Combat Tours Unlimited

By Shawn Smith

Paint it black. That's what Combat Tours Unlimited does â takes our gray postmodern, postmortem, post-history, post-ethics, post-Toasties world and paints it black. From the Book of Job to the banks of a stinking jungle river in the south of Thailand, or what used to be Thailand, this novella takes you through a guided tour both of a post-apocalyptic war and of postmodern hypocrisy on sex, death, and spirit. Set largely on the battlefields of Thailand's troubled southern provinces in the year 2016, Combat Tours is a lyrically written novella, dripping with religious iconography and depicting an amoral, blood stained world of violence, lust and personal compromise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456619664

Book preview

died."

IN DREAMS

A candy-colored clown they call the Sand Man,

Tiptoes to my room every night,

Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper:

Go to sleep, everything is all right.

Roy Orbison, In Dreams

Abdulpamel stood awash in the burning glow of God’s morning light, oblivious to the palms gently swaying across the Babg Nara River, oblivious to the multitudinous flowers and plants festooning the nearer bank, just beyond To Ku We Mosque. Oblivious to the blazing sun, to the flowing water, to the firm earth on which he stood, oblivious to the waning breeze.

Oblivious even to the veiled charms of the swarm of girls hovering nearby, like himself all of twelve, they allowed thus far and no farther along the processional route, unlike him denied the final spectacle. However they were not so oblivious as he, and tittered one to another of his beautiful, fine features, of his mop of wavy hair, of the slender, agile arms emerging from his sleeveless tee-shirt, incongruously emblazoned with a Pittsburgh Steelers logo.

Abdulpamel was oblivious to all but the passing procession, making its way along Ra Ngae Makkha Road toward the cleared ground where once, before God had seen fit to grant independence to the Patanni Melayu people, had stood the Chinese Association of Narathiwat. There, it was to happen again, as it had a week before. Could this shuddering sack in the cart really be of Satan? Could she really be capable of all that his friends had whispered, striving to outdo one another in horrifying titillation?

Obviously it must be so, as so it had been decreed. Abdulpamel trotted along, joining the throng of men and boys trailing behind the cart, the unnoticed girls left behind, casting last longing glances after his svelte, mobile form. The other boys, indeed many of the more stupid men, bartered coarse and raucous jests, but Abdulpamel had fallen into the somber state that characterized the thoughtful and righteous amongst his elders.

Abdulpamel shouldered his way into the packed clearing, past the Bosnians, and finally wedged himself adjacent to the platform itself. They had taken her out of the sack, and stripped off the veil which she had defiled along with her body. Her face, only meters from his, was twisted in fear and agony, but Abdulpamel could not tear his eyes from it, from its lurid and filthy beauty. From the crowd the young and the stupid howled, whore! blasphemous whore!

Observing the proper rites, the necessary words were said and the sword prepared. Even the most obdurate in the crowd were finally awed into quiescence by the weight of the moment, and a dead silence obtained as the sword was raised, glistening like a jewel. One swift blow and Abdulpamel was splattered by a jet of crimson blood, shimmering like the sword that had unleashed it in the burning glow of God’s bright morning light.

WELCOME TO TIJUANA

Welcome to Tijuana –

¿Tequila, sex, o Marijuana?

Welcome to Tijuana,

com’ el Coyote naia duana.

Manu Chao, Welcome to Tijuana

I was in Mexico City. I was poor and unemployed, one of a loose network of American Outsiders who'd left the country over the last ten years as the political divide between the US and everywhere else had opened into a chasm.

We were hundreds of thousands, just scrapping by in the previously-developing world. A group of us were more or less encamped in a poor, swampy area to the northeast of the Downtown of Mexico City. There were spectacular mountain ranges to the east. Although I had something that I needed to do in the encampment that evening, I decided to take an exploratory trip on the subway line that passed through our neighborhood and that ran westward to the ridge upon which, further to the south, Downtown rested.

As always during those days, it was a little weird being out and about as an identifiable American. People were usually tolerant, seeing that I was an Outsider, but there was always the possibility that frustrations would boil over into some sort of verbal abuse or assault. Outsider or no, I was still an American.

There were very few people on the newly-opened subway , which was pricey by Mexican standards. I arrived at the station on the ridge, in a much more densely populated area. Here the savory smells of cooking wafted across the noisy, dirty, bustling life of Mexico City.

Immediately upon getting out of the subway station I