I Feel You Linger In The Air

Chapter 3 - Wormholes, Piglets, and that Man

A while after being left with Ming, with my heart pounding at the latest information of my own speculation, Mei saunters back and says to Ming.

"Ai-Ming. The boss drove off, but the lady boss said to bring him to the great house."

I stare at her in puzzlement. "The lady boss?"

"The lady boss Ueang Phueng." Mei puts on air, answering proudly, "The Lanna wife of the foreign boss married publicly. Don't you know her?"

"I'm from somewhere else. I don't live here."

"Ugh, whatever," Mei cuts short. "The lady boss called for you. Hurry up and go."

I am led to another place, passing the lines of abundant trees of longan and mangoes. And then, we arrived at a wide, well-maintained lawn. My eyes widened in astonishment at the gigantic black wooden great house standing out among the green trees in a perfect condition, which is rare to find in my era.

The great house is a two-story structure built in an Indo-Portuguese style, with a hipped roof clad in Lanna clay tiles and hexagon-roofed porches extending on both sides. The cape leadwort blossoms in indigo bunches, edging the stairs leading up to the veranda under the pleasant shade of the trees.

I follow Ming up the stairs to the sizeable planked veranda. The whole great house is probably made of teak. I peek through the door and see a European couch set for welcoming guests inside. The enormous tusks are on display to flaunt the house owner's grandeur.

I flick my eyes back to the veranda and spot a woman seated on a wooden bench surrounded by the servants on the floor, ready to serve, including the braless woman whose chest is now wrapped in a cloth (Thank you so much.). The woman rests her arm on a triangle pillow. She wears a long-sleeve straight-cut shirt, a shawl draped around her chest and over her shoulder, and a sinh covering her ankles, her long hair tied up in a bun adorned with an orchid. When I see her face clearly, I gape. Somjeed, my little sister!

"Sit down, damn you." Ming yanks my arm. 

"Don't tower over the lady boss." I sat on the floor beside Ming, my eyes fixed on this people's 'lady boss'.

Somjeed...This is definitely my sister, but in a more mature and dignified state, unlike my whiny little sister. My thoughts run wild as I recall the elders' belief regarding reincarnation and how we meet certain people because we have been through thick and thin together in past lives. Is this my sister's past life?

...That explains why she loves spicy sausages so much. She was a local northern woman in her past life. Plus, my grandma's background can be traced back to Nan.

"Why in the world are you gawking at me?" is the first thing she says. I drop my gaze. Not only is the face identical, but her voice is as well.

"I don't think he's the person from last night," Somjeed, or the lady boss Ueang Phueng, notes. "The one from yesterday wasn't this gorgeous."

Whoa. Should I be happy to be complimented and compared to another woman? At least respect my slightly muscular arms.

"So? Who are you? Are you Oui-Ta's son being sent here to replace E-Kammoon?"

"It's not like that," I answered. "My name is Jom. I'm not Oui-Ta's son. I don't even live here. I don't.."

I shut my mouth in time and quickly weigh the pros and cons. What will happen if I deny everything? I don't know if Oui-Ta will receive any punishment. But where am I going to sleep? Will I stagger along the road and live in the open like a homeless man?

No. I don't have any emotional strength left to deal with more pressure. Think of what I've been through in less than twenty-four hours. Who would have any sort of strength left to fight against anything? And I even woke up in the wrong place and at the wrong time. If I stay here, at least I will have a roof over my head. Who knows? When I open my eyes tomorrow, I might be back in my bed in my apartment. Therefore, I must survive the current situation. I hold my breath and say.

"I am Oui-Ta's nephew. I am here in place of Kammoon."

I'm not lying since I am literally here instead of the woman named Kammoon. I got booted into that room, and Kammoon must have fled with the man with a strong kick.

"Why are you using a central dialect? Well, you don't look like you belong here," the lady boss continues. " I thought you were a child of some Jek sailing here to sell goods."

Whoa..that hurts. Did she just call me a child of some Jek? I wish I could tell her she's the child of our Jek father, too. In the next life, I mean. I fight the urge to pinch the rascal's mouth. "My father is Chinese. My mother is Thai. Ah, a northern Thai woman."

The lady boss Ueang Phueng locks her eyes on me in contemplation before sighing and shaking her head slowly. "The boss will not be pleased. He's not a woman."

My heart drops. What does it mean? Are they going to send me back to Oui-Ta, my fake relative? I'll be exposed! But the recently braless woman whispers, "Lady boss..! I think a man will be more useful than a woman."

Whatever that means, it seems to work. The lady boss, Ueang Phueng, goes quiet for a moment. "That's true, but will it be all right, hmm, Kumtib?"

The woman, whose name has finally been revealed as Kumtib, cracks a cunning smile. "The boss would not be dissatisfied with you now. He only wishes for your happiness."

The lady boss Ueang Phueng ponders it, then says, "I will talk to the boss, then. Since this one is a man, we can keep him for other jobs. No need to take offence at Oui-Ta."

"Anything you wish, lady boss." I sneak a sigh of relief, and the lady boss shoots me with questions.

"What can you do? Can you cook?"

"No, I can't." My face falls. I can do simple dishes like omelettes and clear soup. Northern food is out of the question.

"Can you box?" the lady boss resumes, "The boss owns a boxing club. Sometimes we perform at the royal residence for the prince."

"I've never boxed before."

The lady boss seems annoyed when Mei cuts in, "His skin is smooth like a woman's. Should we train him to do the fingernail dance, lady boss?"

"No! I can't do that," I cry out in alarm.

"Ugh! You can't do anything."

"E-Mei, don't speak too loudly." Kumtib scowls. "It will irritate the lady boss."

The lady boss, Ueang Phueng, waves her hand in frustration. "Just make him a coolie or a cowherd or something. I don't care anymore. I'm tired. I want to sleep!"

The rest of the servants immediately rush in to respond to her needs with balms and herbal inhalants, then escort her inside, nearly carrying her. I hear Kumtib speak after them.

"Please rest well, lady boss, so that the baby in your tummy can grow strong."

I'm stunned ...My sister is pregnant. Ugh What will Dad say about this? And who got her pregnant!?

Then I am taken to the row houses for male servants, situated quite far from the row houses for female servants. I'll be sharing a room with Ming in a house with around 10 servants. Ming is sullen, as if he doesn't want to associate with me but has no choice, since it's an order. But when he notices the pile of my clothes, a laugh escapes his mouth.

"Why did you bring female clothes?" Ming snickers. "Are you into this kind of stuff?"

"Well." A cat gets my tongue. These are what Kammoon left, not mine. "Can you find some male clothes for me?"

"Yeah. I'll fetch some. I don't want to sleep with a nutcase dressed like a woman."

Ming soon comes back with four to five sets of old clothes belonging to other servants. "You can put on only a loincloth like me," Ming suggests.

"I get cold easily. I'll wear a shirt," I quickly reply...There's no way I'll do that. Even though I've travelled back to the era where men work with their chests bare, I feel uncomfortable. Besides, I'm not in the mood to show off my body to anyone.

Ming exits the room, leaving me alone to get changed. I take off my shirt, and something falls out of the pocket. It's my phone! I stare at it for several seconds before pulling myself together and grabbing it. I sped off from the house in extreme joy. With this device, I can contact my family!

Ming looks at me in bewilderment and shouts, "Ai-Jom, where are you going? You loony!" I don't care if Ming thinks I am crazy. I dart out to the dirt yard and raise my phone, hoping for a signal in utmost anticipation. But......No signal detected.

The screen is bright, with no applications popping up. It's a blank screen emitting faint light as its sole function. My arms drop to my sides, my shoulders drooping. I return to the servants' quarter, my eyes downcast, with sharp disappointment.

After changing into a Mahom shirt and fisherman pants and finishing my meal, Ming tries to find me a job. But hell, nobody wants me. I'm not a brawny brute like most servants here. My body is average, neither fat nor slim. The woodcutters shake their heads, smiling. I want to help in the kitchen, but both Thai and foreign chefs have more than enough assıstants.

At last, I ended up working with an old man everyone called 'Oui-Suya'. He's in charge of taking care of the horses and cows, which are part of the transportation in this era, when people travel in carriages and carts. So, my task in this life is to clean the stable, the cowshed, and the pigsty.

R.I.P, the promising architect. Goodbye, blueprints and pens...Hi, dung.

Oui-Suya is kind, though. He patiently instructs me despite my sulky face and incapability. He also initiates conversations, so I won't be too stressed out. As a result, I learn rough information that the house owner, the servants address as 'the boss' or 'the foreign boss', is Mr Robert, a timber merchant, a manager of a teak company in England, who has been granted a concession to operate his business in an area of the woods in Chiang Mai.

"The boss hardly uses carriages anymore. He has a car. There aren't many cars in the capital of Chiang Mai, all owned by the wealthy."

I nod along, not asking anything much. I'm still muddled and can't adjust to everything, and the smell of dung does nothing but remind me that my hipster life is in the past...oh, in the future, the future that becomes the past. This is even more confusing. I keep working without thinking much. When the evening comes, I finally get to meet my brother-in-law.

I have to say this is not something I've ever expected to be a product of the decision made by my sister, who ran around fangirling over K-pop idols and twisted her body in front of the laptop while passionately cheering, 'Oppa...Oppa.'

Mr Robert is a tall, imposing foreigner with blond hair, blue eyes, and a beard. His loftiness makes him seem arrogant. He gets out of the car and heads to the great house when I return the female clothes to Mei at the white champaca tree by the side because I don't want to go near the female servants' quarters at night.

Mr Robert isn't happy that I am here instead of Kammoon, but he doesn't make a fuss since his wife is pregnant. At night, I form a circle with other servants in the same house to have dinner. The food I can eat is sticky rice and grilled fish curry in banana leaves, similar to grilled Homok. The dish I dread is Lhu, made with meat, raw blood, and spices.

"The lady boss accepts you, but the boss isn't happy about it. I bet someone will sell their daughter to him in a few days," Insorn, a servant sharing the same house, remarks and nods with the others.

"Are they short of female servants?" I can't help sticking my nose in. They mentioned me, after all.

"Enough to do chores." Insorn pulls a perverted smile. "But not enough to do something else." And everyone laughs as though it is such a hilarious matter. I glance left and right, hoping for further explanation, and see Ming glowering at his plate.

"What, Ai-Ming? Are you worried about E-Mei?" Insorn nudges Ming's side with his elbow. "Don't worry. The boss won't do anything to her. E-Mei has served the lady boss since she lived in the tycoon's great house. The lady boss asked to omit her."

"I'm not worried about her. I'm hot!" Ming snarls, but his ears redden. I kind of understand now why Ming treats me rather coldly. He has a crush on Mei, and I guess he is upset that I showed up at Mei's house. Plus, I am fairly good-looking. He must be worried that Mei might be into me.

Before going to bed, I muse, "How old is Mei?" Ming turns his head abruptly, glaring. "Why do you ask? You like her?"

"No," I deny straight away. "Mei is a beauty, but I prefer chubby women with dark skin. They seem warm. I'm asking because I wonder why she serves the lady boss so closely when she looks quite young."

"Mei was sold to Mr San, the lady boss Ueang Phueng's father, since she was a kid. The lady boss adores her and wants her to marry a fine man, not be anyone's mistress. You sure you don't like her?" Ming repeats the question to make sure.

"No," I replied firmly. I actually want to clarify that I'm into men, not women, but I'm scared to be booted out of the house.

After a few words exchanged between us, Ming's tone of voice convinces me that he no longer holds a grudge against me. He falls asleep while I stare into the dark with open eyes. I try to think about how I ended up here, coming up with hundreds of speculations. Finally, the most likely supporting reason is travelling through wormholes.

Not the holes dug by worms, but wormholes. It's a theory about quantum physics, still a controversial topic among scientists and opposed by several other theories. Regardless, it concerns time-travelling in space.

To put it simply, according to the theory of relativity, if spacetime, the course of time going on in space, were a piece of paper, the piece of paper would stretch out infinitely. And if a vibration caused spacetime to bend, there would be a chance a passage would be formed, a tiny pipe connecting one point on the paper to another. If we happened to be the thing flowing through the passage, we would jump to another period of time.

Have you ever watched Interstellar? It's one example of time travel through a wormhole inside a black hole. Someone has remarked that if you travelled in space more than 4.6 billion light-years, a distance older than the age of the world, you might turn around and witness the birth of the world. However, loads of scientists believe we can't specify the location, time, or dimensions of wormholes. No one has the right to decide for them. We could jump to another galaxy, on a planet full of aliens.

Thus, according to the opinion of a non-expert like me, wherever the wormholes take us is up to them. No one can make the decision for them. I'm glad the wormhole sent me here instead of to a planet filled with water and ten-story-high waves like in Interstellar, though it's my favourite planet in the movie. Tonight, I can finally put myself to sleep, all the while hoping that when I wake up tomorrow, everything here will disappear and my world will be back.

In the morning, I wake up to the sound of roosters crowing under the same wooden roof, and I lose it. I scream at the top of my lungs.

"Ai-Jom, are you okay? If you're not, I'll tell Oui-Suya you... you have diarrhoea," Ming asked during breakfast.

Right now, Ming isn't the only one thinking there's something wrong with my brain, but the other servants are beginning to guess I might be screwy, the result of my furious scream this morning. I told them later I had a nightmare.

"I'm okay," I answer curtly, pressing a ball of sticky rice into a paste that seems to contain fermented fish. The taste and smell are weird, unlike anything I've ever experienced. Whatever. It won't kill me.

I shake my head and sigh in frustration. Why? When I read books where the characters have accidents and travel to the past, they will take over the bodies of someone super cool, like the heir to the throne, a concubine, a philosopher, or a destructively beautiful woman. I am none of that, stuck in my own body. I am Jom, a twenty-four-year-old Thai-Chinese man with okay looks and zero skills as a livestock caretaker, yet I have to live my life caring for pigs and horses.

Once I've finished the meal, I walk to the stable without a choice. After a deep sleep last night, my body no longer aches, and I feel stronger and ready to work. I decided to adjust the way I speak to suit the situation, annoyed that people keep asking me why I talk weird. I address myself accordingly, depending on whom I speak to, and sometimes I end my sentence with 'kind sir' to fit the era. I don't know if I used it correctly.

I don't care that much. Sometimes I unintentionally speak in a modern way.

Today, Oui-Suya assigned me more tasks. I carry each one out as ordered, but my mind is elsewhere. I keep thinking of how to go home. I don't want to be here. Even though the place I came from retains something that hurts me, it's my real world.

"Lad, why spacing out? Something on your mind?" Oui-Suya asks.

"No." I shake my head.

Oui-Suya goes still, his eyes and gestures oozing the kindness an adult has for a kid. Feeling guilty, I mumble out a reply. "Oui-Suya, you said the boss hardly uses the carriages. Why are there so many horses?" I try speaking in a central-northern dialect. I kind of make it up, to be honest.

"Those two are for polo." Oui-Suya points at two horses in better condition than the rest. 

"Thoroughbreds. The boss loves them dearly."

"They play polo?"

"Yes. At the club of foreigners. They have all the equipment. Ho..it's more convenient nowadays. They do deliveries by train. It doesn't take almost a year to ship something across the ocean like before."

That gets my attention...Hey, hold up. If there's a train reaching Chiang Mai, it means this should be the late Sixth Reign, right? Is it the Seventh Reign already? Prince Kaew Nawarat ruled over Chiang Mai for quite a long time, overlapping two reigns. What year did the train start running here? Damn it! Who would know? Even if I once knew, I have forgotten it.

My mouth is itching to ask what B.E. it is, but I know it's useless. Oui-Suya would answer me in a Lanna year, and I wouldn't be able to convert it to B.E. It's okay. If I'm stuck here longer, I'll piece things together with other clues. If I'm lucky, I'll meet someone who can provide the answer. I am curious what year I got lost in.

At night, my thoughts run even wilder. I fidget on my bed, disturbed by so many feelings. I'm worried about my parents. How distressed must they be to find out I have disappeared? For a brief moment, I think of Ohm...

Has he discovered my car fell into the Ping River? If he has, what will he think? Will he blame himself for being part of the cause of the accident? Will he regret it? Will he cry? Or does he stick with his fiancée, the mother of his child, and know nothing at all?

My heart throbs in my chest, my eyelids feeling hot, but I suppress it. I think of people who love me, my dad, my mom, and my sister. The one who doesn't love me...doesn't deserve a room in my mind. Another night passes by with a whirl of thoughts. I am positive that my wish has failed to reach the God of Wormholes, or whoever was involved in sending me here, because when I open my eyes, I am still in the same house, with Ming sleeping nearby. And I still have to clean the pigs' and cows' dung.

Though miserable, I console myself not to lose hope. If I can come here, I can leave. I just haven't figured out when and how, but there must be a way. For now, I need to navigate living here as smoothly as possible. I hope there will never be an incident forcing me to wander off.

Today is chilly, but the afternoon sunlight is strong. Sweat trickles down my face and forms into tiny beads above my upper lip.

"Add water to the trough for the pigs," Oui-Suya says.

I carry a bucket to the outdoor well. There is groundwater to be pumped by an ancient water hand pump. Two servants were there, pumping the water into their buckets. I wait a distance away.

"You go first. I'll catch up," one servant says after filling his bucket.

"Go first? Where's first?" the other jokes.

"Ha...You prick, just go where you came from." He tries to kick the other servant, who dodges it and, laughing, leaves with his bucket on his shoulder. I watch the water flow out of the faucet, and it suddenly dawns on me.

Just go where you came from. Chills rush in my chest. I turn my head to the river immediately. On the day I came here, my car plunged into the water and drowned. I remember my whole body was in the water, and I was about to take my last breath, then I heard air whistling past my ears and turned up here. The river...The river is the key. There's a passage under it, a wormhole that will take me back home!

My heart races in excitement. So, if I want to go back, I must do it in the water. And it must be the exact same place I got here. I calculate everything quickly in my mind. The dock at the side of the female servants' houses is pretty far from here. I have to make my way past the row houses, the kitchen, and the vegetable garden. Someone might stop me before I get there. Not to mention that jumping into the river at the female area during this time of day is a mindless move.

I take a deep breath... It's okay. After waiting for a few hours, I will leap into the water to my heart's content. At night, when Ming and the others have fallen asleep, I tiptoe outside, not forgetting to bring my phone. Better safe than sorry. I don't know what factors are required to travel through the wormhole. The phone signal could be one of them. Be damned if it's not. I'm not afraid the water will ruin it. Fortunately, my friends persuaded me to buy this waterproof phone. I never thought it would be of use.

The dock at the female area is indistinct in the dark. Next to where someone once tied a boat, crickets chirp in the thick growth of grass. I glance around. Once confident that no one is present, I step onto the dock. The plank softly creaks when I stand on it. Each step I take is full of excitement and anticipation. I stop at the last plank and gaze down at the black river gently flowing under the moonlight. I hold my breath and jump.

SPLASH!

The water splashes noisily when my body dives into the cold river. I open my eyes and let myself slowly sink, not fighting against it. Darkness envelops me. There's only ringing in my ears. I hold my breath patiently, waiting to hear the air whistling as I hoped.

Soon, I begin to run out of air, bubbles escaping my mouth. I struggle to hold on in restlessness, trying my best not to give up. Still, human bodies have limits. At last, I can't keep on. I crawl up with my arms and do flutter kicks until I reach the surface.

"Ha.." I inhale industriously to fill my lungs with air, then I choke. I tread to the shore in weariness, soaked and shivering, my heart screaming in bafflement.. Why didn't it work? What did I miss? Why didn't the wormhole open like it had when I had first drowned? What did I overlook?!

My breath is ragged, my fists clenching around the grass in an attempt to calm myself down. I have to get it together. My hope hasn't wilted. I need to fight on, and I will not let myself get stuck here for the rest of my life.

I catch my breath on the riverbank for a moment before springing up. I march the length of the planks jutting out over the river again, drops of water dripping from my clothes, forming puddles on the planks, tracing my steps. I pause at the edge. The river still flows gently, moving in ripples as if to mock my effort. I inhale deeply and jump one more time.

I don't keep track of how many times I have jumped and choked, but I have concluded that it doesn't take me farther than a small deck in Mr Robert's property, in the Ping River that has existed since my previous lifetime. I go back to the male servants' quarters drenched, both cold and angry. You fucking wormhole! It brought me here, and fucking refused to take me back!

Time passes by with me cursing the God of Wormholes and trying to find the passage under the water in as many areas as possible. In the evening, I would bathe later than the others and spend a long time at each dock as I had to drown in different places in case it might work or show any sign that would give me some sort of hope.

After repeatedly being disappointed by my futile efforts, my vigour gradually fades, and discouragement creeps in instead. I feel dispirited and start to fall into resignation. I make peace with the fact that I might have to be here longer than I thought.

I decide to adjust again and interact more with other servants to make it feel like I am part of this place. I am fed up with unease at night and the agony of my failure to find a way out. I need to relax more if I don't want to go crazy for real, like Ming kept remarking. A man time-traveling to be crazy. What a tragedy.

In one afternoon, Mr Robert's tall, imposing figure appears near the cowshed and pigsty, shadowed by Oui-Suya, who stands respectfully. I am surprised to see him here. Mr Robert watches two large pigs wolfing down food in the trough and shakes his head. "This won't do."

I tense up. Is he criticising my working performance? Step back, will you? I've worked here for over a week. How perfect do you expect it to be? But then, he says, "I want a fast piglet." ...I'm at a loss for words.

A-FAST-PIGLET.

"Ah..Did you mean a "horse "? Not a 'piglet', right?" I ask. Are we on the same planet? I've never heard of a fast piglet ever since I was born!

"No, I mean a piglet, a piglet that runs fast." He frowns slightly. "You know English?"

"A little bit. I once worked with...ah, the missionaries." The lie slips out at the speed of light. Mr Robert is about to say something, but he loses interest and turns his attention back to the piglet.

"Find me one." He points at my face. "A fast piglet."

My question finally gets answered by Oui-Suya's explanation. "The boss wants a piglet for the piglet race on Shitamas. It's a big event held annually in winter by the foreign timber merchants, a month after Loy Krathong Day. Last year, the boss participated in polo and a horse race. This year, he wants to join the piglet race as well."

I process the information given by Oui-Suya. "Shitamas..You mean Christmas?"

"Yeah...Yeah, that." Ha..He said it rather dangerously.

Well, all right, I got it now. My task is to find a 'fast' piglet for the foreign boss. "Where can I find the piglet, Oui?"

"No worries. I'll tell Ming to take you to the market by boat tomorrow."

The following day, I board the boat at the dock at the back of the great house and head to the market as Oui-Suya instructed. I admit I'm pretty excited, since I've never seen Chiang Mai in this era. Ming paddles slowly along the Ping River in the cool air and warm sunlight.

Ming guides the boat past the line of little houses behind the row of trees, not far away from the dock where I appeared on the first day. I've never known they existed as they hid behind the grove.

"Is that where the female servants live? What lovely houses," I ask. Ming chuckles, "Those are the residences of the foreign boss's women."

It takes me aback. What does it mean? Mistresses' houses? How many mistresses does my brother-in-law have? Looking at the little houses, I shake my head. These are basically harems. I feel so bad for my sister.

Next to the fence line of Mr Robert's place is the neighbour's property, sheltered by the trees, both big and small, casting their shadows on the bright green lawn. It makes me want to roll down the grassy knoll. The house looks as cosy as Mr Robert's. In the distance, I glimpse a house roofed with Lanna clay tiles behind the bushes. It seems fairly huge, though it's hard to make out clearly from here.

Near the great rain tree, spreading branches over the lawn, I spot a large grove of Lantom trees growing beside the riverbank, which is odd, as it's not a conventional houseplant in this era. A waterfront pavilion protrudes over the river alongside them. Ming pushes us along the river with the paddle as the breeze brings the mist, mixing with the scent of Lantoms over. 

I notice a man resting in the pavilion. He wears a hemp shirt and satin trousers, the attire of people from the Central Region. He is reading a book, totally focused. When our boat approaches, he gazes up. He is a charming man with light skin and a sharp facial structure for a Thai man. He stares at me without breaking eye contact, stunned or maybe in extreme shock. We hold each other's gazes for several seconds before I avert my eyes.

My heart beats fast for some unknown reason. I'm not sure why I'm feeling this way. It's not because he's handsome. I'm not crazy enough that my cheeks would redden like the traffic light whenever I stumbled across a good-looking man. Something in his eyes somewhat struck my heart. And there was a flicker of something in them...

"Whose house is that, Ming? It's large and grand. Is it the royal residence?" I ask when our boat is far enough from the pavilion, a huge building built inconspicuously behind a row of trees for privacy, coming into sight. Yet, its balcony sticks out towards the river.

"No. It's the accommodation for the civil servant from Siam."

"Oh... That's why he's not dressed like Lanna people. Who was that just now, though?"

"How am I supposed to know? I don't serve there."

"What? You're neighbours. Don't you know each other?"

"He's moved here for a few months. The name of the house owner is Luang something. I don't remember. The servants there use a central dialect like you. Our foreign boss treats him well. He sometimes invites the Luang to the parties."

Oh... I remember it now. If I'm not mistaken, in the previous reign the northern prince had sole discretion to issue permits for foreigners to engage in forestry. However, Siam recently began taking control of the North by sending governors and officials from the British Embassy there. Subsequently, forest ownership was transferred to the government.

I reckon roughly about Princess Dara Rassamee, the princess consort of King Rama V. She persuaded her relatives to accept the share of the timber fees the government collected each year as the benefit in exchange for them waiving their sole discretion over the forests. I heard the amount was hefty enough that they needed to carry the money back in bamboo baskets.

It's no surprise that foreigners who wish to run forestry businesses in Lanna in this era must fraternise with government authorities to obtain concessions to produce teak in Thailand.

A few minutes later, my interest in the neighbour dropped, replaced by excitement towards something else appearing before my eyes. All kinds of small boats, including scorpion-tailed boats, glide by the port. The bank adjoining the river is occupied by a huge wooden great house, the residence of the Siamese governor, as Ming clarifies. I remember it is currently the provincial governor's residence. Further down the opposite side of the river, I spot the pagoda of the Ket Karam Temple rising above the tree line, not flanked by nightclubs by the river like in my time.

I almost jump out of my feet when I see the Nawarat Bridge extending across the Ping River. It is still a steel bridge, not concrete as I have seen. Besides the riverside lifestyle, another thing that thrills me is the chance to crane my neck for a good look at Thapae Street, an important street even in this era. Both sides are packed with stalls. Beyond the street is the Ton Lamyai Market and the Warorot Market, our destination today.

The markets are bustling with people shopping. Most women are clothed properly, but some of the older ones only drape long sheets loosely around their breasts. Some men are topless, showing off their tattoos. The markets are the centre of merchants from different nationalities. I constantly overhear conversations in unfamiliar languages.

Ming shakes his head at how amazed I am by the city and mumbles that I am a loony, but I have gotten used to it. Ming takes me to the pork merchant to ask if there is a house with newborn piglets. Then we both met the owner of the pigsty, who had a sow give birth less than two months ago. 

The piglets are all weaned and consume solid food. There are ten piglets, all chubby and cute. I select three that seem stronger than the rest. Ming takes care of the payment and orders the owner to deliver them to Mr Robert's great house, the British forestry manager, tomorrow. When the sunlight fades and the breeze comes in the evening, Ming paddles our boat back. 

The weather is still pleasantly cool for a northern city. Ming ushers us past the Luangs' property next door. I glance at the waterfront pavilion, but no one is there. I reach out, cup a Lantom floating in the water, and inhale its fragrant scent. Hmm...how refreshing.

Once shored, I quickly ask the other servants to expand the pigsty for the three little piglets that will be the new members tomorrow. I don't want any flaws to be found and complained about by the foreign boss. I also help the servants build the shelter, my body sweating profusely. When the expansion is finished, I, exhausted, bathe, eat, and go to bed straight away.

Instead of getting knocked out by the exhaustion, I can't believe I am concerned about the piglets and the upcoming race in a few weeks. How do I train them? Do they need some extra care? Is it enough to feed them normally and let them eat grass and straw? They are racing piglets. Shouldn't we give them specific food?

I think of some pig pages on Facebook I followed. One of the admins raised a mini pig to be a healthy giant pig. I reckon he fed the pig various foods, including pastries, tomatoes, watermelons, and even durians. He even potty-trained it. Maybe I have to discuss how to feed and train the piglets my way with Oui-Suya tomorrow, to consider the plausibility. I might need Ming to take me back to the market to buy the things we're short on. Once the piglets arrive, we will have everything ready.

I flip onto my side and move the Lantom at the top of the mattress closer to my face so I can smell it as my vigour rockets. Bring it on! If I can't go home yet and have to continue living in this past world, I will not live in despair. I will fight on as long as my strength allows me. My piglets must be the champions!