The Christmas Day Before Tsunami In Phuket

Christmas day I saw the boy the white boy skinny, thin thing who could only be two scores of age smiling so innocently in Phuket’s Patong Beach the elders surrounding him, cajoling I saw a little boy black plump little thing barely two, I guess, almost nude, running carefree, near the sea close to the waves and into the waves looking, discovering danger, no, a thousand miles away I saw a granddad jumped a few steps as he ran a little girl trailing behind did the same a breeze chilled us refreshed us in the splendour of the setting sun the rays dilated our pupils so that everything became so dreamy in that already paradise setting I saw a mother her satiated self sitting on a towel her dreamed holiday came true surrounded by teenagers oh! that warm smile of love from a mother! I cried over the transient quality of life too over mother! I saw the white men executives of some conglomerates stressing out a mishmash of tired nerves pampered by the sea the cool wind, the sand, the Thai women, their reassuring and status confirming touches and beer the patong beach Christmas day dusk endless waves of joy swept through the souls the hundreds of foreign souls the white boy, the skinny tiny thing the boy I turned back to take so many looks the young child playing by himself near the harmless mass of water and so many others their last holiday? the wave of joy now overtaken by waves waves, tsunami scale grief the waves, the relentless waves that roared kill, kill, kill all over the Indian Ocean Oh! that skinny little white thing with that lovely smile those mysterious successive waves of pain that sweep through me