ATOATS [8 - Epilogue]

Chapter 10

It had been two good months that Thien Sophadissakul, the youngest son of the retired deputy commander in chief of the Royal Thai Army, was a volunteer teacher at this Akha village. Time went by peacefully. The simple math he taught the kids had been passed on to their parents who didn't have access to a formal education and the result was satisfactory.

The farmers and ranchers became less susceptible to the tricks of the middlemen once they had learned how to observe the numbers on the scale and to tell if something was off. And even if they were still being taken advantage of here and there, it was a small cost and their livelihood improved quite noticeably.

The teacher himself got accustomed to the hardship that had turned into his routine. He walked uphill to the school instead of running on a treadmill. He learned how to eat the simple food he cooked rather than enjoying one in an expensive restaurant. He listened to crickets to fall asleep instead of the music at nightclubs.

His body became accustomed to the organ. The fluttered heart became less frequent, except when the tall officer was near. It was something beyond his control. The immunosuppressant he took would run out by New Year. Yet, if he went downhill to see the doctor in Bangkok, his mother would have taken hold of him and he would never set foot here again.

Thien tapped the pen on the desk. He had let the kids go home and been reviewing the homework alone till evening because the weather was fair. The city boy let out a long sigh and gazed aimlessly at the view outside.

...Only just one month left?

He stretched, driving away the tiredness, and rose up to get some fresh air outside. It was late November and the hill's temperature dropped even further that he had to keep his down jacket on all the time. Looking up at the sky, he saw how the light was dimming. Two familiar small aircraft were flying side by side. Khama Bieng Lae told him it was the good season to make Royal Rain due to the clear sky with sparse clouds.

The aircrafts bestowed by the king would fly to sprinkle crystals of sodium chloride in a clear sky with the right humidity at the altitude of 7,000 feet to stimulate the precipitation that created the clouds. This was called 'cloud seeding'.

As the clouds rose up to the altitude of 10,000 feet, the air-craft would return to drop calcium chloride crystals to feed the clouds. Once they got bigger, two aircraft would dash into the clouds and one would drop sodium chloride crystals on the top of clouds as the other dropped urea crystals at 45 degrees angle. The rain clouds would drop the rainfalls to the ground and the amount of rain depended on the size of the clouds.

Thien inhaled the cool air for a while before returning to the classroom to pack and go home. He nodded to the two rangers -- the newcomers he'd never seen before -- as an apology to keep the waiting for so long. They wouldn't be able to leave their duty unless everyone returned home.

He was lucky once again that Khama Bieng Lae's wife had given him the portion of their cooked meals. Even if it was simple and had gone cold, it was still a delicacy for him. After finishing the dinner, he set the kettle on the stove to get a hot bath before the temperature dropped further.

The slender form in pajamas -- a t-shirt and football shorts -- rolled around in a soft, wrinkled blanket. He was lying on his elbows as he opened and reread Thorfun's diary that he never got tired of.

He didn't know when he fell asleep. The next moment he woke up, his nose was clogged and he couldn't breathe well. He had always had this symptom when his allergy kicked in, so he changed his posture and sat up to breathe easier. Yet, what he inhaled was smoke that filled in and burned his nostrils.

Is that a fire?

He sprang up and ran outside to look. Everything appeared normal around his hut but once he looked intently at the horizon, he saw the white plume of smoke coming up. Must have been a wildfire, he thought, yet his eyebrows knitted as he knew too well such an incident was out of the question.