Lotus Static Radio

Mike came to Saigon to film an abandoned building the locals call the Three Incense Sticks—three thin red towers standing empty for twenty years. No one crosses the plaza. He cut the chain and went in alone. The corridors were low and narrow, the air heavy with mold.

The chickens fell silent whenever he passed. No one would sell him water. A door at the end of the hall stayed locked from the outside. On the second night a fever came, and something walked the hallway on soft chicken feet. By morning the fever broke, the coop was shut, and a dark wet patch lay in the dirt. The village is not on any map. He still listens every time he hears a chicken.

On the ninth day of a promise he never fully understood, a traveler sits on a plane somewhere over the water and tries to set the record straight. After a sak yant tattoo in Chiang Mai began to change on its own, an old ajarn wound white cotton thread around his wrist and told him to wear it for nine days—no more, no less.

I paid for three nights in a cheap guesthouse in Ayutthaya. The owner gave me three rules: don’t open the west window, don’t touch the little house in the yard, don’t leave the door open at night......

I paid for three nights in a cheap guesthouse in Ayutthaya. The owner gave me three rules: don’t open the west window, don’t touch the little house in the yard, don’t leave the door open at night.

Mark, a pragmatic retail inspector on a month-long assignment, moves into a cheaply renovated apartment with two colleagues. What begins as a mundane work trip turns sinister when his door mysteriously refuses to open, feeling as though someone is holding it from the inside......