It’s important to check the functioning of one’s mind once in a while. This story could be a good example…
True Man or Fake God?
There were fountains, marble, golden brass and smiling faces. Then, one of the pretty reception girls left her brass-and-marble counter, led me to the lift, and guided me to my room. She explained me the whole functioning of this Asian five-star-hotel luxury bedroom. Then, after having completed her induction, she turned around at the entry and asked me with a sexy voice: “Is there anything you wish me to do for you?” The evening sun shone through the window onto her perfect young body silhouette, her traditional red Chinese costume. A breathtaking long sliver of sensual naked leg peeked through the open seam of her dress.
Yes, fore sure, money would bring me a long way along a perilous path of desire and joy, I thought. But, given I had changed my life quite a bit, I told her:
"Thanks, you are quite sweet, but I’m fine right now.”
She smiled, turned around, and left.
I spent two nights in the luxury hotel, amongst fake-smiling servants, who asked a hundred times the same silly questions, adding my name at the end of every sentence, or turned up at my room for no good obvious reason. The first night I spent on a special weak-end tariff, and the breakfast was included. As I didn’t feel that day like having breakfast, I tried to transfer it to the next morning, which was booked on a different (lower) tariff.
“We are very sorry,” sad the reception girl with a forced smile, “we won’t be able to do this for you.” Welcome to reality, I told myself. I started to hate this hotel, its fake smiles whilst it obviously lacked the most basic element of generosity. I had had enough of it.
The next day I went home to my beautiful Sarawak, spending the night in our modest apartment, in the company of my wife and kid. There is nothing like home.
We woke up early, and drove along the old dusty bumpy road, that leads into Borneo’s wild interior, where a man is still a man, and a friend is a friend. We arrived at Long Lama, as the sun set over the Baram River. From there we drove to a valley with rice plantations, where Maureen’s family owned a little hut. These simple wooden huts are built to serve as shelter and storage, in the vicinity of rice fields. We had our dinner in the light of candles, as thunderstorms loomed on the jungle horizon. Geckos, birds and insects fell into their endless songs that greeted the night. I lay on the wooden planks, on a single blanket among a few relentless mosquitoes buzzing around my ears as the cool night breeze swiped through the open windows and cracks between the blanks.
The next morning I woke up newborn and took a shower from the rainwater drum. The sun rose above the jungle and painted the whole valley in purple.
Yes, this was the life I loved.
It is better to be a true man, rather than a fake and dirty God, I said to myself.
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True Man or Fake God?
