In the morning, I wake up at Cool Shade Hostel, a backpacker’s haven serving as the headquarters of R.E.I.N. Headquarters is nothing like I imagined. The triangular roof and white stone structure of the French colonial is lost in a haze of vegetation, a lawn spreading wild with an eclectic assortment of chairs below the open veranda where the colors of rugs and the music of windchimes flutter and blaze. There are way more beanbag chairs than I would have expected given the level of conspiracy their operatives are involved in, but it doesn’t take more than a couple hours before the attempt to indoctrinate me is made.
My reeducation begins with “Selective Histories,” the orientation pamphlet (not written, but edited) by none other than Hey Guevara himself, who uses the pseudonym “Ernesto.” I’m tempted to tell everyone that I’ve already met him in person, just so I can shoot up the ladder and gain their confidence, but I’m quickly educated that this, like all things, does not matter. Hey is merely a figurehead, a symbol for their cause, with an awesome image in silkscreen. But I have yet to hear his name mentioned, or anything else about the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, or Point Omega. I listen for code words or phrases that may be part of their operation. But unless the ascending levels of SPF secretly refer to their choice of assault weapons, none of the members seems to know a thing. Their fight seems to be directed entirely against Candidate Dim, a man I knew nothing about 24 hours ago, who is now expected to become the subject of all my soul’s vitriol, the anti-human who embodies everything we’ve grown to hate.
The indoctrination process is an informal one. It is set on a veranda softly buzzing with other early birds fluttering around, picking up toast and jam, butter, juice, fruit, and Lao coffee. I help myself and choose a sunny spot on the bamboo mat fielded with colorful cushions. My mind is at ease in these peaceful surroundings, and I almost forget that I’m surrounded by assassins and terrorists trying to spark the onset of a nuclear holocaust.
I’m distracted by the sheer friendliness of everyone here, their gentle eyes which seek out yours in a moment that is beautiful, strange, wondrous, and kind. Within a fraction of a second, there is an understanding that we are here to coexist harmoniously, thrust into these cheap beds as equals, with no more status, no more rules, and as naked as the yoga pants and Beer Lao tank tops that we are draped in.
The smooth-faced ponytailed owner of the hostel, Pong, sits at the small front desk assisted by an ice-blonde Scandinavian girl who has stayed here throughout various seasons and now seems to work here, though not officially. She represents one of the many factions who come here, find this oasis, this paradise, this state of mind, and make it a part of their lives to spread the ideas of R.E.I.N. and show that, indeed, nothing does matter.
I’m set for brainwashing after breakfast. My defenses are lowered. A gentle breeze! I end up talking to everyone. I start to believe there is no place like this on Earth. Where else can you find people with this simple desire to escape the world as it exists and create another? A new life, a new existence, a shutting out of everything that’s outside. I flutter from person to person, gathering the nectar of knowledge they have for me.
Take Claire, the English teacher from London. She’s working on a universal language that will erase the problem of language. “Every word is constructed of words from other languages, thereby representing all by all. Do you want to know how to say ‘Hello’ in One-glish? ‘Konichi-bon-ola!’”
“How do you say ‘amazing?’” I gush excitedly.
“You say, ‘Wow!’” she laughs. “I didn’t feel like we needed to change that one. Everyone says ‘Wow!’ anyways.”
Then there was Serena, the animal rights activist.
“I’ve created a circus that features Thai street elephants. They’re rescue elephants, freed from a life of being beaten and abused to do tricks for tourists. So we give them a new job that pays peanuts.”
“Oh my.”
“We get human volunteers to act as animals in the circus! The elephants whip the humans and make them do tricks! We train them to hold a whip in their trunks. It forces people to see how brutal the circus really is, and it’s also therapeutic for the elephants. And in case you’re wondering, all of the human volunteers come from first-world countries. Most of them are French.”
“That’s fantastic.”
And of course there’s Ben, founder of Ben’s Shoes, who just loves telling people his story:
“So there I am in Siem Reap. I’d just graduated college, and all I want to do is go see the world before I get into the rat race. I don’t really know what I want to do; I just know that I want to help people and make a lot of money doing it, but I just can’t think of any ideas.”
A crowd of listeners, some of whom have already heard the story once this morning, sits around him as he goes on, legs folded like a guru.
“So I’m at the temple doing my meditation when it hits me! A flip-flop! Some kid must’ve thrown it at me. At first, I got angry, but then I quickly realized this was the answer! This is the thing people need!
“So I started my own flip-flop company, all made with 100 percent recycled tires, courtesy of the Siem Reap junkyards. It gives the kids an education. They learn a skill and can earn money for the rest of their lives. Plus, if you buy a flip-flop, I give a recycled tire to one homeless child in need.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just give the kid some flip-flops?” I ask impulsively, and I feel a murmur of revolt in the audience.
Ben smiles wanly and says, “You know the old saying, ‘Give a man a fish, he eats for a day?’”
I bow my head in humility and slink to the back of the audience.
Despite the apparent disparities of employed vs. not, the members of R.E.I.N. conduct themselves as equals and remain childlike at play. The day begins shortly after the Lao coffee has gone on infinity mode, and we’ve sipped and smoked and trembled with the restless excited chatter of summer camp. The activities are scheduled by Pong and his team of assistants and organized as team-building exercises to further instill the values of R.E.I.N.
It isn’t long before the coffee gets everyone nervous and in a state of hysteria. “What should we do? What should we do?” begins to ribbit out of our mouths. Fortunately, Pong has the situation covered. I know we’re just being fed pots of coffee so he can get us all caffeinated and let us loose into the forest somewhere to wander around, scream, whoop, and pretend we’re animals in the jungle again. We’ll decide who gets to play the role of lion, and who gets the be the zebra, and who is the despised hyena and vulture. We’ll run around and scream until we get sleepy, and then we we’ll drift back to the vans in a daze, hours later, returning with wooden things someone had carved into the shape of a frog.
Listen: Ribbit. Ribbit.
By afternoon, word gets out that there are two vans going to a waterfall. In one van are our original four — Paprika, Maya, Jacky, and me — and now also adding Jergen, the Norwegian diver, Claire, the English teacher, Serena, the animal activist from Holland, and Ben from Ben’s Shoes.
They leave us in complete anarchy, and I find this to be the first level of R.E.I.N.’s indoctrination, to show you a world of absolute freedom with no rules, a world to now survive in together as equals. We become teammates with the simple goal of making sure no one gets hurt. Besides that, we can swim in the water, jump in the pools, and admire our bluish-green reflections all tranquil surrounded by huge black rocks, a pathway leading higher towards the skyscraper of waterfall, at the very top of the green hill, a silvery white sheet of rainbow cascading and pounding into the bottom of a flowing lagoon.
“The way up is very narrow and slippery, so I advise you to pair up,” a voice says from the bushes.
“Pong!”
Pong materializes like the Predator from the green leaves. His handsome Thai face smiles as he twists the ends of his mustache teasingly.
“But where did you. . . ?”
“Watch your step. It gets very slippery, especially at the top. See you there!” Pong cries, and vanishes back into the broad green leaves. We watch as Paprika spreads the leaves to reveal Pong’s hiding space and witness only a flurry of white butterflies rising from the flora instead.
“Some freaky shit in the jungle, mayne!” Paprika cries.
We each pair up. Paprika and Maya lead the way. Claire teams up with Jacky and Serena with Ben; Jergen and I together. The path winds around a hill, the narrow pathway bordered by a crudely built fence tied together with fibers, and at best, merely marking the edge. We walk up treacherous stairs planted into the hillside, sliding on moss and catching sprays of mist from the waterfall. I almost slip and immediately feel Jergen’s hand on my wrist; his reach like a branch extending from a gangly trunk.
“They must’ve sent you to watch my back,” I say, thanking him.
His blue eyes flash, and I see a faint smile. He says nothing.
Our trail moves along a spiny ridge, the vegetation gnarly and wet with an ever-present mist. I look ahead at the back of Jergen’s head, a blonde untamed bush of half-dreaded, half-forgotten locks amidst a chaos of curls and swirls. This agent who would so often be stopped in airport security to spread those long arms and wait for the intrusion of wand around his crotch. I let my foot slip, just to make sure. His arm shoots out with the speed of a mantis shrimp. He catches me.
“You’re not wearing Ben’s shoes, are you?” Jergen grins, making a crack at the tire guru.
“Standard sweatshop Nikes, I’m afraid.”
“You should be more careful. The jungle is a dangerous place.”
“Full of dangerous people,” I say, nodding to our group moving on ahead, my eyes settling for a moment on Jacky.
“The most dangerous game,” agrees Jergen. “Her skill level is 100. I doubt that’s even her real name.”
Skill level? Fake names? I narrow my eyes. His vocabulary can’t be coincidental. Who of us here are agents, and who of us are assassins?
“How many are with you?”
“I’m traveling alone,” says Jergen, “but I’m going to meet some of my friends in Vang Vieng.”
“Expecting to see some fireworks?”
“No, just a lot of screaming and yelling. There might be some police, but it usually doesn’t get anywhere near that. And that’s if he comes.”
“If?”
“Candidate Dim is unpredictable. It’s always a lot of commotion and a big opening, and he sometimes makes a speech, but these days he barely shows up unless the media is there to put it on the news.”
“Fame go to his head?”
“He wants to run for parliament. It scares the shit out of me.”
“What’s the big deal? Shouldn’t everyone get a shot at a lifetime of kickbacks?”
Jergen stops and looks down at me, meeting me eye to eye. “You’re not a Dim supporter, are you?”
“Listen now. I don’t know anything about his policies,” I start bumbling defensively, my hands in front of my chest. “I just know he’s a horrible demagogue who’s as corrupt and ruthless as they come.”
“Well, you answered your own question then,” Jergen says coolly, and he turns and continues up the path. “If he builds another one of his shitty restaurants in Vang Vieng, it will destroy the local culture. That’s the first reason.”
“The locals need culture,” I agree.
“Second, it will add more traffic and development around the town.”
“Too many carbon footprints,” I hum.
“Third, his existence is causing nothing but rifts within society and stirring up tribalism and hatred.”
“Hate the player, hate the game,” I sing.
“Finally, his burgers are disgusting and will probably decimate insect populations, which sounds like a good thing, but it’s really not. It’s really, really not.”
“You ain’t no good for me, you ain’t no good for me,” I chant like a backup soul singer.
“Do you know what he said yesterday during a visit with the king of Thailand? He said Theravada is the only pure form of Buddhism there is. Like, does he even know what Mahayana Buddhism is?” Jergen scoffs with disbelief.
The jungle suddenly gets quiet.
“So what do you think about Jacky?”
We pick up speed and catch up with the others as they stand in front of a rushing stream. Just as Paprika attempts to brave the first rocks, we hear a voice from above.
“Careful! One of you is definitely going to get your feet wet!”
“Pong!”
He’s at the top of the next hill, looking down on us, encouraging us onward. The stream must be crossed and then another hillside climbed helter-skelter through the trees and into the flowering vines. Somewhere over the rainbow is the waterfall.
“Just a little further, and then you can take a dive!” Pong cries, falling backwards, disappearing off the high precipice to somewhere beyond our sight.
“Dios mio!” Paprika utters in amazement.
We stand there paused, listening to the chittering of the birds and insects. Butterflies flutter past us in a smoke pattern through sparkling vapors fluttering across the frothing rocks and spray.
“You can do it, baby!” Maya calls out to Paprika, as one by one, she carefully jumps the rocks, nearly falls and recovers, and we all exhale in unison and cheer as she celebrates by pumping air guitar with a tree branch.
The rest follow.
Maya runs without a slip and Claire leaps like a lost Bollywood star in her sari. Serena and Ben, both hiking-booted, basically walk on water. Next, Jacky plays hopscotch on graceful toes, and Jergen joins them on the other side showing an almost faux-celebration, mocking the idea of ceremony itself, but I see a satisfied grin on his lips knowing that his feet are dry.
Finally, I step up to the rocks. I’ve purposely chosen to go last as to not raise the bar too high. If I make it look too easy, the others might suspect my true identity. Knowing I can do this with my eyes closed, I smile at Jacky instead. I let our eyes meet and see myself crossing the entire way without breaking eye contact, leaping in slow motion like a ballerino, the pounding waterfalls of my desire churning beneath the zither and zephyr of longing, the sound almost silent.
I find myself hanging in midair, my legs split like Van Damme, that crazy look on my face like they just killed my best friend, this giant monkey with humongous pecs, snarling at me as he shakes his fist and growls. Here I am blinded, spinning in cold current, hands stretched out, being flung like a rag-doll hard enough against the rocks so that there is an audible “Ooh!” that escapes the lips of my audience.
I get up and shrug, try to laugh it off, strike a haphazard nonchalance when the next rock betrays me, throws me back in the stream, and I’m just sloshing around now, not even trying to step on the rocks, just fording my way across, knowing that even as you fall, you feel every rock on the way down.
“That’s never happened before,” I say to Jacky, who does a very poor job of trying to contain her laughter.
We continue up the narrow ridge through flowering vines where orchids grow out of thin air. The aroma of nectar surrounds us. This is the hummingbird’s paradise, the butterfly sanctuary. At the top of the waterfall, a solitary man poses on one leg, balancing on a stone in the middle of the stream that cuts the roaring flows before they break off and spill down into a white void.
“Pong!”
He turns and faces us with his arms spread to the sky.
“Congratulations for reaching the top,” he says, smiling.
We whoop and cheer and give each other high fives.
“From here, you can see all the surrounding countries. To the north, there is Myanmar, which used to be called Burma. To the west is Thailand. To the east is Vietnam. Behind us to the south is Cambodia.”
He points to the mountains and plateaus and foothills shining and darkening in a dance beneath the clouds. The green hills roll on for as far as the eye can see.
“If you look hard enough, you can see a light on the horizon. That’s the top of a golden temple. This land used to be full of gold. No more gold now. All gone.
“Long ago, before Westerners come, our countries always at war with each other. They fight and fight and whoever wins gets the gold. They take the gold from their enemy and put it in their temples. Back and forth, over and over again. We always fighting with each other, so when the Europeans come, it easy for them to win. We didn’t realize until it too late, but they not really fighting each other. They find an easy way to conquer us.
“Two great powers, fighting each other. It makes the world at war, but it makes the world at peace. People sleep better when they know who is their enemy. They get restless and afraid when they don’t know who is coming for them. But like two great powers at war, there is still a stronger one that wins no matter what. It don’t matter they help you, they kill you. They win. This is the enemy you should be most afraid of.”
Pong turns and faces us, letting the seriousness of this monologue pass into the roar of endless water.
“Only one way down,” he says, smiling. “If you scared, don’t jump. Just go down, cuz if you scared, you gonna get hurt. You believe you can jump, then just jump. Don’t think about it. You think about it, it mean you don’t believe.”
And with that, Pong closes his eyes with pure bliss, stretches his arms straight above his head like a pencil, leaps off the precipice and flips into space, twirling sideways and upside-down in a tight ball, gracefully finishing with a perfect dive.
- . . 9.9 . . . 9.5. . . 10. . .
“Would anyone like to walk back?” Claire jokes.
We all laugh nervously. No one moves an inch.
Who of us will be the first to follow? Which of us truly believe?
Without a word, Jacky bursts into a sprint towards the edge. “WHOOOOOO!” she whoops and hurtles into the water, screaming all the way down.
“JACKY!”
We run to the edge and look down. There she is in the aqua-colored pool, laughing, flipping back her hair and whooping with delight.
“Come on, you big baby! Let’s see if you believe!” she hoots, taunting me to jump.
“All right guys, I’m going,” I say to no one in particular and back up so I can get my running start.
At least that’s what I saw in my head. But a minute later, I still haven’t moved or said anything. Inside I’m cowardly, reminding myself that I shouldn’t get my bandage wet.
Suddenly Paprika goes leaping off the edge.
“FUCK YOU MAYNE!” she screams and cannonballs it down with a big splash.
“AIYEEEEEEE!” Maya cries, following her partner, and a minute later resurfaces, her hair no longer frizzy.
“Bloody hell,” Claire murmurs to herself and looks at us. “See you in the next life, then! Ta!”
“When in Laos, yes?” Serena says and jumps in as well.
“Yes We Can!” Ben cries fiercely, runs and jumps, screaming, “OBAMA!”
It’s now down to me and Jergen. We stand there looking at each other — smiling, but scared shitless. I don’t dare move. I have no idea what will happen. Now that I’ve become my own man, they’ve cut me off. I’m on my own. My skills were nothing but a program, a program now erased. I see myself being broken wide open like the metal fuselage of a plane crash.
“You, uh, going to jump?” I ask him.
“If I jump or I walk down, what does it matter? Will I feel like a coward and lose a part of myself because I did not jump? Will I care if some strangers think I’m too scared? No, I won’t care what they think about me. But I will know that inside I am a coward and inside I will die every day that passes from this moment to that until I am able to find another waterfall even higher than this one and perhaps risk my life in some stupid attempt to prove to myself that I am not a coward. I have only to prove this to myself so that I won’t die inside,” Jergen says spitefully, and then adds, “What a stupid way to die.”
He closes his eyes, shakes his frazzled mane, and walks to the edge with absolute calm and conviction, and drops off as if searching for an invisible bridge.
The feeling of believing is to not even know you are going to act before you act. There is no consideration or hesitation. You simply assess the situation as it is happening, as you fall. You don’t even feel your legs running or hear the water roaring as it spills over the edge. You only see the white foam, that little line drawn by the water across the green vista and all the hills rolling into the horizon, invisible behind each other and invisible to themselves. I hear the explosion in my ears as water erupts all around me. The feeling of inhaling all with one breath, falling and breaking through the surface, feeling nothing but refractions of light all around you like the dazzle of illuminated scar-tissue around the place where you were first broken. This is what you are. This is what you will be. The water is perfect and turquoise and clear. The streams meander one into another. We’re all wet now and happy knowing that we are braver than we think. We leave the water and follow each other into the trees.