“Such as...” it asked.
“At times I have thought that I could become a monk—one of those real monks that live in the cave, eat only vegetables, and have no needs or wants.”
The mosquito scoffed. “What a bloody idealist. Deny your hungers and you deny the animal that comprises so much of the human being-the animal that developed a high degree of consciousness to fight his way up as the dominant species, the animal that nonetheless behaves according to instinct. If you deny the human you will have wasted your life not living it at all. That is what will happen if you are lucky. If unlucky, I suppose you will eventually snap like a crazed immigration officer who begins to shoot tourists. You are an animal not that you have to be swallowed up whole into your hungers. The illusions of being in love, the ambitions that have allowed you to subdue the Earth under the illusion of gaining some happy plateau after making your conquests, are hardly instincts one can extract. One shouldn’t extract them. These instincts have filled your kind with purpose thereby making brief existences on a meaningless planet bearable. Most importantly sexual desire keeps your race proliferating. Tell me something a bit more practical.”
“Well...sometimes I have thought I could become a money collector in a city bus. I would be a Bangkok Metropolitan Transportation employee—BMT.”
“Well, being prime minister would never suit you. I must say that this is certainly less extreme and easily in your reach. What attracts you to the profession of ticket tearing?”
Jatupon imagined the money collector clicking the lid of his metallic cylinder while shoving through the people. At times he would sit on the monkey bar near the open door feeling the artificial winds created by this fast moving green tube full of standing contortionists. When new customers came in he would put their money into the tube and extract tickets, weightless as stamps, from the same container. He would click and click to get their attention. When the bus was inordinately full, barefoot or in sandals, he would stand on the last step an inch from death like a parachutist without a parachute.
“I just think that I could do it,” he told the mosquito.
“Yes,” said the mosquito, “but could you count change to the satisfaction of the mass transit department of Bangkok?”
“I’m not hardly a dummy,” Jatupon said angrily.
“Let’s not go into that,” the mosquito said. “I know you can count. I’m just not sure if it goes beyond ten. That’s all. What other fun things could you become if needed-any type of job that can at least grant you eighty dollars worth of free falling baht each month?”