Masandar - not spicy chili

Chapter (1)

“Wanting to be and not being, even wanting to be, comes to be, in the thirty-one realms, like a melody that moves without a beat, that... that... that,” sang Ko Kyar Yo, the carrier of the cycle of life, sitting cross-legged on a fish barrel.

“Ah.. The cycle of life, long and varied, we travel alone, one by one, until we reach our destination, but... greed... anger... oh... oh... oh... I will swallow this mosquito again.”

Ko Kyar Yoe was devastated by the mosquito that entered his mouth. He spat on the floor of the pond, which was wet with fish scales. His saliva did not touch Ma Aye Myint, who was walking with her big shoes on. Ma Aye Myint looked at him with a side eye and said, “Ma Aye, give me some,” but Ko Kyar Yoe seemed to think it was just a flower. He laughed and watched Ma Aye Myint’s high and low hips with all his eyes.

"It's hard because of this lotus root. When women see it, they'll be like a big blue cow that can't go down anymore."

Ma Nwe Yee looked around indifferently and thought. "My workers are all young, and Thaung Myint wants to go with the strong and powerful Fei Wan. As for my cousins, I wonder if I can rely on them. They think they are the rich. If they work, they are not interested in eating, they are just lazy, and they do not move, and if you point at the fish, they will wrinkle their noses. I wonder if they have forgotten that these fish are feeding them."

Ma Nwe Yee took off her shoes and climbed onto the platform. She placed the leather bag she had brought with her and pressed it against her thigh. This bag contained tens of thousands of baht of money, so she didn't dare to let it go.

"Fish smells are common, I don't even think they're bad. I only get annoyed when I smell durians over there on the fruit row. As I'm talking, the smell is getting worse. Look... that smell is the only thing I can't stand."

Ma Nwe Yee picked up the sandals she had taken off and placed them at her feet. The old man was about to disappear. There were many people passing by. The old man was about to disappear without knowing which leg he had taken. He had suffered a lot.

"Sister Nweyee, I'm early today."

"I'll have to wait for the white fish."

"What kind of fish will come, lake fish?"

“No, the fishermen will come, they will change the fish. That’s why I came early. I will have to recalculate the list. Yesterday, I asked Kyaw Kyaw to write the list, but he only wrote the time of the fish. He didn’t write whether it was big fish or small fish, or the type. I will have to think about it and rewrite it as much as I remember.”

The ice cream vendor, Ma Hla Tint, handed Ma Nwe Yi three mangosteens. Ma Nwe Yi took one and squeezed it between her hands. The insides were immediately visible.

"So, will you be able to sleep tonight?"

"I don't think I can sleep anymore. After finishing those lists, I'll have to write a debt request to Okkan. Wait, it's half past eight now, so I think I can take a nap after finishing the lists at eleven."

The light bulb is dim. But I can write, read, and do calculations. If I strain my eyes for a long time, my eyes will probably get a little damaged. However, Ma Nweyee has not yet worn glasses. Ma Nweyee has been walking around this market, this fish market, for about five years.

Five years seems like a long time, and when I think about it, it seems like nothing. The five years before this were spent selling sauce and fish paste. When I think about ten years, it seems like a long time, a long time.

The girl named Ma Nwey has been in the human world for almost thirty-five years. She has accumulated a wealth of experience.

"Meet...experience...meet...part, the same journey, sad and happy, what we want to happen, what we don't want to happen, happens"

Ko Kyar Roe continued to sing. He was rhythmically tapping the wooden barrel that held the catfish. On the water barrel next to him, a porter from the shrimp farm was curled up and sleeping. Mosquitoes were crawling on his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was sound asleep. This was not unusual. Fishermen like Ma Nwe Yee and others worked at night, so they slept very little. So they slept as much as they could. Ko Soe, who was sleeping on a bed next to a box of fish, was even worse. The weather was so cold that he was lying on his back without a shirt. The mosquitoes were crawling all over his back, but he didn’t move a bit.

"Mosquitoes are biting me, I'm going to make a mosquito net."

“I’m going to go out and ask for a loan, U Pik Gyi, the judge hasn’t paid the ice cream bill for a long time.”

"I just saw U Pik Kyi. Go and ask for it."

"I'll move it day and night, sister."

"Let's ask, he bought a sedan and drove it, and if he has the money to pay, he'll be very stingy. If he doesn't get it, he'll curse."

"Don't you dare shout, sister, he'll be even more annoying than me, you know about him too."

Ma Hla Tint walked back with the sound of her shoes. As she walked, she grabbed the mosquito on her right arm with her left hand and swatted it away. She wiped away the blood that had suddenly appeared on her palm with her handkerchief.

The ice crusher, which had been quiet for a while, started making a noise again, gurgling, gurgling, gurgling. He could hear the sound of the large ice cubes being pushed and moved on the floor. Ma Nwe Yee didn't look back, but she could see in her mind all the people who were pushing the large square ice cubes on the floor, and the people who were breaking them and carrying the ice cubes back in their baskets. He had been around this area for a long time.

"Greed... anger... delusion... the objects of ignorance, the objects of attachment, the objects of joy, the objects of joy, the objects of weeping, the objects of laughter, are never permanent, they are constantly changing, they are constantly changing, they are the objects of attachment."

“Please, my dear, it’s so stinky here that my nose is not feeling well, and your loud voice is tormenting my ears.” Thet Htwe drew a bucket of water from the water tank and poured it on the floor. He splashed the remaining water on Ko Kyar Yoe without touching him.

Ma Nwe Yee got up and took out a mosquito net from the pine box that was stacked at her feet. The mosquito net had ropes ready. It couldn't be tied tightly on all four sides, and the three sides were loosely tied here and there.

“Love me like others love me, ahaha, brother, did you write that?”

Kyaw Kyaw laughed as he read the message written in lime on the water tank.

“Hey, man... Brother Salt, come down, see what I wrote here, don't put salt on the water tank, friend.”

I heard laughter. Ma Nwe Yee first put the fortune teller's chair into the mosquito net. Then she entered the mosquito net with the account book and the leather bag. If it was pulled tightly and tightly, three or four people could sit comfortably, but now it was so loose that even one person could not. The lowered mosquito net roof did not even leave a single inch of space above my head, it kept coming and going.

“It is more important to face what happens than what you want to happen. We will have to face what happens in a world that is not the way we want it to be. Life is not what we build it to be, nor what we expect it to be.”

He placed the ledger on the table and took out a calculator from his bag.

"Sister"

Kyaw Soe approached the mosquito net. His face was a little sad.

“Sister... please give me another hundred in advance.”

"You've taken too much."

Kyaw Soe is small and slender and has a handsome appearance. If he could only act well, he would be an actor. He also once said that he was quite crazy about being an actor. However, his parents were not financially capable, he had no connections, and he had no luck in the movies.

"My brother asked me to send you an invitation."

He had never even worked as a driver for the prince who had gone to tell the princess. He had only become a laborer at Ma Nwe Yee's warehouse with twenty taps a night.

“Remember, sister... now that the children are starting school, the two older ones will have to go to school, and the younger one will have to go to preschool.”

"Aye... I'm a good person and I'll give you whatever you ask for. When the money starts to pile up, I'll stop coming here and go work at other bars."

"Don't worry, sister."

"Okay... okay, I'll give it to you in the morning. How many children do you have?"

"Four..."

"Isn't there someone in the womb? I met a woman in the world."

Kyaw Soe laughed shyly.

"You guys can feed them too. What can you do to protect them? They're still young. They have four children, and the woman has given birth to a lot of babies. They give birth to about one a year. If they keep on giving birth like this, they'll find a new territory and establish a village."

"God gave it to me, I shouldn't have stopped it, sister."

Kyaw Soe spoke softly. Looking at Kyaw Soe, who was so young and had so many responsibilities that his shoulders were bent, Ma Nweyyee sighed. She remembered her mother. Her mother also used to say, “Children are given by God, it is not good to prevent them.” | She opened the account book.