Content #
The Thais seem to believe this is nothing but an irritating traffic jam. No one is frightened, just impatient. More bicycle bells tinkle and chime, surrounding him in music.
“Oh. . . Shit,” Carlyle murmurs.
The white shirts yank the arguing man off his bicycle. His arms flail as he goes over. His thumb rings flash in the sunlight and then he disappears under a knot of white uniforms. Ebony clubs rise and fall. Blood whips from the clubs, glistening.
A doglike yelping fills the street.
The cyclists all stop ringing their bells. The street noise fades as everyone turns and cranes their necks to see. In the silence, the man’s ragged pleading carries easily. Around them, hundreds of bodies shift and breathe. People glance left and right, suddenly nervous, like an ungulate herd that has suddenly found a predator in its midst.
The dull slap of the clubs continues.
Finally, the man’s sobbing breaks off. The white shirts straighten. One of them turns and motions traffic forward. It is an impatient gesture, businesslike, as though the people have stopped to gawk at flowers or a carnival. Hesitantly, cyclists push forward. Traffic begins to roll. Anderson sits down in his seat. “Christ.”
Their rickshaw man stands on his own pedals and they start forward. Carlyle’s expression has gone tight with anxiety. His eyes flick from left to right. “Last chance to run for it.”
Anderson can’t take his gaze from the approaching white shirts. “We’ll be obvious if we bolt.”
“We’re fucking farang. We’re already obvious.”
Pedestrians and cyclists inch forward, merging through the chokepoint, shuffling past the carnage.
ungulate #
英 [‘ʌŋɡjʊlət] 美 [‘ʌŋɡjʊlət] adj. 蹄状的；有蹄的；有蹄类的 n. 有蹄类动物
From #
The Windup Girl