The plan was to stay at home, at my new apartment, to leave the horse in the stable, my black coached stallion, with blue colored chrome spurs, helmet included. It is just a nutshell and in a serious accident I don´t think it will protect, more opposite, break you head into pieces like a pick, hammered by the bumpy roads of Cambodia. My first motorbike in my lifestory, bought it one week ago at a shop nearby the Saler Market, Siem Reap. To own a motorbike in Asia feels like having a trailer in the western world. It is freedom, independence, lifestyle and fun, raising the dust. To purchase it was as easy as to rent the apartment. It´s about money, not your background, licenses or other red tape parade bullshit. Put it on the table, get the key, go on, ride on. My apartment has two bedrooms, one for my cambodian family and abroad, attached two bathrooms, both with tubes, for whatever if you have a pool on the rooftop, a kitchen, a living room, 3 TVs, AC and it is furnished. Hell. What a challenge, on the third day after my arrival, celebrated with a drunken night at Hip Hop Club, spending half of my money on security to disarm them, our australian sisters went a little bit wild on the dancefloor, for Cambodia. Paying them was more an act of stupidity, on the other hand, because it was, like everytime when it comes to appreciate the service staff, far too much, I was just so happy to have a friends, brothers, sisters, family, beloved, again, around me, of whom I can take care of, not just turning around in on above or at the edges of myself. So. During that hang over I visited and signed the contract for my apartment, two days after I moved in. Felt lonely. I left the family. I did that on purpose of course, a need of a more steady space to work, but alone again felt in the first couple of hours like, what was that idea about again? I was the last 40 days alone on the road and I missed companion so much. Now again and even worst I pushed myself into it, even though I could have a life in melting heart of love and respect. But still, my travel is my work, my work needs to be a travel. I felt displaced. My idea was to move to a new home, to my new home, located at my favorite place, Siem Reap, close to my cambodian family. And when it comes to home I become a interior fascist as usual. It took me nearly three years to set up my last flat like I want to. I would love to live at a place without rooms, furniture, meaning different colors, meaning too much contrasts or adoring elements at all. Room loosing its space. Just white, lighten and what is neccessary for daily life, not to secure life. And now I arrived at this darkbrown wooden curtained hell of a taste. What a waste of a try of taste. It felt like biting in a 4 weeks old soaked in crowshit pumpernickel and a march of monkeys peeing salt-water in my wide opened sorrowing eyes. Bitter taste. Kitschy and itchy at the inside. Furniture store shopping at its worst or best, however, Buddha bless IKEA. – No way, cambodian style is still better than IKEA, but I wouldn´t mind about one or two pieces in exchange. So it is proofen. I am really missing a creative space. A place where I can work, express, create my own corners and views. But so, not enough money, just keys, no construction plans. I cleaned up the place like I always do, makes me feel more clean at the inside with the struggling outside. I unpacked my stuff. With Soya I went to the market and bought what is necessary, to cook, to eat, to keep clean. I had to convince myself, I didn´t decide to stay here for the next couple of years, I just need a place to stay and this is beside all my fascism when it comes to design, a place at its best, manifested by my first visitors, my brothers, with a box full of beers, staying overnight, performing my idea to provide a room for them, where they can be just as young as they are, drunken, with all the attending desires, watching movies or just having a hot shower, after I explained how to use. Rooms are nothing, space to share means everything. I love my apartment. I love my pool and my gym, no machine works how it should, on the rooftop, I love my underground car junk bulky waste park, the chest playing security and the colorful lightning temple at the main entrance. I am back, at my most wanted place.
So after six days, arranging, rearranging, jumping in, setting up, sitting down, productive meetings with the staff and managers of the NGO, after overran by my kids at a celebration at the orphanage… WOW! I wanted to surprise them, as I showed up, I was mostly the one who was… what is the word for… I don´t know… impressed? Astonished? Being flabbergasted? Maybe all of it. Smiles and wide opened eyes by happiness running straight on me, in my face, in my heart, a golden shower of life. One more drunken night between and to sort all this most intense feelings as far as I can realize or unterstand by sanity, or just let it go, float on happiness… after these days I was looking forward to spend the evening on the seventh day next to myself. To welcome me. To arrive. On the seventh day I created mayhem, more precisely, I prepared it. I was convinced by volunteers and my loved to join them for a couple of beers, still felt poisoned by the can-by-can-annihilation of the last days. I promised myself to return soon again, like I always do, whatever for. We met on a rooftop bar owned by a guy from England, pretty nice setup, beach-style, perfect to enjoy a holiday evening with drinking games and flirting around with eyes crossed and dickheads up, although, my first feeling entering the bar was, I want to go. Soya and Kimsan, both local young women looked at me, shocked, I just could answer, “Welcome to the western world!” So, second chance to leave… after some beer I felt more comfortable, what a surpise?! My brother Pomsen joined us and we decided to switch the place, well, they already were closing. “Go home, or?” Third chance. “No, let´s go to the Angkor Bar for one more beer and the volunteers need a ride as well.” It was a night like every night. Beers, awful music, awful white body talks, awful picking up traveler phrases, an awful tourist spot visit. I was just wanting for my brother so we can leave, he wanted to stay at my home, “I want to take hot shower tomorrow morning, brother, you should know.” He always gets me metaling with laughter. We both decided we are sober enough to drive. I was and I am still pretty sure I was. I would do it again. Well, maybe. Me on my motorbike, him on his dirt bike, driving crazy, like a Cambodian, me following, quite proper but not as fast, telling myself, maybe it is not worth now to take the risk of an accident. I have seen so many travelers bandaged all over and I know the pain of the daily wound cleaning already. I have seen bleeding heads on the street. I heard horrible stories about accidents. So focus, health is everything. Maybe these have been my thoughts during the ride home, maybe not, maybe I just thought like I mostly do in this kind of condition, “Just let me arrive at home safe.” To whom I am praying? Whom I am asking for help? I don´t know. It can´t be God. He would have soaked me in blood for my life of blasphemy, altar boy or not. I felt safe. And I already knew the road. Now we have to turn left, passing the market, watch out the huge road hole – you can´t call it a road hole, there is no raod anymore for a hole – after the bridge, turn right, up north, straight… some random streetlights, flaming lighters, glooming cigarettes, gas lamps, ignited trash hillsides, transforming into oscillating lines from the corner of my eyes. And now, be aware of the speed bumps, two of them, remember, ha, I am really sober, good to know, you are near, the sign of the Aussie guesthouse, breaks… and then there was war. In my head. Like an explosion, noisey, all around blackness, crushing stones, screaming dust. Dragged into mayhem. So far I can remember… I open my eyes. Lying on the ground. The bike around 3 meters ahead. I get on my feet, uncontrolled, shocked, searching my head, touching the helmet, I know there was in impact with the road, expecting no ear, scalp of the road, pull it off, check, no blood, feeling pressure on my chest, like a bowling ball struck me straight, my right hand finds a hole where there was before my collarbone. I am towing myself to the sidewalk. Sit down, relax, breath, hurts, lost my flip flops. Looking at a bleeding hole on my right foot, skinned all-over, my left elbow is greeting with its bones on the bottom of a deep stamp of a stone or whatever. I hear my brother from far away, can see the lights of my bike, misty dust around, Pomsen emerges from, “Brother, what happened, are you ok?” No, I was still standing, yes, he tried to lift me up, support my stand, “No I am not ok, brother.” “What happened, what are you doing?” I can hear his tears drowning his tongue. “Wait, don´t touch, I need to sit down.” I am shaking, my hole body is shaking. I watch the blood, I see the wounds, I can imagine the pain but I can not feel it. “Oh brother! It is my mistake, what am I doing. I am such a bad brother.” He is leaning on my damaged body side. “Be careful. – Listen. – It is not your fault, ok?! I was driving the bike. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!” I can remember I was repeating that again and again. “I need you now, my brother ok? Put yourself together, I need you now.” “Ok, I come back soon, wait here brother, I catch a Tuk Tuk.” Haha, listening to my memory makes me smile now. “No! No Tuk Tuk, look at me, brother! No Tuk Tuk! I need an Ambulance or whatever you got here, but no Tuk Tuk, ok?!” Ok, I will ask the guys. Some guys are approaching the accident. “And put the bike off the road, please!” I am not able to lift my head, or I was to scared to feel more pain, so I keep on starring at my bleeding feet and hands. “Wait, I come back, brother ok?!” “That would be nice yes, don´t forget the ambulance.” I remember I was still joking, to keep the situation running. I feared to stay here for long, didn´t wanna wait until the pain really shows my teeth. Start to make some functional tests. Arms… Ok. Fingers, hands… Ok. Legs, ankles, knees ok. My shoulder seems to be a crater, it was damaged before, maybe it will be better than before that… God Hell, starting to curse my stupidity. Asking myself again and again why… what a stupid question. We were waiting for about 15 min. We heard an ambulance. Pomsen called again, they couldn´t find the place. Two or three times one guy is stopping with his bike next to us, informing us the ambulance will be here soon… with every elapsing minute I could feel the pain gnawing on my nerves. Pomsen is still punishing himself for the accident. “I am old enough, Pomsen, this is my mistake, ok?!” He was crying. That was the beginning of a long period of feeling so deeply ashamed of don´t taking care of myself and waste my health and life for my suicidal tendencies. I didn´t get judged at all, no one told me, started that explaination bullshit, that I should not or why I didn´t… no one, they all worried by heart without being angry about me, why I make them so worried and they all of them have definitely worries plentiful. They cried when I started to cry. “Florian, you don´t worry, we take care, ok, you don´t think a lot now, first you have to get better again, ok?!” The ambulance arrived. I felt so relieved. I hobbled to the light, expecting prepared thousand of doses of painkillers, but nothing, just a fixed barrow and a guy how told me again and again, “You have to wait.” But the planket did at least his job, I remember I was gazing at the floor of the ambulance, from time to time pulled out by a bumpy road section, teasing my left side, my broken ribs I supposed. I was gazing and if it wouldn´t hurt so much I would have laughed out loud, that was soooo… but yeah, I wanted it all, all, so now I got one more suckin experience. This facebook whatever phrase crossed my mind, “Everything you are learning is preparing you for something else.” I felt just lucky not to be prepared now for my funeral. I forced myself to stay awake, I wanted to see where they gonna drive me to. It will be a local emergency room, for sure.
Welcome to the pain! I can hardly remember what was going on inside the emergency room. Lot of tubes, injections, bandages, needles, betaisodona, burning like I never felt before, anaesthetisation, suturation, x-ray, back again, a wide elsastic strap to keep my broken bones in position. I stopped shaking. Pomsen, my brother, like brothers do, was always on my side, crying randomly. I still couldn´t, I was to flashed, shocked, that this is all real and waiting to awaken from this nightmare. The x-ray was pretty local, wouldn´t wonder if I am now infertile – wouldn´t care at all, whatever. Lying in the emergency room, gazing at an abstract sky, clouded by mold structures. Theavy, one more brother arrived, I felt eased, that Pomsen didn´t have to stand me and my stupidity alone. “On and off.”, my friends at Germany would say, but they know me and know how to treat – “Please put the blame on me, I maybe need that, still, to feel alive.” Here I feel alive and I run, drive, push, fuck myself into the worst period of my life ever. My minds were looping, why why why… no, not why me, just why. And like I mentioned, one of the worst parts about that WHY is, that I will make them all worry about me, all the kids, the family, the staff, all of them, because of me. Never felt such a shame and I kept on apologizing. “Please brother, take a rest now, try to sleep, we will take care of you.” They slept next to me as I awoke because of nurse examining me. Covered with two plankets I was half there, but not here, half anywhere, on painkillers, pain itself, adrenalin and other symptoms of sudden emotional and physical impact of a change. I don´t know for how long I slept, I heard someone coming in, a nurse, a male nurse, smiling at me, friendly and hearty like I am used of asian culture. He starts peting my cock. I waited, looked at him, expect to fall deeper into the cruel variety of dreams. He touched with his thumb my lower lip, then again touched my cock, started to rub the planket, where his morbid desires lingering. I couldn´t move, I was too far away from the present, but as he tried then to kiss me, I turned around, voicing a disgusted tone. I heard someone moving, Pomsen or Theavy. The nurse left. I am still sure today that this really happened. I saw him the next morning. Beside the fact that I would never take the risk to have surgery here, as far as I can decide by my own, my first words at this morning were, “I want to move immediately, to another hospital. – Why? I will let you know later.” Writing about this makes me feel sick again, ashamed and sick. I promised myself I will go back there and I will let him know… but I don´t know if there is any possibility of reaching any consequence for that disgusting sucker. (If you have any problems and you have to go to hospital in Siem Reap, don´t take the risk, go straight to Angkor International Hospital).
On this morning more family members arrived, also Soya. She open the gates of that nightmare and woke me up, I started to cry, all of them did and asked me to stop, “If you cry, I have to cry too, so please stop, you will be better soon, ok, we miss you so much and we will pray for you.” I don´t earn that treatment. I apologized to cause worries. “No Florian, don´t say that, you are a good man, don´t talk like this.” – “I am not, HELL! They don´t know me at all. I can not be part of your family, you could also engage a freakshow instead, you never know what comes next.” Kids are staring at me, with tears in their eyes, “When do you come back and teach us, Florian?” They have nothing, I have everything and I just waste it, like I always do, everyfuckingtime. My shame to have me teached like this is for eternity. You always have a choice. I had a choice and a fucked it up, again. I paid the bill at the local hospital and we drove to the Angkor International Hospital, in a small minivan, no windows, it is the car of Kouch, the husband, a humble rice farmer, of Bopha, the cook of the orphanage, one of the greatest and honest person I ever met. They put a matress inside for me. The ride was around 20 minutes. At the international hospital they already expected me. It was a medical paradise in comparison to the place I left. I don´t wanna sound disrespectful, for the first stitches they did a great job, but the nurse and the fact, that I have an insurance and I don´t have to hope beyond molds, that I get better soon, I was so glad to see a place which earns the sign hospital. Clean, white and english speaking nurses and doctors. The x-ray was better than at the clinical practice of my orthopaedic specialist in Munich and they explained me step by step what happens next, especially the part of the insurance, pretty detailed. Between that, cleaning the wounds again, this time more proper, rubbing out the rest of the cambodian roaddust. At this time I prayed, maybe it is the last time, today, at my last day in hospital, I know, that was just the beginning of a long rubbing session, fortunately with no demented nurses. I left the hospital in the evening again, because they, the hospital and the insurance, didn´t reached an agreement about the costs, in other words, that is like I know today, business as usual, if it is not a serious case of emergency. And I was not that kind of case, just a riding fool, a greenhorn. Or call it bad luck. I prefer today bad luck, without asking why. I had a lot of luck in my life. All of my bad characteristics seem to gather in this days – payback time.
I stayed waiting two days in my apartment. With my family around me, without them, I don´t know what would have happened. They cooked for me and shared my anger and sarcasm. I was teached that I have to sell my motorbike, otherwise the next accident, and there will be one for sure, will be worst. This accident already happened because I didn´t go to pagoda to beg for protection. “Even if it is not your believe, you should do it, because you are in Cambodia.” – What I think about that? It makes me thinking. So my bike still works. I am not sure if I can get on the bike again. It is not my memory which fucks me up in these days, it is the physical pain which now turns back on me like an echo, bombing my structure again and again, I feel the quake of the trauma, it is not a trauma, but it feels like one, because I am scared to move, to do my next move, I can not trust myself anymore. I was always a man of destroying myself, to find a me or an I to proof the exitence of myself. Arriving here in Siem Reap, at a place where I could stay for the rest of my life, a place I can call home, the first place I would like to call like this, where I found greatness and love in a purity, which matches with my over-romantic ideas… at this place I was hit as hard as never before. It is not about the accident, this is just an incident, on a way, on a path of darkening.
The accident was at the 10th at 2 a.m.
Surgery on the 12th, 3 p.m.
I am kind of the freshman of my second life. And what I am in this life depends on my sins in my last life.
Maybe that all sounds like the blown up pinky lips of a transvestite drama queen script.
Maybe it is, trash, but it feels like white glooming lance in my ass.
Soilfall.
Upside down.
