Back in basic, they said when you are in a foreign country you should behave in a way that upholds the honor of the US Army.

Your brain may be fried, but you know one thing for sure: you are not behaving in a way that upholds the honor of the US Army. You are drunk, real drunk, or seriously drugged up, or more likely (if you could only remember), both.

You seem to be lying on your back. You seem to be looking up at the underside of a table. Are you still in Wong's bar? Of course you are; where else would you be? You are looking up at about a million pieces of squashed gum, stuck under a table in Wong's bar. What is all that squashed gum doing up there? Must have been stuck there by soldiers who had to get rid of their gum quick in order to stick their tongues into the mouths of one of Wong's beautiful young girls. Squashed gum. Beautiful girls. Tongues in mouths. Logical deductions. See there, you can still be logical, no matter how stoned you are.

But as logical as you are, for right now at least, it might be better to take a little nap. Let t the old brain have a nice little rest.

You close your eyes. Hard floor. Smelly stuff on floor. Spilled booze? Throw-up? Yours? Who cares? Time for a nap.

Noise all around you, but you keep your eyes closed, determined to let your brain have a rest from it all.

You wait for sleep to come.

You wait.

Too noisy. Hard to take a nice nap when it's so damn noisy. Too many soldiers talking, shouting actually. And the always-too-loud rock-and-roll music coming out of Wong's scratchy old wall speaker, fading in and out, trying to find its way through the other noise: familiar music, American rock music. It tries to penetrate your tired brain, but it's almost lost in all the yelling and laughing and complaining and challenging and threatening and cursing. Then the fight starts. More yelling. More cursing. How is a person supposed to sleep with all that going on?

Pay it no mind. Focus on the music. Where does Wong get those records? What song is it? Try to focus.

Okay, okay, I get it. She really got you.

On and on and on and on and on. It's too much. Too much really getting can make your head hurt.

You put your fingers in your ears, but even that doesn't make it stop. What a crappy song. Who is that? The Kinks? Must be. Or some group like that. The kind of music Brent hates. Calls it teeny-bopper music. Where is Brent?

Is that record stuck? Why can't somebody make it stop? Why can't they make it leave you alone? "Shut up! Leave me alone!"

Uh oh. Did you yell that out loud?

A face appears, looking down at you. Your blurry eyes try to focus. It's a Vietnamese face, a very pretty Vietnamese girl's face. "Hello, pretty girl face."

Did you say that out loud too?

She leans further under the table to get a closer look at you. If only you could make your eyes focus, you might recognize her. Is she one of Wong's girls? She doesn't seem familiar. Maybe she's a new girl. If only you could make your tongue talk, you could ask her why she looks so sad.

She sits down on the floor next to you.

Hello, pretty girl. Want to share my floor?

She takes your hand in hers. It's a delicate little hand, a caring hand, a hand that wants you to be happy, to be at peace, to not be afraid anymore.

You try to get your eyes to focus on her. Who is she? Even with your blurry eyes, you can tell she's more beautiful than any girl you have seen in the entire twenty years of your wasted life. She's thin, exotic, almost dream-like in her white silk dress.

Now her pretty face leans down very close to your face. Is he going to kiss you? No, she's whispering something in your ear. What is she saying?

She's . . . telling you a story. With the chaos of the bar all around the two of you-men drinking, men gambling, men shouting, men fighting, men not upholding the honor of the US Army-she's telling you a story to make you feel better:

Her story is over. It was a funny story and it makes you feel a little better.

She manages to get you up off the floor and into a chair. She says the rule is you have to buy her a couple of Wong's watered-down drinks before you can go into the back room with her. She orders the drinks. Wong brings them. You hold out a fistful of money. Wong takes all of it and goes away.

She strokes your hand and brings it up to her cheek. Your hand is getting wet. Is she crying?

She helps you to your feet. She leads you to one of the back rooms, the tiny bed-sized back rooms where these girls always take us soldiers. The back rooms were made for this: it is where the fun happens, where the pretend-loving takes place.

It's dark in this little room, except there are a few flickering candles on a small table near the door. A little wooden Buddha with a fat tummy sits cross-legged between the candles. Cute. I wonder why the little carved Buddhas all have fat tummies in this country, even though the people don't.

The girl helps you take off your clothes. She guides you into the narrow little bed. She drops her silken dress to the floor and suddenly her naked body is right there in front of you. It is a shimmering marvel of a body in the dim, flickering light of burning candles. A beautiful body, more beautiful than you could have imagined a body could be. You don't want to take your eyes off of that perfect body: so thin, so delicate, with skin that looks so smooth you want to touch it to make sure it is real. You reach out toward her. You want to put your hands all over that body.

But she keeps her distance. What is she waiting for? She just stands there, watching you. You want to continue to look at her body, to see what you are paying for, but for some reason you can't look away from her dark eyes. It's as if those eyes are trying to look inside your brain. What is she looking for in there? Why bother, pretty girl? There's not much in there anymore. Nothing but boozed-out, worn-out, drugged-out mush in there.

She doesn't move. Her ebony eyes are calm, unwavering. What is she seeing? Just another naked young soldier, thin, tired, lonely, one more soldier of the many soldiers who came from a far-away county to make war on her land? Or is she seeing through the brand-new uniform and the old false bravado to see an often-depressed, much-less-experienced-with-girls-than-he-pretends-to-be guy who isn't quite sure how the hell he ended up in an American soldier's uniform in some God-forsaken hot and steamy country half way around the world from Arizona?

You look away from those eyes, unsure of what to do next.

Finally, she comes to the bed. She lies down next to you. You are ready to take her in your arms, but she stays on her side of the bed. The bed is narrow. She is close, so very close, but she doesn't reach out for you. Apparently she is not ready yet.

Should you begin? Should you reach for her?

For some reason, you hold back. You are feeling a bit nervous. But why? She's the girl, you're the guy. She's the one at risk, completely naked, in bed with a strange man. She even looks vulnerable, so thin she looks fragile. Not only that, but in her country, what she is doing is considered to be entirely shameful. But her eyes are not ashamed. She is the one doing the watching, not the one being watched. What are those eyes looking for?

Suddenly, you are the one that feels ashamed. You tell yourself you should stop your lusting long enough to ask yourself, just what did you intend to do to this fragile young girl?

You know the answer to that question. You know very well you intended to do; it's what you are supposed to do, isn't it? You were going to do what all the other soldier do, what these girls are paid to let you do.

So, why aren't you doing it? You should have gone ahead and done it the moment she took off her dress. You should have grabbed her. Began the process. A soldier should take the initiative. Isn't that what they taught us? You know how to do it, so do it. Back in Arizona when you had girls undressed in the back seat of your car out there on those lonely desert roads, you didn't hesitate. So why should you hesitate now?

And yet, you are unsure. You stare at her. She stares back at you. You are forced to turn away from those eyes. You tell yourself to snap out of it. Pull yourself together. You're not supposed to be looking at her eyes, you're supposed to be getting to it. At the very least you should be looking her over. You have the right to look at her body all you want; after all, that's part of what you're paying for, isn't it? The looking?

You force yourself to look at her body. You let your eyes wander over her entire naked body. Beautiful. You try to find a word besides beautiful, but there isn't one. It's the only word for her: young and beautiful. And pure looking. Pure is a good word for how she looks, as innocent-looking as the body of a child.

But that thought startles you. Just how young is this girl? In the flickering light of the candles, it's hard to be sure, but she looks pretty young.

You sit up and look at her more closely. There is no doubt about it: she is young, very young. She's too thin, too undeveloped to be considered a woman, even in this insane country where lots of child-women earn American dollars by selling their bodies. The dead giveaway is that she has almost no hair down there between her legs, only a dark triangle of beginning fuzziness, not even enough to hide the shallow crevice that leads downward between her legs. Now that crevice is something you haven't really noticed before. Do all women have that? Or only young girls? You are fascinated by that delicate little crevice. You can't take your eyes off of it. It's as if it is drawing your whole being toward that magic spot.

You tell yourself to stop looking at that. That's not why you are here. You should stop thinking about her age and either do it, or don't. It's a straightforward process. No great mystery. Natural even. All you have to do is climb on top of her and enter where that crevice is leading you. You should just go ahead and do what she undoubtedly wants you to do, what she is probably waiting for you to do.

But although she is undeniably exquisite, and overwhelmingly enticing, you still hesitate. Why? It is her youth? A word creeps into your mind: forbidden. This is a child. Back home they would call this "jail-bait." Absolutely forbidden. Back in America you could be put in prison for what you are thinking about doing with this young girl.

You try to push such thoughts out of your mind. This is not America. This is Vietnam. The rules are different here. You try to tell yourself she couldn't be that young, could she? She seems entirely feminine, despite her apparent youth. And besides, even if she is very young, she's undoubtedly as sexually experienced as any of the other girls here. You tell yourself she must be just another one of Wong's girls, even though you've never seen her in the bar before this night. Maybe she's a new girl, just in from the countryside. That must be it. She must be new. That's why she doesn't seem like the other more experienced girls; they are also young, but they have a cynical feel to them, a false toughness behind their paid-for giggles.

But she's not at all like them. You wonder what she's even doing here. Is this her first time? Is she a virgin? Was she forced into this?

You lie back down and stare at her. You tell yourself to just lie still and look at her body. It is enough. She's so beautiful, you should be content to just look at her, to just enjoy this moment.

As you look at her, your mind tries to put her essence into some kind of words. She is . . . flawless. Yes, that's the word, flawless. She's perfect, almost too perfect, as if no man has ever touched her before this moment. Is that possible? Such perfection hardly seems possible here in Wong's grimy little back room. You begin to suspect she isn't one of Wong's girls after all. But if not, then what is she doing here?

She waits, calmly watching you, allowing you to look at her body all you want.

You are getting more and more confused. None of this makes any sense. You begin to doubt it is even real. That last joint you smoked must have been a lot more potent than you thought. Or maybe Wong put something in that last drink. Maybe it knocked you out. Maybe you are asleep. Maybe this is a dream. That must be it. Otherwise, how could such a lovely young girl, a dream of perfection, really be here lying naked next to you in this grimy little tacked-on shanty of a room?

But it feels real. You can feel the warm moist air of the room. You can feel the damp pressure of your naked body against the mattress. It all seems completely real. And she seems quite real too, more real and wonderful than anything that's ever happened to you in your entire life.

No, you tell yourself this is not a dream. She has to be one of Wong's girls. You are being ridiculous. She's just waiting, that all. She's waiting for you to climb on top of her and do it.

But if that's it, why isn't she in a hurry? If she's here to provide sex for money, why isn't she urging you to do it and get it over with? The other girls drag soldiers into one of the back rooms, use their tricks to get them to finish quickly, and hurry back out to the bar to coax the next one in. This girl is just waiting, not moving, and she's watching you closely.

You have to decide what to do before it's too late. There may be a time limit. She might get up and leave. Every part of you wants to make love to her, but for some reason you just can't bring yourself to begin.

Finally, apparently sensing your uncertainty, she reaches out to pull you close. So it is about to finally happen. Your whole body is ready for it. You feel her lovely little breasts against your chest, firm and cool. Cool? How can that be in this terrible wet heat?

She doesn't do anything else. She just holds you. You know you should get started, make some kind of move, but you decide to just hold her for a bit. Her body feels so good in your arms you just want to concentrate on the feel of her against you. No harm in that. Maybe you should try touching her. See how she reacts. You cautiously put your arm between your two bodies and slowly begin to move your hand down toward that dark triangle of girlish hair you saw between her legs. You move your hand very slowly, almost apologetically, down, down, but just as the tips of your fingers cautiously begin to touch the first few delicate hairs, she gently moves your hand away and whispers, "Shh, shh."

Why did she do that? What does it mean? Does it mean she really doesn't want you to make love to her? Or is she just not ready yet?

You wait, not sure what the next step is. If she doesn't want you to make the first move, what does she want? You decide to just hold her close and see what she does next.

However, there is a problem: although your mind is willing to wait, your body is impatient. It wants to be inside of her, now!. It's telling you it's ready to do what a man is supposed to do when are naked in bed with a beautiful girl. It is demanding an answer: why should she be the one to say? Your body is demanding action, now! It is saying just climb on top of her and do it.

You sit up again and look down at her. She seems so calm. She lies back, one hand behind her head. Her dark eyes are still watching you. She seems perfectly content to wait, but for what? She looks so childlike and innocent lying back that way.

The more you look at her, the more you realize this situation is impossible. You can't make love to her. She's a child. How could you have even imagined such a thing?

You lie back down, and she again she seems to take it as a signal to move closer. She puts her arms around you. You lie still, telling your body to calm down. You tell yourself that just lying here with her should be enough. The feel of such a perfect naked body against you should be more than enough.

You concentrate on feeling every part of her little body pressed against you, her tight little breasts, her flat stomach, her narrow hips. You melt into the feeling. You must be content with that feeling.

Content? Do you really feel content? You think about. it. You do feel somewhat comfortable. Your usual feeling of jangled anticipation doesn't seem to be there. Your usual background edge of agitated worry seems to be missing.

Yes, there is no other word for it; you are feeling content. How odd. It's a feeling you haven't felt for a long time. Maybe you're even a little bit happy. Is such a thing possible? Can you actually be feeling happy? It's like remembering an old feeling, a feeling you haven't had for a long time, maybe not since you were a child.

You allow the feeling to grow, and soon you are getting so comfortable holding her in your arms, you begin to feel sleepy. But you don't want to go to sleep. You don't want to let the moment go. You don't want to let her go. You are determined to keep your arms around her, even if you go to sleep. You are afraid if you don't hold on tight, she might disappear into the night.

You concentrate on the feel of her, nothing else. Nothing in this world matters except the firmness of her body against you, the sound of her soft breathing in your ear, the whisper of her hair against your face. There is nothing in the world but her and you; no depression, no loneliness, no homesickness, no fear. You are no longer a soldier. There is no such thing as the Army: no more military uniforms, no officers giving ridiculous commands to kill people, no weapons and no bombs and no death and no unhappiness. There is only the two of you are the two of you are one. Nothing else exists, nothing else can exist.

As the night moves past, perhaps you sleep. Or maybe it's not really sleep, but only a lulling imagining of a peaceful reality that includes sleeping. You dream of a young man lying in a bed. The room is dark and cold. Maybe it is a cell. He may be a prisoner. Is he waiting for someone to come and let him out? But there is fear in him. Maybe they will never come. Or maybe they will and that would be bad. What will happen if they do come? Where will they take him? Maybe they will take him to the guillotine. That's it, he is waiting to be executed. And yet, thinking about it, he becomes calm. He lies in his cell, staring up into the thick damp darkness, feeling calm and resigned. Why is he so calm? Doesn't he know what is coming? And then you realize the truth: he is calm because all is now certain. After the guillotine there is nothing left to worry about, nothing left to be afraid of.

You decide you don't like that dream very much. You force yourself to wake up. You stare up at the ceiling. The flickering candles make strange shadow creatures dance up there. They are a bit fearful looking, like demons from beyond this reality searching for victims to carry away to their domain.

You look away. Why are you afraid again? You do not want to feel afraid. You want to be happy. You should be happy. You are lying in a bed with a wonderful young girl. You turn your head to look at her. Her eyes are closed. Is she asleep? You concentrate on her soft breathing. So peaceful. You could stay this way forever.

But what will happen when she wakes up? Will she get up and go away from you?

You look up at the ceiling again. This time you see something new up there. In the flickering dimness, it looks like a dark face, staring down at you. You tell yourself to calm down, it's only a rusty water stain on the dirty used-to-be-white ceiling. Odd that you didn't notice that stain before. You close your eyes to make it stop looking at you. You concentrate on the feel of the girl's naked little body against you. You try to make every other thought go away. Nothing else matters, only the feel of her and you together.

Time may have passed. You open your eyes. She is still there with you. Is the flickering candlelight growing dimmer? It doesn't matter. You are content with things just as they are.

You idly think a pleasant thought: how long since you have gone to bed and slept, really slept, without knocking yourself out with drugs and booze to keep from lying awake all night worrying? Tonight the drugs and the alcohol are in the process of wearing off, and yet you do not feel especially worried. It is a nice feeling. You could almost say you at peace. You decide there is no need to think about the war anymore. There is no need to think about being in the Vietnam, or even about what might be going on back home in Arizona. This is exactly the place you want to be, right here, at this moment, with this mysterious girl.

She opens her eyes and stares at you. She must have realized you were awake.

She snuggles closer. She begins to whisper in your ear. What is she saying? Is she speaking her language? No, it's English, or at least her form of English. You try to clear your head enough to focus on what she is whispering. She's . . . telling you another story. She whispers that it is an important story, a story just for you. The story is about a turtle that talks, a magic turtle that will help you if you help it. But her story is also about other creatures that live in the jungle, mysterious animals that move silently like the mists. Her story is creating a kind of smoky magic that creeps into your dreamy mind. You willingly flow into the world of her story.

But then everything changes: the jungle becomes dark and mysterious. A shadow of fear falls across the trail. It feels as though some kind of enemy is near. Isn't the jungle where the enemy hides?

Suddenly, a huge tiger appears. It confronts you, all orange and black and stealthy. It slowly moves toward you. It shows you its savage teeth to show you what it could do to you if it wanted to. It watches you with yellow eyes that warn: beware of what lies ahead on this path. Do not go here.

You are too afraid to run, but you know you should run. You must turn back. You must never go into a jungle. You should run away from this country. You should never have come to this country in the first place. You do not belong here. It is a wise tiger. You listen closely. It whispers in your ear. It is telling you it won't hurt you as long as you're gentle and kind to the insects and other small creatures. You let yourself flow into the tiger's reality, the silent calmness of his domain, the Vietnam jungle.

But then the jungle greenness fades. Something is wrong. Your sleepy peacefulness is gone. The old lurking anxiety that has long lived in your mind has returned. The heavy oppression of worry is back again, once again invading every part of you.

What has happened? Where are you? Why are you sweating? Are you in danger?

Do you dare open your eyes to find out? You try it, just a little.

Sunlight. Terrible jarring morning sunlight. It attacks you, harsh in its overconfident brightness. It makes you dizzy. It makes your head hurt. You quickly close your eyes again. What is wrong with your head? How can it hurt this much? And something is wrong with your stomach too; it hurts, a terrible aching, burning pain. Did you really drink that much last night? Think. You were in Wong's bar. What happened there? How did you get into this bed in Wong's back room?

It slowly comes back: you were taken to this room. There was a girl. That's right. a wonderful storyteller girl. She was here in this room with you, lying right next to you. She was naked. She was beautiful, and oh so young. Maybe too young. What did you do to her?

You feel fear, the fear that maybe she is gone forever. Maybe she went away with the night. Maybe she never was.

You keep your eyes closed, hoping it is not true. Maybe you can create the reality that she is still right here next to you. You reach for her, but your hands find nothing but the wadded-up pillow. That sweaty pillow is trying to deny that she was ever here. It is trying to tell you she wasn't real, that it was all a dream.

But you don't want to believe that. It couldn't have been a dream. She was so real.

If she was a dream, maybe you can go back to sleep and find her again. You keep your eyes closed tight. If you can only find that wonderful dream again. You try to make your tired, drug-worn brain concentrate. It begins to work, a little. You begin to feel the places on your naked body where her naked body was pressing against you. Her skin was cool against you, wasn't it? How could she be cool in this wet heat? Have you had that thought before?

It gradually comes back. There was a dream. The two of you were walking hand in hand through an enchanted forest of peaceful dreams. You can almost feel her delicate hand in yours. You must hold onto that hand. Don't let her slip away again. But the dream begins to fade. She slowly merges into the darkness of the forest, her dark eyes watching you as she goes.

You cry out, "No! Don't go." But it's too late. You know in your heart she's gone because you feel a terrible emptiness inside yourself, the kind of emptiness that comes when the last of your hopes have been abandoned.

You lie there on your back, keeping your eyes closed, but it's no use: you can feel it all slipping away. You are left with nothing but sadness and confusion. You are hung over, dizzy, sick, uncertain, and the heavy despondent feeling has returned. You feel as if you are about to throw up, and you don't care if you do. It is all meaningless anyhow. Illness is meaningless. Pain is meaningless. You are empty, empty of expectations, empty of purpose, empty of confidence, empty of hope. Anything you had, or thought you had before this moment is gone. Your aspirations have been revealed for what they were, naive self-delusions, childish fantasies that should have been given up long ago.

You open your eyes, and you see it's morning, the worst time of day, the time of day when you have to confront the disappointing reality of yet another twenty-four hours to be gotten through. And you will again have to confront it alone. She is gone. You might as well face it. You are alone, as alone as you have always been.

You blink your eyes until they clear. There is a rusty stain on the ceiling. It looks like a dark and frightening face. It somberly stares down at you. You turn your head to get away from it, and see that you are in a tiny room. You've never been in this room in daylight before. It's a sad little place in the light of day, dirty, with pessimistic stained walls and a cracked, unpainted wooden door. Parts of the ceiling are peeling away and hanging down like thick cobwebs. You realize that some time in the recent past, this room must have been tacked onto Wong's concrete block of a bar to serve as a place for paid-for sex. It is a slapped-together little cubicle, expressly built for that one purpose, a place never intended to be seen in the daylight . More than anything, the grimy little room is telling you that this is the true reality. The girl's dreamy forest of lighthearted magic is not the real reality. That reality is gone; in fact, it never was. You might as well face it: none of that was real; it was nothing more than a stoned-out midnight fantasy of a burned-out drunken doper who was desperately trying to escape this real reality by participating in yet another night of supposedly-fun-but-actually-meaninglessness nonsense in a far corner of a flung-out city that doesn't even seem to care that there is a supposedly significant war going on nearby. Well, now your little hot-sex-with-a-cute-underage-girl fantasy is gone. The truth is it never was. That knowledgeable tiger wandering through that too-green jungle was nothing more than the sleepy product of a fuzzy, drug-riddled brain. Those mists that surrounded you and followed you and kept you safe from harm do not exist, cannot exist. You will no longer be accompanied by gentle creatures that want to help you, guide you, teach you. Saddest of all, the forlorn emptiness of this grim little room is telling you that she is no more, and probably never was. You are not a white-robed master of a peaceful forest universe, husband and permanent companion to a magical smoke-skinned storytelling princess who adores you above all. You are nothing but what you always were, a confused young American soldier, often depressed, generally uncertain, presently directionless, and stuck for at least a year in Vietnam, the last place in the world you would want to be.

It makes you think: why are you here in this God-forsaken country? How the hell did you get here? Is this too a dream?

The sad little room provides the answer: this is no dream. You are a soldier now. Okay, so maybe you didn't want to be a soldier, maybe you did get talking into it, but you voluntarily signed your true name on the dotted line; therefore, you are here for the duration, whether you like it or not. "Yeah, well," as Brent would say, "here you are, so get your damn head used to it."

Did you doze off again? You open your eyes. It's way too bright in this damn room. You look toward the window. There's the problem: the antagonistic Vietnamese sun is forcing its way through a tear in the newspapers. You'd think if somebody was going to glue newspapers all over the window, they could do a better job of it. But no, the unrelenting brightness is coming right through and a beam of sunlight is creeping across the floor toward you. It's like it's coming to get you, saying, Wake up, fool, it's a new day and you are going to have to get up and face it, yet another day in this miserable place to be gotten through whether you like it or not, another day filled with boring work and taking orders from idiots, another day of having the same old feelings of dark and lonely purposelessness. You are barely awake and already that familiar feeling is coming back, taking you over, that deep and hollow feeling that you knows all too well. It has come back to possess you, and it's as foreboding and intimidating as ever. Ever since you came to this incomprehensible country, that feeling has got ahold of your soul, and you can tell it's not about to let go.

Although you may not want to admit it, it is not a new feeling. It was there with you back in Arizona, but never this bad. Oh, sure, sometimes it unexpectedly overtook you when you were out on your long solitary hikes in the desert, especially at night when the moody desert sounds talked to you about your wasted life, your pointless existence, asking you what you have made of yourself, what you have done for the world, what you have done for anybody, really, but back then, at least the hot morning sun and the clear cold reality of pragmatic cactus and restless coyotes tracks all around your campsite were enough to push the feeling away, for a while, anyhow. But here, in this forlorn country, you can't seem to make the feeling go away. It won't leave you alone even at the warehouse when you are surrounded by the other soldier-workers. It's there with you when you are in the streets crowded with the Vietnamese people with their stealthy glances, their whispering secrets behind your back, maybe even secrets about you, secret words that sound like th?a and mu?n and v?ng, words spoken behind guarded hands. And even after work, in the madness of Wong's bar, it's there with you, despite the scratchy loudspeaker's constantly-blasting American rock and roll, and the never-ending background irritating noise of the soldiers endless jabbering about hot-stuff girls, and who can drink the most, and the angry, ever-louder curses about the damn crooked dice.

Back in Arizona, the feeling was in the background, but here, it is always with you. Usually, you can hold off it's intensity by staying stoned, but sometimes it creeps up on you, attacks you unexpectedly, whether it's daytime or nighttime. And it stays with you until you finally give up and face the fact that it's not going to go away until you can pour enough booze into your body or inhale enough strong Vietnamese pot smoke or Cambodian hash smoke into lungs so that when whichever poison is the poison of the day finally finds its way to your bloodstream, it eventually convinces your nervous system that you are serious about not wanting to hear any more of that shit so it will finally oblige by shutting the whole damn thing down to the extent that you can once again be absolutely sure that nothing at all matters anyhow.

You stare up at the ceiling. That rusty-stain face is still up there. Why is it there? Wasn't it there last night too, staring down at the two of you, watching you, judging you?

But wait! The two of you? Doesn't that mean she was really here? That face up there is telling you something important: it's telling you she really was here, that she really was real. It's telling you that you can't allow those dark depressing feelings to take you over again, not now, not after you just had a wonderful night in bed with a wonderfully mysterious storytelling girl. You tell yourself that although you are in a strange foreign country, a devastated-by-endless-wars country, it is also an exciting country--this is what you wanted: change, newness, renewal. So don't just lie there letting those damned old dark feelings consume you. Get up! Find her!

You sit up. The room reels. Hang onto something. The room usually calms down in a few moments. You wait. It does.

You reach for your pants. Your wallet falls to the floor. You check it. All the money is gone, but you knew it would be. It doesn't matter.

Somehow you make it to your feet. Your head fills up with angry pressure: it hurts more than is possible. You lean against the wall and wait. The pain usually goes away. But this time it doesn't. Maybe something inside your head is broken. Maybe your head will hurt like this from now on.

You look back down at the narrow little bed. A depression in the middle of the worn-out mattress shows where you were lying, where the two of you were lying. You fall to your knees to smell it, and you are in luck: some of her scent is still there, but just barely. You concentrate on that wonderful odor. You pray to it, there on your knees, wanting it. Finally, the smell of her, the essence of her, begins to clarify, like stirred-up water gradually settling out and becoming clear. You find her in that odor. It is her. You let it fill you. It's deep and arousing, like some kind of exotic, but maybe poisonous, forest flower. You take in more and more deep breaths, pulling in as much of her aroma as your lungs can hold. You hold your breath. You stay there on your knees, momentarily happy again, grateful that at least this little bit of her remains.

But how long can you hold your breath? You begin to grow dizzy, but you resist breathing, not wanting to lose this last remnant of her. Maybe if you try really, really hard, you will never again have to let your breath out.

But then your body fails you; it wants fresh air, even if you don't. You are forced to let your breath out. It comes out in a whoosh, and that last essence of her is gone, drifted away to mix in with the stale air of prior inhabitants of the room; her wonderful fragrance gets lost in their cigarette smoke, in their sweat, and finally the last vestiges of it are gobbled up by the motorbike exhaust fumes that seep in from the street through the cracked window.

But her odor there on the bed was real. It must mean she was really was here last night. But if she really was here, what was she doing here? She couldn't have been one of Wong's girls. She wasn't at all like them. So who was she, and where did she go?

You look toward the door. Maybe she came to Wong's bar to find you. Maybe she planed all along to bring you back to this sad little room. But why? Why did she pick you out of all the other young soldiers who hang out in Wong's bar? She didn't speak much; she only told stories. Maybe her stories were more than just stories; maybe they were answers. Maybe that girl, that oh-so-thin, oh-so-young Vietnamese girl brought you answers, the answers you have been looking for. She might actually have been sent here to save you. Maybe she can, but only if you can find her. You have to find her.

You pull yourself to your feet again. Uh oh, more dizziness. Everything in the room is moving. Fight it. Hold onto the wall until the room slows down.

When the room finally stabilizes, you feel your way along the wall toward the door. You manage to make it through the door and out into the hall. Slowly, with your hands on both sides of the ridiculously narrow hallway, you finally make it out into the bar. You force your eyes to focus. Is she here? No, only the usual girls, sitting at the back tables in their slinky white silk dresses. They look tired after their long night's work.

Brent is not with them. He is nowhere to be seen in the bar. Where did he go? Did he already leave for work without you? Maybe he would know who the girl was.

The sun is even brighter out here in the bar, so harshly yellow and unsympathetic, it's painful to your eyes, to your brain. The sun and the room full of people--the talking, the shouting, the to-loud music--it's too much for you. The whole place begins to spin. You lean back against the wall, trying to stay on your feet. Maybe you should try to make it to a bar stool. You could get a drink, then look for her afterwards.

No, stop thinking like that. You have to find her. You may be dizzy, confused, and feeling sick, but you can't pass out now. You have to keep looking. Find her!

You look around the room, hoping you overlooked her, but no, she's not there. A few drunken soldiers are still at the dice table, throwing the ivories, shouting with joy at a win, or cursing with angry disappointment after each loss. One soldier seems to be asleep under the dice table, curled up in the fetal position. (At least you hope he's asleep, not dead, like that other guy.)

Where is Wong? He'll know where the girl went. He has to know.

You find Wong just outside the front door. He's trying to drag an unconscious black solder out into the street.

You pull at Wong's arm, but the little Chinese man won't look at you. He's grunting and sweating as he rolls the heavy soldier down the stairs.

Finally, when he's finished, he turns to you. He's not happy to see you; you can tell that by the sour look on his face. He has a dirty towel over his shoulder that reeks of that same kind of sour. He wipes his sweating forehead with it.

You ask him where the sad girl went.

He says, "What girl?"

You say, "The strange beautiful girl with the sad face who sat under the table with me last night and held my hand and whispered a funny story into my ear about a horse that pooped gold coins instead of horse shit. Only she didn't say horse shit, she said phan bon. Wong, what does phan bon mean?"

Wong just stares at you. He doesn't smile. Wong never smiles. He says, "No such horse. No such girl. You go back sleep."

Wong is not telling you the truth. He knows there was a beautiful young girl under that table with you last night, but he won't admit it. You are sure he even knows who she is, but for some reason, he won't say. Why?

Wong walks into the bar and won't come back even though you demand it. You chase after him, but he won't answer your questions, no matter how much you beg. He ignores you and goes to the tables area to yell at the girls. He stamps his foot and shouts at them in Vietnamese. They sleepily stand up and go slinking up next to the gambling soldiers, trying to coax them into having more sex, or at least into paying for some more watered-down drinks.

You are left standing by the door to wonder: where could she have gone? Where did she come from? You have to find her. Everything depends on it. You try to think what to do, but your brain isn't working. It must be because the bar is too noisy. The men at the dice table are shouting. Too loud.

Music is playing through Wong's single scratchy old speaker that is mounted up in one moldy, fly-speckled corner of the ceiling.

The music is loud. Way too loud. It makes your head hurts very much. The men's shouting makes it worse. The pounding of the music makes it much worse.

Maybe Wong is right. Maybe you should go back to sleep.

You stagger your way back to the dingy little room and fall into the bed again. And that's when you know she was real because the filthy mattress no longer smells of men's sweat and women's sex. Her wonderfully intoxicating aroma has returned. You sleepily let yourself merge with it and soon you are in the silence of a treeless field that is entirely filled with exotic flowers, the kind of flowers you can only find in an enchanted forest.