Linh Dinh

Apr 22, 2023

[Lankham Hotel in Pakse on 4/22/23]

Never home, I still must establish a routine, so wherever I go, the first order of business is to find a congenial place to write. At 5:24AM on 4/23/23, I’m sitting at a long table outside the Lankham Hotel. Dawn is just breaking. Noisily, cars, trucks and motorbikes zoom by.

Across the street, a woman is busy at the noodle with duck joint. I had my $1.74 bowl there yesterday. It won’t open until 7AM. Two doors away, an old woman should come out presently to sit on a chair next to her walker. Looking at traffic is her daily recreation. Though her world is tiny, there’s still plenty going on.

Travel bins would be a great idea, no? Again, send me all your savings for a fantastic return. Locked inside a container just outside his house even, a traveler can peer through slits to marvel at a new world. He’ll also be introduced, perhaps for the first time, to his interior monologue, and maybe even to God.

Denied a continual intercourse with the most ordinary, men lose their common sense or even mind, so it’s no surprise they understand next to nothing.

When I posted two photos of the Boston Marathon Bombing, I thought the bullshit was obvious, yet one reader commented, “The guy in the wheelchair looks like he’s gone into shock already. Is that his femoral artery the guy in the cowboy hat has in his hand?”

With two legs just blown off, he should have two femoral arteries gushing blood, but there’s no evidence of that. There’s no blood on his clothing or the ground.