“JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male’s tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn’t look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they’d nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn’t make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Fucking. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good.”

“Hale looked at the dead man. His baseball cap had fallen from what remained of his head. A head that was once bald beneath that baseball cap. That didn’t matter now. All that remained was meat. Hale guessed that’s all they ever were. Meat. Selfish and stupid animals. The trick was to be the one standing. Hale stepped over the dead man. Walked through the beaded curtain. Through the restaurant out the door and into the China Town circus.”

“Farewell, farewell," said the swallow, with a heavy heart, as he left the warm countries, to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang "Tweet, tweet," and from his song came the whole story.”

“The alcohol danced down his throat like a contented snake on the way to a magic ball... The lights seemed suddenly brighter... He felt an immediate sense of danger... Electricity... Fear... Excitement... The glass left his lips he needed another. He needed ten, twenty, thirty more...He needed rivers, seas, oceans... He swore under his breath. Somewhere a woman laughed and a man shouted... He looked at the stage. Temptresses dancing... Strange Northern music.... Whores... laws... violence...”

“My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.”

“Then right before my eyes, she flew. She actually flew like a bird. No, she flew as a young girl might fly, or a woman or a man, if people were meant to fly. She soared through the air. And that changed the course of my life forever.”

“Like raindrops, beautiful women were every-where. Like raindrops, only a few ever landed on you. They would either soak into your constitution or drip away into that puddle of other former love disasters drying out; dying in the Bangkok sun.Red Night Zone - Bangkok City”