"father and son"

the below is something i wrote last week. part of it is inspired by a small visitor-made shrine at the anatomical museum in a hospital campus in bangkok. also referenced is the prevalence of foreign tourists in bangkok who cash in on the prostitutes. the underlying themes should be apparent...

father and son

The tourist snapped a photo capturing the monstrosity of a still-born child encased in a display box filled with yellow-tinted fluid. The boy’s eyes were shut tightly with an expression of anguish, a line of stitches running from the navel to sternum like the seam of a teddy bear. The photo appeared on the screen with a bright spot so the man pressed a button to turn off the flash. He re-framed the shot and took it, successfully confirmed by the artificial click of his digital camera. He withdrew from his pocket the wrapper of a strange condom that had a label with writing that was so foreign to him it could have come from another planet. He had used it to lay a whore in Soi 7 the previous night. Originally having it in mind to keep the wrapper as a souvenir of his travels, he decided it was worth this sight. The tourist placed the wrapper carefully on top of the glass case alongside mounds of countless candies and colorful little toys that had accumulated by donation as a makeshift shrine for this fatherless thing.