![]() The locals were wussies too―who needed umbrellas with such a light drizzle? Today’s revelation: he fit right in with everyone else here. Smeared newspapers and pink plastic bags littered the streets, makeshift umbrellas having served their purpose. Why insult a cat by naming him after a fish, he mused. He took note of a karaoke bar with shuttered windows and rust-brown curtains, a mackerel tabby cat crouched just underneath on the sidewalk, its aggrieved eyes tracking his movements. Squat buildings built to earthquake code huddled under flyovers and highway overpasses. Outside the rain had stopped and fog was settling in. If everything fails or sucks, then stumble forward because people believe in the illusion of motion. The Londoners weren’t so bad, at least they were laughing and talking and existing. He flipped through the bills in his wallet―just enough for another drink. Six months later, one hard drive crash, fifty pages of meanderings, zero epiphanies. Freshly unemployed, he had told his friends before he left home, half-joke and half-challenge: I’ll be writing the Great American Novel. He had been to the jungle, too insect-ridden, then to the beach, too quiet, and now finally he was in the city, six months later. Like obsessing over weak mosquito spray for days on end in the jungle. Beer too bitter for him, wine and straight alcohol too strong. Death? A trickier one, did minor characters count? Death and rebirth? Figurative death? And departure? As in leaving a state of mind, or physical movement? Departure was just another way of representing death anyway. Orphaned children, abused children, handicapped children, bereft children. No doubt most literature these days was about children. And yet his fingers moved of their own volition and jotted the words down on a napkin: death, departure, children. He didn’t even get a good look at the man who spoke to him―bad teeth, skull-tight ski cap, and now his back was to him again. That’s when one of the Londoners divorced himself from another conversation just long enough to say to him very distinctly: Every great story must have at least one of the following: a death, a departure, or a tragedy involving a child. On the stage a band in flower print shirts was covering Muddy Waters: Got my mojo working… got my mojo working… They were shooting for blues, attaining rockabilly. The pub had been overrun by a bunch of Londoners, all sweaty and red and shouting, and it wasn’t even football season. ![]() Enjoy the excerpt below, and feel free to send comments and feedback to He forgot who said it or how it came up, but it was definitely after the third pear cider, on one of those drizzly December evenings in the subtropics that soak the tips of your shoes. “Happenstance” is about urban Asia in winter and summer, romantic connections, and the permanence of music. ![]()
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