made him even more confused. Perhaps the amount of sawdust had increased and it weighed more and more in his head?  

Thirty copies in a bundle. Make it two rows and count them… No, not like that. Put fifteen backs side by side. Fold lengthwise and then press here… Then take the other length and press…'. The fat man again showed him how to pack. His voice and manner depressed the boy even more. 'Fold the bottom into a triangle…Look, so and so…. Try to get rid of some of that sawdust in your head.'

The boy slowed down and eagerly followed the actions. He neatly laid out the rejected sheets that had been used in the first print run. Multicolored sheets. Repeated printing had led to poor colours. Images ran over each other and on top of each other. You got a headache from it. “Count the books and put them down. Fold the wrapping paper tightly….”

“This man, does he have a chance?” That's what the boss in the rose-red shirt asked the man with the worn-out briefcase. “He wins easily. He has power in those districts and so many followers that they fall over each other. He buys power with donations. Even the governor thinks highly of it.' 'Aha! grunted and sighed the boss.

The boy went on with his work. The fat man had run away and he was recovering from that relentless punishment. He glanced casually at each sheet of paper. At this stage of printing, all the figures and all the colors printed on top of each other seemed to take away his anger.

The scene at the very bottom of the press was a grass field. He saw water buffaloes and palm trees. Their color was gray-brown or faded green because the picture on top was a row of high-rise buildings. Crisscrossing it he saw electric light. Other parts were too unclear. He focused on the water buffalo. His mother worked with water buffaloes and in the rice field and he missed her very much. Was her head as full of sawdust as his?

A nude photo

On the next sheet a field. No carp there. A nude model lay on her back under a shady tree. It looked like the center page of the magazine that Uncle hid under his pillow. A photo in faint blue. It also bore the portrait of a man, his chest full of medals, and bold letters across the top. The boy read the message letter by letter, slowly, as if he were spelling it. VOTE FOR …. The naked woman sat upright between his eyebrows.

“Gambling houses… whorehouses… He's in everything. From an ordinary 'chink' (**) he became a rich mining boss, the dirty bastard. Look at which photo he chose for the election poster; his face is as pockmarked as a gravel path.' The owner of the worn-out briefcase was still talking about the picture on the poster.

The books were now packed in square blocks. The boy made a big pile of it. He hadn't done this before and it was a tough job. The last rejected sheet was like a poster for a Thai movie. He well remembered the Thai movie star Soraphong (***) with a gun in his hand. Who could that heroine be? 

He tried to find her face, but it was hidden under the head, black hair and brillantine, of the man with the medals under the words VOTE FOR… PARTY shining through. He saw a pair of well-shaped legs and it was hard to tell who they belonged to, Charuni or Sinjai, saw piles of banknotes on the man's nose and Soraphong's pistol which he seemed to aim at the man's forehead.

The boy felt relieved. His new task went smoothly. Seeing the movie posters cheered him up. He thought of all those Thai movies he'd seen. The hero was always a warrior, a decent human being, who sacrificed himself and was admired by all. He had already dreamed of a career as…

"His rivals will go wild," said the man in the rose-red shirt. "Yes, and all Thais too." The man with the worn-out briefcase agreed. The fat man looked around to see if everything was going well now; returned to the boy and he felt the tension again. He sped up and counted the numbers more carefully. 

He felt happier now. Could look at the proofs over and over and they revealed hidden stories to him. His thoughts went beyond the stuffiness of that little building over there. Those sheets of paper were the only friends he had there, though they weren't his little lizard-living dog; these sheets of paper that the printer fed into the printing press to test the quality of ink and photographs and that soaked up the remains of the kerosene left after cleaning the used colors.

"I'd like to know, deep in my heart, what his plans are now that he wants that mail of his own accord…" muttered the boss on the other side of the factory.

His hands shook a little as he put down a new piece of wrapping paper. The musty building prevented him from looking at the blue sky and the green ridge. He was immersed in the hum of machines and in his anxiety. But despite that, he couldn't suppress a smile.

That one printed image was so clear that nothing could be deciphered. It seemed like a deliberately made print where everything fell into place. There was no misshapen or faint spot. And it told a strange story. Could this actually happen to an ordinary person? He let it sink in. Suddenly he saw the connection to his own position. His sense of humor took over; he roared with laughter.

So the inside of his head was just sawdust. And the guy in the picture…well, his head was in worse shape. 'Idiot! What are you laughing at, Sawdustbrains? What have you discovered, Sawdust?' The fat man looked suspicious at first but couldn't hold back and screamed. The boy didn't stop laughing but didn't give a useful answer. 

'His head… it…' The answer came in fits and starts. His body shook with his emotions. The sound reached the other side of the shop floor and distracted the men. The man with the briefcase looked at the boy. His uncontrolled gestures and hysterical laughter were contagious. The man with the briefcase got the idea that there was something special and he approached. When he saw the photo, he burst into uncontrollable laughter.

'He's got worms in his head…worms…!' He kept laughing about this incredible circumstance. The photo featured a nest of worms in the middle of the man's head and just below the bold VOTE FOR…. They crawled over each other until they formed a ball. But what was even more striking was that some worms crawled over the edge of his mouth, out of his nostrils and out of his ears, making it look like a corpse with a heavily decorated chest - a dead man with eyes wide open and a face in perfect health. reflects.

-The-

Source: The South East Asia Write Anthology of Thai Short Stories and Poems. An anthology of award-winning short stories and poems. Silkworm Books, Thailand.

English title 'Sawdust brain and the wrapping paper'. Translated, edited and somewhat shortened by Erik Kuijpers. 

(*) The 'field marshal' refers to Thanom Kittikachorn, dictator from 1963 to 1973, who had to resign after the riots in Bangkok on 14-10-1973. Who is meant by the rich Chinese is of course not mentioned, but the story points in towards Plaek Phibul Songkhram. He is of Chinese descent and involved in the logging scandal. (Thanks to Tino Kuis.)

(**) Chink; insulting and discriminatory term of abuse for Chinese people and sometimes for all East Asians. 

(***) Soraphong Chatree, 1950-2022, a Thai film actor. Charuni (Jarunee Suksawat) and Sinjai (Sinjai Plengpanich) ditto.