Looking the chinchilla in the eye, I can immediately detect that he detects my fear.
My fur-suit friend is perched in the shady goodness of a banyan tree, and I am soaking in gi-normous infinity pool below. We are at the edge of Yala National Park, which prides itself on being the very end of Sri Lanka which fancies itself to the tear drop of the Indian Sub-continent. So there is a kind of fatalism that he and I are dealing with at the moment.
Back to me fear. It's not really a fear so much as a concern. Not yet a full blow consternation but also not a flighty unease. What vexes me is skin deep, you see. Over the past 18 months of my life I have been toting my family around Southeast Asia in search of the perfect tan. Sri Lanka's 38 C degrees (which translates in Fahrenheit to "witch tits hot") provides a kind of final firing/kiln effect to round out the shades of Thai swarth, Balinese teak, Vietnamese cha-shu and Cambodian Kmher amber.
Here in this pool, with Mr. Chinchilla as my witness I come to a reckoning; all of this Singaporean safety, commercial efficiency and childcare will come to a rude end. We are moving to Japan, you see, and soon the tan and tropics will give way to the enigma within a puzzle within the go game that is Life in Tokyo. And beyond Japan, the notion of making our third international move in as many years leads me to believe that my dear wife may be reaching for the divorce papers (or perhaps the silencer to muffle out the Walther PPK?).
While it may seem like an act of mind-blowing misjudgement I intend to prove myself wrong in the weeks and months to come. In fact, moving back (aha! an intriguing sub-plot) to Tokyo will be a BRILLIANT move in Life's little game of chess.
My fur-suit friend is perched in the shady goodness of a banyan tree, and I am soaking in gi-normous infinity pool below. We are at the edge of Yala National Park, which prides itself on being the very end of Sri Lanka which fancies itself to the tear drop of the Indian Sub-continent. So there is a kind of fatalism that he and I are dealing with at the moment.
Back to me fear. It's not really a fear so much as a concern. Not yet a full blow consternation but also not a flighty unease. What vexes me is skin deep, you see. Over the past 18 months of my life I have been toting my family around Southeast Asia in search of the perfect tan. Sri Lanka's 38 C degrees (which translates in Fahrenheit to "witch tits hot") provides a kind of final firing/kiln effect to round out the shades of Thai swarth, Balinese teak, Vietnamese cha-shu and Cambodian Kmher amber.
Here in this pool, with Mr. Chinchilla as my witness I come to a reckoning; all of this Singaporean safety, commercial efficiency and childcare will come to a rude end. We are moving to Japan, you see, and soon the tan and tropics will give way to the enigma within a puzzle within the go game that is Life in Tokyo. And beyond Japan, the notion of making our third international move in as many years leads me to believe that my dear wife may be reaching for the divorce papers (or perhaps the silencer to muffle out the Walther PPK?).
While it may seem like an act of mind-blowing misjudgement I intend to prove myself wrong in the weeks and months to come. In fact, moving back (aha! an intriguing sub-plot) to Tokyo will be a BRILLIANT move in Life's little game of chess.
