Sex, Drugs & No Idea

34: Here, But Not Present - Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

Will looked appraisingly at the smoke curling up from his fingers, and then at Charlie. "They are quite good though, that's the thing. Addictive, one might say."

"I thought you were about to give me the whole spiel on us approaching the sobering age of thirty, and that smoking and drinking as much as we are at the moment is only hastening our own untimely deaths," Charlie said, lighting a cigarette for himself.

"You ever heard of a timely death?" Will asked.

The company of six were staying on Phi Phi Don, the biggest island of the six islands that made up Ko Phi Phi. Suffering from a stroke of maturity, Dang had insisted that they stay on the outskirts of Tonsai Village because he wanted to "be able to get at least five fucking minutes of sleep a night". This collaborated well with Charlie's own, private schemes, as he had received information that Lily would be on Phi Phi Don too. She was staying in a whitewashed backpackers hostel five minutes walk inland from Loh Dalam Bay. By selflessly taking it upon himself to find the type of accommodation that would suit the needs of the weary Dang they had, by happy chance, also ended up just down the road from Lily's abode.

As sound a scheme as this seemed to Charlie, it hadn't factored in one thing. Kamilla was on the island too and, as much as Charlie couldn't seem to get Lily Larkin out of his thoughts, he knew himself well enough to know that should the circumstances contrive to put a shitfaced Charlie Green in her path, his newfound resolution to be good and see how things with Lily played out would have as much chance as a meringue in a washing machine.

Will took a drag on the cigarette and said, "We're not drinking right now," he said.

"Yeah, but word has it that too many of these fucking things will kill you," Charlie said, holding up the cigarette.

"Life will kill you in the end, Charlie. It's good like that."

"Why d'you smoke then, Will?"

"I dunno. What about you?"

"I dunno." But Charlie did know. It was like peering over the garden fence at Death. It was like tasting your own mortality.

They walked on a while.

"Amazing isn't it?" Charlie said and pointed towards a group of young people all walking up the beach and taking photos of themselves and everything and anything around them. They were walking as a group, but Charlie felt that if any of them had just vanished the others wouldn't have even noticed.

"Yeah, man, I know what you mean, I think. It's like when you're at a fireworks display, or, or, or when we went to watch those midget kick-boxers have it out."

"That was a good time. I don't know why there isn't more midget sport televised generally," Charlie said.

"Right, yeah, well, it was like that night when we went to check that out. And I was recording the fight on my phone––"

"What fight?" Charlie cut in.

"The one with the stocky blue midget fighting the taller red midget."

"Ah yes," Charlie recollected fondly.

"Yeah."

"You got that on film, did you?"

"Yes, Charlie, that's what I'm saying, dude."

"Good. Great. I'll have to get that off you."

"Sure, sure. Well, anyway, I was filming that for ages through my phone when I realised I hadn't actually been watching the fight. I'd been more absorbed with making sure that the filming was steady and I was zoomed in enough and stuff, than actually watching what'd been happening in the fight. I hadn't been taking in a damn thing. I'd been there but not there, if you know what I mean. Like these idiots," he said, and nodded at the crew of avid selfies-takers.