A BANGKOK GHOST STORY
By Krapook Yanitta
Word of mouth around Bangkok alleged that a flesh-eating ghost haunts the street food market from sunset until dawn. Children used to run around the market; the sound of laughter often harmonized with the loud music wafting through the evening air until a gas tank exploded in one of the noodle shops. This is what the local children have to say.
“I saw a man walking through the market. He had no legs,” declares the café’s owner’s son, “I tried to run, but he kept catching up with me.”
“He had cuts all over his long, bony hands,” states a frequenter who often drops by after school, “He has warts all over his face.”
#
The ghost roams the empty streets he used to know like the back of his hands, ridden with knife cuts and wok burns. His presence creates a chilling breeze wafting through the humid heat waves.
There is no smell of barbeque permeating the evening atmosphere, no laughter echoing through the streets.
The ghost peeks into the abandoned stalls and clay pots of charcoal. Flies and moths crawl over the canvas signs, signaling long outdated deals. Steel stools and rusting tables sit neatly folded in a corner. He thinks about the times he slipped through the crowds with three plates of fried noodles balanced on his arms, setting them onto tables occupied by blond-haired tourists and students with shirts untucked from their belted pants. He thinks of his wife’s grin as she spoons extra servings of noodles for the bony children and stray cats who nestle in her arms each dusk.
The ghost senses movement in the market. There’s someone here with sandals slapping on the long untouched ground.
High-pitched laughter.
He turns around, sending the hanging roots of the banyan trees whistling back and forth. A smile creeps onto his face; cracking lips and long teeth protrude from his thin gums. The burn marks on his face stretch like taut stockings.
At the end of the street, three young boys skip over a woven rubber band rope, and his smile only grows wider. The leaves rustle and the clouds darken the evening sky. The shrill harmony of laughter pierces through the low rumble of thunder and the otherwise tranquil market.
He hovers just slightly over the boy agilely jumping over the rope. The boy reminds him of his son, who moved to America due to unbearable grief after his father’s shop burned down. The ghost thinks of the times they spent skipping over woven rubber bands.
The legless ghost misses what it used to feel like when he was tethered to the ground—to someplace, someone—and the split-second feeling of flying each time he lept. He grabs the boy’s shoulders with his translucent hands.
And jumps.
#
The last time a boy went to the market alone, he came back ghastly and traumatized. People say they’ve heard the shrieks of agony. A mother claims she has lost her son. A father regrets moving his once-complete family here.
Children report seeing the ghost’s sullen eye sockets and dark seared skin.
Campers in flashlighted tents recount stories of white bony hands grabbing the shoulders of a young boy, dragging him up in the trees and draining the blood out of the kid’s mouth. “The ghost wants a taste of a child’s young appetite,” poets muse. “Banyan tree ghost,” and “Murderous spirits at the street food market,” artists write, titling their horrendous oil-paintings following the incident.
#
The laughter is replaced by shrill shrieks. One of the boy’s eyes drips with terror. He drops the end of the woven string and sprints away into the dark corners of an alleyway.
But the boy in the center does not move. He stands rigid with the rope laying limp between his two legs. The ghost lets go of the boy’s shoulders, and his excitement melts away. Years of insecurity have buried themselves into the ghost’s hollow body. He weeps, hands covering the rough and bursting warts on his despicable face. Nobody has looked at him longer than a split second. Nobody has smiled back at him for decades.
Fleshy, beige-colored fingers rest on the ghost’s protruding clavicles. The ghost’s tears slide back into their loose sockets. He turns around, hands still covering his face—to shield the poor boy from his ugliness.
“Hello, Mr. Ghost,” says the boy in his bright voice with a foreign twang in his Thai accent, “Are you all right?”
The ghost has not spoken a word since he died, so he merely offers a nod.
“I am sorry my friends hurt your feelings,” says the boy.
The ghost lowers his hands from his burn-ridden face. He cranes up his neck to stare into the child’s brown eyes.
“My father told me to come to the market,” says the boy, “And he told me to bring something for you.” He leaves the ghost’s side and sprints to a bright red backpack on the ground. The emptiness on the ghost’s shoulders stuns him. He has never realized that human touch could be this addictive.
He walks back with a Tupperware box, sauce dripping from the inside of the sealed lid. He hands it over, but with the ghost’s nebulous hands, it falls right through his skin. The box clatters onto the floor, and traces of vegetable oil gloss the edges.
The boy sighs and picks it up. His small, fatty fingers can barely stretch far enough to wrap around the sides. He clacks it open and sets the lid on the concrete floor.
The ghost’s eyes brim with tears. He puts his face once more in his hands as he glances at its contents. The boy stares at the ghost with wide, confused eyes, but the ghost does not conceal his wails. He sobs, hiccupping in between his arrhythmic howls.
#
Children in the area claim that the ghost’s yowls revisited the market after being left deserted for nearly a decade.
Two boys who have recently walked those streets—prompted by a dare from a friend—report that a “grotesque-looking ghost” grabbed their friend’s shoulders while they were playing there near dusk on a quiet Sunday.
#
“Why are you crying, Mr. Ghost?” The boy asks, “It’s just fried noodles.”
The ghost shakes his head. He doesn’t think he can speak again.
“I’ll tell you where I got it,” the boy sighs, a child’s impatience rising up on his face, “Pa owns a fried noodle shop in New York. He made this for you.”
A man steps into the narrow walking street. The ghost remembers this man’s first wails as a newborn child and relives their last embrace.
The man approaches the ghost, though unable to see him with his matured vision. He fumbles blindly in the air between the banyan tree roots.
“Papa,” the boy says, his voice now wavering slightly, “I think Mr. Ghost wants to hug you.” The ghost does not wait for his son to find him. He holds his son with his intangible arms and unheard sobs.
Krapook Yanitta is a high school student from Bangkok, Thailand. When she isn't writing, she's playing the violin, reading a riveting novel or crocheting plushies. Krapook is the founder and editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, The Newtonian. Her writing is featured in Gasher Press, Litro Magazine, Outlander Magazine and more.