Kongpob and Arthit: short stories

Kongpob and Arthit are friends..

Kongpob and Arthit are.. something more?

A story of two strangers finding something special in each other.. finding home?
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It's a typical day in Kongpob's life. He wakes up, eats leftovers from the night before, showers, dresses and rides a bus for forty-five minutes to a job he hates.

"Sir, have you got this in size 12?" The customer coughs loudly which irritates Kongpob further, why can't they wear masks if they're sick?

For a moment, he longs for his old life, when his whole family lived together at home in Thailand and people were polite and respectful and didn't cough in your face.

Since moving here, he has found himself swept into the jarring western culture in some ways, but in others, he remains true to his roots. It's the only way he can survive. Continuing to cook or buy the food of his youth, following the customs of his religion as much as he can, while still adapting to the more hectic world he now resides in.

It's a whole new experience, one that Kongpob has been living for the past three months and one which he is going to be living for the foreseeable future.

He has no choice.

X

It's the end of his working day when Kongpob steps out of the strip mall and heads down an alley into Chinatown. Here, he can find some of the foods he often longs for, the ones his sister often scarfs down when they chat over Zoom. He can bask in the neon lights, written in his second language, one he recognises better than the English he's forced to spend the majority of his time conversing in. He can even find Thai people at some of the stalls and catch up on gossip from back home.

And more importantly, it's also where he'll find Arthit.

The young man has become a fixture in Kongpob's life since they met two months ago. Every evening, when Kongpob finishes work, he heads down Arthit's alley and urges the young man to put down his guitar for an hour and join him for dinner.

Five days out of seven, Kongpob is successful. On the other days, Arthit refuses, citing the need to earn enough before he can stop singing.

On one of these days Kongpob gets take-out (not in plastic bags tied with elastic bands, but in white polystyrene, squeaky and smooth), and watches Arthit for as long as he can, before leaving a portion of food for him as a tip and heading home.

While it's always amazing to listen to Arthit perform, the days when they don't share dinner cramped together at a tiny table at a 'Mom and Pop' restaurant with plastic chopsticks and a peeling laminated menu, he feels less satisfied.

He misses Arthit's company, his conversation, wild stories of his days playing on the street, stories of long treks cross-country on Greyhound buses to get to gigs, the fascinating musicians he's met and played with, the bizarre hostels and homes he's stayed in.

He misses sharing his own memories, heated streets, blazing sunshine, the towering house his whole family shared. With Arthit, he can talk about anything.

On the days without Arthit's knees knocking into his own beneath a formica table, Kongpob feels loneliness creeping in and has to stifle the urge to tell his Mother that he wishes they never came here and that he really wants to go home.

X

But today is a good day. Arthit has already latched his guitar in his case and is seated on the wall next to Ma Hom's Royal Duck Restaurant, eyes flickering back and forth down the busy street.