Saengdao

*Sometimes I dabble...  my life is littered with bits and pieces of half-started stories I'm not willing let go of.  What follows is a draft of the beginning of one of my Thai stories.*

Saengdao was born during the rainy season, three weeks early at a hospital in Bangkok-noi.  For someone so early, she was in a terrible hurry.  The rains flooded the city streets and frogs the size of small melons left the banks of the Chao Phraya River to serenade the tuk-tuk as it sped through the Bangkok streets-weaving in and out of red and yellow taxis, motorbikes, and buses-towards the hospital, Saengdao's screaming mother its only passenger.  Every so often, the tuk-tuk would run over a frog and a disquieting POP! would briefly silence the pregnant woman. 

Daw was usually very quiet and the tuk-tuk driver, a distant relative, was quite surprised at the obscenities she screamed at him, the rain, the frogs, the cars around them, and some man who, according to her, will burn in hell.

“You sound like a farang,” he shouted, swerving into the incoming traffic to pass the bus that blocked their path.  Daw continued screaming and cursing him for going so damned slow.  She was not having her child on the streets of Bangkok.

Daw had been born on a very starry night.  Her mother had been in Chiang Mai for the Songkran festival and had witnessed a shooting star as her water broke.  Daw was named in honor of that star; her mother always claimed that the shooting star was Daw’s soul flying down from heaven to enter her unborn body.  The Christians had gotten to Daw’s mother when the first blue eyed missionary knocked on her door, Bible in hand.  It was that very blue eyed missionary, whose name has long been lost, who planted his seed in Daw’s mother while only God watched.  Daw’s mother always claimed that his blue eyes were hidden behind his daughter’s deep black ones, peering out, waiting.  It was in Saengdao that they were unveiled and rather unwelcomed.

            Daw named her daughter before she saw her.  So convinced was she that the small child would be a replica of herself, a chance to start over and change her destiny, she named her Saengdao, Starlight.  But when the baby opened her startling blue eyes and wailed, Daw pushed her away.  “She is not my daughter.  Bring me another.”

            The nurses chuckled and pushed the baby back towards.  “Come, this is Saengdao, the child you bore.”

            “She is a farang,” she spat out, teeth clinched.  "Just look at her eyes.  She is not blood of my blood."

            “They will turn black, just as pretty as yours,” they assured.

            But Daw knew better.  Those eyes belonged to the white man who’d promised her America before making her bleed and putting a baby in her belly.  Clint had been exploring business options with Kenan Institute Asia and had quite literally tripped over Daw while attempting to board the ferry.  They'd had a whirlwind of a romance.

         Daw had ridden with him to the airport when he departed.  He’d kissed her openly and it had excited her.  She'd hoped he'd ask her to join him and waited expectantly as his flight was called.  “I’ll come back soon,” he’d shouted over his shoulder as he walked briskly away from her.

            Daw had memorized his flight schedule.  Bangkok to Seoul - two hour lay-over.  Maybe he'd call.  Seoul to Tokyo - twenty minute lay-over; part of her hoped he'd miss the connection.  Tokyo to Chicago.  She knew he’d go through customs here and hoped that the hour lay-over was enough time to make his Chicago to Raleigh, North Carolina flight.  She went home, his flight numbers scribbled on the back of a postcard she’d bought at the airport. He'd scribbled his phone number on it as well.  She clutched the postcard, tracing his writing with her finger, and listening to BBC.  If his plane crashed, she’d know it.  She sat in front of the TV for over twenty-four hours, only getting up to relieve herself and let the cat in when its meowing grew incessant.  When Daw was positive that he had landed safe in North Carolina, she tucked the postcard into her Bible and went down the street corner to get some noodles.  She was starving.

      She'd called him when she missed her cycle and the test confirmed her suspicions.  She hung up when his wife answered.  She decided then that the child she carried, her star light, would be her chance to shine.  But the little bastard came into the world in a hurry with blue eyes and her own plan.