Monday. Sitting at my fav coffee shop in HK. Normally I stop by in the morning for a Go-cup, a cigarette, and some high-quality people-watching. Today I decided to stay and write, if only because it’s finally warm enough to sit outside again.

I spent the weekend in bed watching war happen live on TV. I am solidly Team No One for this round. I will say as someone who has visited Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain that it is very upsetting to me to see these countries get sucked into the bs. They are not without their problems, of course, but generally they are quite peaceful nations and incredibly hospitable to travelers.

I enjoyed my time in each nation, especially Qatar. I loved the UAE, but there’s just something about Qatar that I loved more. I loved the shine and sparkle of Dubai, but I could really feel the old world charm of Doha. Also, as we all know, I am obsessed with Al Jazeera English and dream of someday working for them.

I was only in Bahrain for a brief layover, but I will never, ever forget it. It was during the Hajj when all of the pilgrims were on their way to Mecca. Everyone on my plane from Mumbai was going to Mecca. I got to meet and talk to people who were taking their journey for the first time. I even got to walk with the pilgrims through the airport. I sat with them in the terminal as we waited for the plane. I am not Muslim. I will never be Muslim. But I am a deeply spiritual person, and as a deeply spiritual person, it was an honor to walk that path with them. I don’t know how to explain it. It was just… a vibe. A very strong, powerful, peaceful vibe.

I am disappointed but not surprised. I had a feeling something was coming. My first night back in Bangkok, these two strangers came into the American Bar. They were well-dressed and seemingly well-mannered until they took a rather demanding tone with the bartender that reminded me of my entitled, overly demanding Indian ex-boyfriend. I wondered if they were Indian. They did not look Indian, but they did look like something else that was familiar to me. So familiar. Why do their faces look so familiar?

They were not speaking English to each other. The language sounded so familiar but I couldn’t place it. It’s not Hindi, it’s not Arabic, it’s not Urdu… Is it… ? It’s not… oh my god… it is… they’re speaking Farsi (Persian). High Persian. Oh my god. That’s what it is. That’s why it’s so familiar. They are Persian.

How do I know that?

I haven’t heard Farsi in a long, long, long time, but somehow I still remember it like it was yesterday…

I was shocked by how fast my brain unlocked the language. I didn’t even know I had it in me. I mean, I did, but it was so, so, so long ago. You see, my first boyfriend was Persian. He was always speaking Farsi on the phone. There was a time when I tried to learn it for him, but it was a pointless venture because he turned out to be a lying, cheating, rapey, gross, disgusting piece of shit with serious sex addiction problems. Just gross. I locked him away for so long. I buried him.

So imagine my surprise when I was sitting at the American Bar in Bangkok two decades later and my brain suddenly lit up like the sky on the 4th of July. I started processing what I was hearing. I was catching bits and pieces. Not too much. I remember hearing the word for war multiple times. I remember being extremely unsettled by their tone. Fearful, even. I felt afraid and I didn’t know why. It’s like I couldn’t translate it directly to English in my head, but somehow I understood exactly what was being said.

I also remember the moment they caught me with my ear to their table. One of them approached the bartender and asked who I was. To my absolute shock, she sold me down the river right in front of me. She pointed right at me and said, “That’s Betsey. She’s American. She’s a writer.”

The Persian guy just stared at me with this creepy little smile curling up on his face. I didn’t like it. Something inside of me immediately told me to get up and leave. I waited until they went into the back to play pool, paid my tab, and left.

The next morning, I walked outside and saw them sitting by the pool outside of my apartment. The one who asked about me watched me as I walked by. I held my head up high and ignored him as I walked past. He said something to me as I walked by. It sounded like, “What? No love for me?”

I shook my head and kept walking. I thought to myself, “I don’t date Persian men anymore. I had a bad experience.”

A little voice in my head said, “Why? What happened?”

As I exited the garden, I caught myself saying aloud in response, “I SAID I had a bad experience.” I said it like Mos Def in The Italian Job. Then I made the mistake of looking back and saw him staring at me with that same weird smile as I walked away. It was a very uncomfortable experience. I don’t know why. There was just something so weirdly off about them.

I did not see them again after that day. Not at my apartment, or at the bar. It was such a strange, unnerving experience.

That was the day I decided to take down all of the photos of the bar and the people in it. I realized they were right. I had so many paranoid thoughts running through my mind.

What if they are traffickers? What if they are gangsters? What if they are military? What if they’re Intelligence? What if they’re looking for Hermès and saw those pictures from my birthday? What if they think I know something I don’t? What if they take me? What if they kill me? What if they hold me hostage in exchange for ransom? Who is going to pay for that?

What if? What if? What if?

What if they’re just two spoiled rich boys on vacation in Thailand and they’re leaving for Pattaya tomorrow anyway?

I dismissed all of these thoughts as rational paranoia and simply deleted everything on my profile so no one in the future could trace any of back to this bar. For the first time, I finally understood what Old Man Smiley was trying to say. I finally understood how dangerous what I was doing really was. It wasn’t the Irish Mafia I was afraid of. It was something else. The idea of my freedom that I had fought so long and hard for suddenly being taken from me by men who saw me as nothing more than an object meant to be used and thrown away.

For two days, I’ve sat in my studio, watching this war unfold live on TV. I finally turned off the news and watched Whiskey Tango Foxtrot instead. I thought about my desire to become a journalist again. I don’t even know how to go about approaching that career in this day and age. I just know that I want it now more than ever. More than anything.

The world feels like such a strange place today. Everything here looks normal on the surface, but there is a strange tension underneath. It’s like they’re all thinking to each other, “Is Taiwan next?”

I think what I detect more is an underlying feeling of resentment and anger. Like, “We are just normal people trying to live our daily lives and these assholes are disrupting it so they can have a glorified dick-measuring contest at everyone else’s expense.”

Perhaps that is just how I feel, and I am projecting it into everyone else who walks by. It’s hard to say. I can only say I feel something strange in the air. Something that wasn’t there before. I don’t know what it is. I just don’t know.

Off now. I have some things to do that don’t include watching war on TV, but we all know I’m going to go home and watch war on TV. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s just something I’ve always done. Since 9/11. I’ve been watching war on TV since I was 13. I don’t know why I do it.

I just don’t know.