Don't Rot While Still Alive

[Cà Mau, 5/11/25]

Just like that, the end is near. I only have hours left. In Cà Mau, that is. For just $8 more, I can stay another day, of course. Spending $146,000, I can enjoy the frightful Tuyết Nam Hotel for 50 more years. Its name means Southern Snow, by the way. Makes no sense. I will sleep on the same unchanged sheet and use the same towels, as they turn whatever colors. Like Henry VIII, I will rot while still alive. I will stink up all of Cà Mau, and U Minh, too, 25 miles away.

Don’t give me shit about making weird connections. My mind is no more syllogistic than yours. Don’t even know what that $10 word means. God just popped it into my head, as punishment, perhaps. I get my entire vocabulary for next to nothing at Walmarts and Greyhound Stations.

Leaving my room around 3:30AM, I saw a prostitute exiting the door across the narrow hallway. “Bye!” she chirped to her john. Of course, the bare chested man was startled to see another creep facing him. Into the darkness we descended. What I assumed to be her miniskirt turned out to be just shorts. On the fat side, she had a crude, peasant face. Why must we insist everyone is beautiful? Ugly became offensive, then unattractive. Not everyone can be born a model. So modest, I won’t say who. Forever, we waited for the owner’s useless son to get up to let us out. Finally, I found the key to liberate us from Southern Snow. Outside, two more whores were waiting to get in. Into a taxi, the chubby girl disappeared. She’d made enough to feed her family for days.