Elephants.
They go off somewhere to die, right? They have some sort of funeral ground. Some sacred thing where they go and they die. Leaving their unharvested tusks and the rest of their bones. As a kid, I wondered if the entire elephant skeleton is made of ivory.
When strippers die, do they go to some ho heaven? Some secret stripper graveyard? And then they dance their last, and then they die? And I'm not talking about afterlife. I'm talking about elephant-graveyard dying.
One night, well into my drinks, I asked that question to a Canadian fisherman in Phuket.
He said, "Son, when strippers feel like dying, they go to Pattaya."
I've been to Pattaya. There was no stripper graveyard. But it was close.
Then I wondered, where do writers go, when they need to die?
When you've written your last word. On an LCD screen, a page on the typewriter, a notebook or a piece of papyrus, parchment, whatever. Where do writers go to die?
In Hamlet 2, the narrator implied that dreams go to Tucson, Arizona, to die.
I don't think I can go to Tucson. They won't give me a visa. And they'll strip search me. And probably arrest me for being a terrorist.
Oh well. I don't think I'll have to worry about dying for long. I mean, for a long time. Though I do think about it a lot. Whatever I do, I think to myself, when I lie down on my death bed, or death train, or death aeroplane, would I have any regrets? Can I live, or rather, can I die, with the decisions I made?
The people I helped. The people I didn't help. The path I chose. Can I stand tall, flash the Karmic bullshit wheel, jack off, and feel proud of myself?
Have I lived a life worth living? Have Milx paid me my fucking RM11,700?
I think, when I die, I'll go to Pattaya. Hell Town. What a way to die. What a place to die. At least they have strippers.
