**Headline:** Aerial Spraying Nightmare: Farmers Allege Biological Warfare in Queensland

Agnes, who may exist, who may not, is still grieving.

I said better get shit faced on arak, Balinese rice whiskey than to try and score drugs in Kuta.

That's what matters in this story.

I was really just a side player.

No one else really knew Stan like I did.

I had given him a job so I was important in his life.

We never really socialized or hung out.

Once I left the backpackers, Stan would drop me a line, or we would meet up at work humping road cases.

If anyone could understand, thought Stan, it would be me, because I was a writer.

And that's how I was lugged with this task.

I met Agnes in Johor Baru.

She was flying in from India.

She was cut up with Stan's death.

Playing nurse, mother and in another life, lover, took a toll on the fifty-year-old, who was French but with Scandanavian stock from Denmark, she told me.

Her powers of Shamanism would be tested during our time together.

It was only one month but it seemed a lifetime.

In the end, the grief would almost get me.

I did my usual, a runner, but more on that later. It wasn't as straightforward.

She had heard from Stan that was the flight misser.

It was in Surabaya that Stan saw this.

I had hired a car from Bali and picked him up at Kuta.

Made Sana, the Mad Hindu was my driver.

I had already missed a flight back to Oz from Bali.

I'd miss another flight from Surabaya.

Truth of the matter, I couldn't wake up in time.

Eventually I flew out and told Stan to take care of the car rental.

He ended up hanging out in resort in West Java, next to the sacred hot springs.

He was madly in love with his girlfriend in Oz and spent most of his time on his new iPhone.

I could tell he was having withdrawals. The story is digressing.

It's been written about elsewhere.

But Agnes knew that me and Stan had a bit of history.

I had taken him to the chicken farm where he got laid.

I don't know why I didn't have a fuck.

It's all becoming blurry.

Did I have my dick cut up by a dry cunt?

No, that had to be another Bali trip.

Agnes seemed like a witch.

She was tall, gangly and most of her youth had been spent on raising two children.

She still had so much love to give.She was concerned I wouldn't turn up for our meeting.

She was flying into Singapore then would make her way to the causeway then cross over into Malaysia to the border town of Johor Bahru.

We had lost contact for about 12 hours.

I love to keep up the mystique.

I was sitting at a cafe drinking tee tarek, or pulled strong tea with condensed milk.

I don't usually meet other travelers.

I mean I don't usually arrange to meet them over the internet.

Usually it means you are going to meet up with a loon.

In one way or another, these women are lonely and are searching for something that they can't find in the real world.

Usually they are disappointed after the hookup.

Their life usually became even more fucked up.

And I’m sure I wasn’t going to disappoint.

We eventually got connected on messenger.

I’m here, I said.

I had been staying at a cheap hotel the night before.

No aircon, three flights of steps, and bed bugs.

It wasn’t conducive to traveling.

I moved out to a better place.

You pay the big bucks for a room in Malaysia but you get the peace of mind of fast internet, cold air conditioning, and 24-hour security.

I paid the weekly rate and got a discount.

I’d produce lots of words here. I’d even take  a photograph of the hotel signs across the road and use it as a cover for my book.

From my window, I could look across the causeway to Singapore. Below, I could watch the comings and goings on the street.

My coffee shop was on the corner.

I’d have access to wifi from my hotel and write on.

I’d eventually be raced out of the cafe by an Indonesian migrant worker.

It wouldn’t be the last time, it happened as recently as my last trip in Kuching, Sarawak.

Migrant workers.

But the Bangladeshi who was in charge of cleaning was an exception.

He’d make sure my room was clean and would buy me tee tarek.

A wonderful Muslim who lived by his creed.

Am I digressing?

She kissed me on the cheeks.

Every day I'd be greeted with a French kiss.

I had texted her earlier saying was she afraid of flying.

'Don't worry about me, I have spells for everything. Nothing is going to happen to me.'

I feared flying.

It began after the Betong terrorist attack.

I knew some time I'd have to get on that plane and fly back to Oz but for now I had plenty of time to wallow in the fact that I was spooked by flying.

It would give me a reason for not taking a flight.

I'd regret it. But I was the Flight Misser, after all.

She treated me like a long lost relative.

I had no idea Stan thought so highly of me.

I didn't really treat him that well on our road trip across East Java.

I couldn't pin point it but the writing was on the wall, Stan had a death wish.

The way he walked across the volcanic mud flaps showed me a Stan who didn't care if he lived or got swallowed up by volcanic mud under the thin crust we were walking on.

I took Agnes to my local and ordered milk tea.

We had lots to catch up.

I didn't even know her but she needed to unload.

She had been to hell and back.

And I was here to lighten her load.

I had been in Johor Baru for a month.

I had been here before.

It was always a place that I could churn out books.\

Being close to Singapore, was reassuring.

If I wanted a flight anywhere, it would be just a taxi ride to Changi.

But crossing over the causeway was slow.

It was a hurdle.

Better seen from a distance.

The best thing about Singapore was the causeway leading into Malaysia.

Being a heavy smoker, Malaysia was the preferred destination.

You could smoke anywhere, even in your hotel room.

Singapore didn't like smokers.

I liked smokes.

And I was here for the cheap bootleg cigs.

I could get a packet for as cheap as fifty cents Australian.

I was in smoking heaven.

And I flaunted that fact by smoking three packets a day.

Smoking, drinking sweet tea, just seemed a great way to pass the time.

I never thought of what it would do me.

The sweet tea brought on diabetes and the cigarettes contributed to bad circulation and partial blindness in one eye.

Who thinks about these things when there's still lots of cool smoking to do?

Not me, at the time, I was a glutton and rarely was there a time when there wasn't a fag hanging between my lips.

We tried to lure Stan to Gang Dolly.

It was still open then.

He wasn't interested in whoring around.

He was actually quite a boring traveler.

There was no adventure in him.

Maybe he was serious about Julia.

Or serious about getting permanent residence.

He had traveled and worked around Asia for the past decade.

He wanted to settle down.

But Australia would be his death sentence.

'Yes, I think so too,' said Agnes,  who had tattoos on her shoulder and hands, emblematic tattoos that reflected a life of symbolism.

They were both at the crossroads, Agnes was an empty nester and Stan was single and ready to start a family.

I was still living at a backpackers.

Money was always tight.

I couldn't even afford a coffee.

I'd knock back his invitations.

I'm antisociable, at heart.

Back in the hotel, I had my air conditioned room.

‘You sleep in the car,’ I told my trusty driver who doubled up as a Balinese pimp.

Stan wouldn’t have any of it.

The next morning he told me that he let Sana sleep with him.

They had a fan room.

Stan didn’t like air con.

He was designed for the tropics, six foot tall, skinny as a grey hound.

Asia was calling him.

But he had a mission.

If he didn’t make it now in Oz, he’d always be drifting.

He was a drifter and wanted to drift.

Working as a pastry chef was killing him.

If he wasn’t involved in a con, he wasn’t living, that was the trouble with Stan.

Being based in Perth, the crack capital of Australia, just wasn’t going to help someone with an addictive personality.

I don’t think I went whoring on this occasion.

Or did I?

I flew to Singapore, where I was going to cross the border into Malaysia.

I always miss Bali when I leave the place.

But Indonesia isn’t generous on visas.

Maybe they don’t want to fuck their womenfolk.

The Dutch had been doing it for 300 years under colonization.

I guess we were lugged with their sins.

Stan was soft spoken, not exactly handsome, more an ugly duckling, but his French mannerisms made people melt before him, especially the opposite sex.

He was kind, considerate and a scammer.

But he was honest about it.

I heard about all the scams that were going through The Globe World Backpackers where we met.

He trusted me enough to tell me that who robbed the till.

It started with the French ladyboy and was operated by a few of the French backpackers.

I bet Stan was the brains behind it.

I don't particularly like backpackers that charge us an arm and a leg to live in dorm crowded with ten other people.

It's high way robbery and I was glad that they got fucked over.

Nothing is fool-proof when you got hungry French around.

The receptionist was also getting cocaine sent in packages from Brazil to the backpackers. The scams were bountiful and illegal.

I wouldn't be privy to this information if I didn't know Stan.

We all suspected the French of petty crimes, saving a dollar here and there in self-service check out, but never on this scale.

I listened to Stan and never judged him and I think that's what attracted him to me.

Getting him a good-paying job in the first week he landed in Oz was another point.

But we never hung out.

Only at work, we'd chat and joke.

Once he drove me home in his second hand BMW.

But they were good times.

Before Stan got hooked up with Julia, he was a someone just reaching his prime, without a care in the world.

Being broke contributed to that.

He'd cook up dishes of cheap pasta for the other French backpackers.

It was their fuel to bigger and better scams.

The only time we really connected was when he flew out to Bali, on his way to Europe, to pick up his diving equipment. He was also a dive instructor.

I can't say we had a great time.

I was nursing his addiction.

I had my own, Tramadol and pussy.

I don't like babysitting pussies.

He was a love-struck pussy.

I suspect he had his own agenda,

A lot was hinged with his relationship with Julia.

She was his ticket to ride.

He loved his drugs more than women.

But he was a good actor.

I suspect he loved his ladyboys over women too, but that's another story I'll draw on later.

I have no idea why I'm writing about Stan.

'Because he has chosen you.'

I've interviewed Agnes, many times.

Some things don't add up.

'Life is like that,' she says.

Agnes is on holidays.

She jetsets a lot and spends a lot of her time in India.

But she doesn't want to ever return to Thailand.

After Stan died, I had a journo friend enquire if there were any French nationals dead in Thailand.

'None,' said my source.

Even an overdose would be reported in the local news.

I'm going to show Agnes around.

She's attending to my back.

My neck isn't well.

I'm not well.

I feel I'm going to fall over.

It all began about the time I met Stan four years ago.

You know when the body is deteriorating when you have a problem wiping your ass.

I wasn't as flexible as I use to be.

Doing heavy lifting setting up concerts didn't help.

I didn't work that season I got Stan on.

I knew the heavy lifting wasn't good for a frame that didn't hold up well to hard work.

Most of my hard work was from forty up.

I had a K-Mart body with a warranty that long expired.

I've just finished a roady season.

I'm finding it harder.

I need to warm up then I can perform.

Every day I'm in the truck hauling road cases, it's only exasperating my osteoarthritis in my neck.

I've since discovered I have arthritis in the left knee that needs an operation.

I'm not cut out for this kind of work at my age.

I'm fifty plus two years.

Stan was only 33 when he died.

I suspect he was 35 by the time he died.

I suspect he also had a nice insurance policy.

He's disappeared.

He could have reinvented himself.

I bet I know where he is.

He's chasing down brown sugar.

He had a limp when I met him.

'From a motorbike accident in Saigon,' he told me.

He wasn't falling apart but replied on self medication to kill the constant pain.

I have the back story.

Julia contacted anyone on Stan’s contact list.

I was in Ubud, Bali,when I received the message.

‘Stan is dead,’ I told Sana.

‘Drugs,’ I added.

Sana wasn’t suprised.

One day Stan and his son Yogi got pissed on aruk.

Stan was feeling the craving.

Not that night.

He wanted me to score for him.

I said I couldn’t help.

He wasn’t in Kuta anymore where he could get anything he wanted on any corner block.

I played my part.

Being partial to my drugs, he listened to me.

I really should have just pulled out the Tramadol and show him my Bali Dreaming.

Each to their own.

I know how to handle Tramadol.

It saved me from a horrible dengue death.

It kept me dreaming when dengue was getting under my skin.

And Sana and his family fed me.

I got better.

So much better that a week later before my flight home, I hit one of the chicken farms.

Tramadol worked on a subtle level.

It wasn’t a party drug but boy it mixed well with Bintang beer and whores.

I was introduced to Tramadol during one of my many toothache bouts.

I never sought it out recreationally, that would be much later.

Stan had his drug stories.

His were a bit more epic.

Staying up at a week at a time.

Recreational had turned to obsession.

He was on the speed in Oz.

Everyone was.

You can hide it well.

And function.

No one at the Perth Royal Yacht Club knew he was on it.

Stan was calm, agreeable and industrious, and that’s all that mattered in the workplace.

Let's take a walk around Johor, I said to Agnes.

We walked halfway across the causeway, into Singapore.

We talk shadow selfies, long shadows, standing on the water pipe that supplied Singapore with its water.

Distressed drivers beeped their horns, some yelling at us.

'Wonder what is up?' I said to Agnes.

It was early days and she was up for an adventure.

If we continued walking and got caught, we could be shot by immigration guards or even imprisoned.  This was a serious offense.

Agnes took it in her long gangly stride.

We drank sweet tea at my local and chain-smoked, laughing at our midday folly.

Agnes has given me permission to write this book.

She is writing her own.

She's now in France, holed down in a quiet village, teaching yoga and taking care of her stray dog, a Jack Russel.

Her son is about to have a child.

'I'll be a grandmother soon.'

And a very cool grandmother too.

But Stan is still at the forefront of her mind.

She is writing a book about him.

And she says to me to not hold back, 'write everything.'

Stan was an enigma for most of us.

Outwardly gregarious but he harbored a dark secret.

His mother never loved him.

His father wanted to love him but Stan was never around.

'I was selling cocaine on the streets of Paris when I was in my teens.'

I made that quote up.

But it was close.

He was selling expensive suits - or was it expensive bags? -  and he snorted lots of coke to keep his sales energy up.

I'd say he used to smuggle it.

If anyone could, it was Stan.

Stan never received enough love from his mother.

His mother preferred the other son.

You know how the story goes.

But this gnawed at the core of Stan's existence.

He was going to prove the bitch wrong and make his own way in this world.

Towards the end, Stan would open up.

It was usually a phone call over the phone.

I'd tell him about my travel plans and ask him if he could take me to the airport.

To be honest, I really didn't want to meet him.

He was living in Subiaco in a domestic situation.

I'd only make him look bad if Julia ever met me.

I don't fit anyone's mold.

Stan took me for who he was.

At the backpackers, where I met him briefly, I told him life's story.

After I got raced out by a crack head, we lost contact.

I always get raced out of backpackers by crack heads.

And now Stan was a fully-fledged one.

I was reluctant to meet him for that reason.

I had enough of them on hands with a French crack head.

I think Stan understood that and never judged me for it.

Being a former Valium freak, I had to be vigilant.

I couldn't get on the gear in Oz.

It would be the end of me.

Even boozing was out of the question.

You don't save for traveling by being booze head or pill popper.

Saving takes discipline if you are making money legally.

It's a long and tiring slog.

The story is digressing.

Agnes spent an hour massaging my back in my room.

She had a room next door to me.

Each morning she'd greet me with a kiss on each side of my cheek.

I just wasn't use to such contact.

Hay, I wasn't complaining.

Agnes was relaxed, happy to be in Johor.

She was working on a photographic series on the street dogs of India.

She had been in Goa, doing her thing.

Which was medication, massaging and yoga and dealing with the death of Stan.

She flogged herself a bit.

She really wanted to save Stan.

Stan's condition was pretty bad towards the end.

How bad, we'll never know.

Maybe his body was falling apart too.

Maybe he was sick of the pain of the early onslaught of osteoarthritis.

He had so much going for him.

I had trespassed when I judged him for his yuppy ways.

'

He had a new iPhone and a new Mac Air.

Why would I be jealous?

Because I fucking adore Apple products.

Stan didn't see his toys as a yuppy signal, he just loved products that worked well.

I'm sure his phone was on a plan.

There were scams to be had.

If my credit rating was better, I'd have all the phones I wanted and needed.

At heart we were kindred spirits.

Scamming pulsed through our veins.

It was only opportunity that we waited for.

With bated breath.

But we didn't scam for scamming's sake. We scammed for survival.

Stan was a simple guy.

He was a friend of the downtrodden.

His mother made tonnes of money on some remote French colony in the Caribbean.

Stan never tapped into her newfound wealth.

His mother only released the purse strings for the younger brother.

His father split up with his mother when he was young.

'My father didn't want to know me,' Stan told me, 'he was too busy chasing skirt to bother about two young boys.'

I suspected that Stan's mother didn't give his father access to the kids and since he relocated to Paris, he was even more estranged from his family.

Stan was fed up. It was his time to go. He had fucked all the women most men do in ten lifetimes.

Everything he put his hand to, it turned to gold.

He wanted the ultimate challenge, see what was on the other side.

He still had work to do.

He needed to be dead for it to work.

He worked as a background operating system, said Agnes, who wore the manic talisman around her neck that used to belong to Stan.

"He lives in me as I live him.'

They were consecrated.

Death is a rebirth.

Stan embraced it.

He left clues all over the place.

You wouldn't get them if you didn't know what you were looking for.

Stan texted me from Bangkok.

'The drugs are getting the better of me.'

He never told me where he was staying.

I'd soon figure it out.

He said that a Japanese guy was supplying him with drugs.

I have no idea what they were.

He was desperate to leave Australia before he killed Julia.

He hated being held at ransom.

He had saved about 15 grand in super and had a life insurance.

He had them in place.

If only you knew where to look.

I'd find some more clues along the way.

Later, he'd relocate to Kow San Road.

Maybe he was reliving his early teens.

He said he was traveling around Asia on a student grant.

Who hasn't done it?

I did it as recently as a few years back.

I had lots of traveling to catch up and books to write.

Fucking whores on Commonwealth coin, nothing beats it.

I said Stan had a gentle side but there was a dark side no one wanted to tap into.

I got angry with him, on our trip driving from Bali to Surabaya in East Java. He just wasn't opening his wallet. He was in scam mode.

That's all I can put it down to.

I told him, start coughing up.

We had an incident at the mud flats.

I set it up.

Stan still wasn't paying.

Maybe being the older traveler, I was more cashed up.

Every cent was saved and every cent, I sweated my guts getting it.

Stan eventually got into the groove and started paying.

It was the only way. He had to.

In the end, I'd hand over the car to him, 'please pay the difference,' I said as I handed over three hundred bucks to Sana for the five days I had hired it.

As good as his word, he coughed up. He even spent a week at a resort next door to the hot springs.

I was envious.

I wanted to be there.

See that word envious popping up again?

I know.

Things were looking great for Stan.

I was struggling. I didn't know where my struggle was going.

I wanted to write a book.

It was frustrating and expensive, funding these sojourns to Asia for new material to write about.

I really want this story to be about me.

Well it is dummy.

But I'll continue.

Most of what I know is after his death.

Even when he was  alive, I really didn't know the guy.

He was polite and like many French backpackers who came to Australia, he was trying to find his dream.

Many leave disillusioned.

When they realise that they can't work enough to save for a flat in Paris, they curse Australia and everything it stands for.

Stan was at a crossroad.

He wanted to torment his mother.

The only way he could do that was by killing himself.

Only then he could get the love he so much craved from his mother while he was alive.

I just think Stan loved his drugs.

Any excuse he could use to keep on using drugs, he'd play it up.

No one really saw it coming.

Stan monitored his friends on Facebook.

When they dropped out, he felt hurt.

I may have unfollowed him.

Social media is cruel and has contributed to depression and the feeling of being a social outcast.

Stan posted a picture of a tree. It had a noose hung around one branch with a head inside it. Every day the tree was watered, growing, leading towards the inevitable when the person in the noose would eventually hang himself.

That was the last picture Stan posted on his wall.

No one saw it coming.

I saw it coming.

That's why I kept my distance.

I'm no stranger to the attention that crack heads need.

One way or another they cost you.

But Stan respected my distance.

I was in Bali when most of our communication began on messenger.

Stan was reliving his past.

Bangkok and drugs and whores.

Could he keep up with the pace was the question.

I found another friend of his on Facebook, he was a ladyboy from the Philipines.

It was from her, that I was able to fill in the gaps.

Stan was an attention seeker.

He used death as normal people use coins.

Death was his currency.

Call it blackmail, call it whatever, Stan knew how to manipulate those close to him.

Stan texed to me to say he was scoring some sick drugs from a Japanese.

He was staying in the ladyboy's apartment.

She sold her ass in Bangkok.

And then she'd do visa runs and sell her ass in Malaysia and Singapore.

She was one of the many drifters that Stan collected, me included, apparently.

I'll call her Jane.

She has many names, Marilyn Munro yet another.

No one wants to disclose who we really are, we are hiding from our DNA.

We just don't like to advertise it.

The internet records our every movement.

Some of us don't want our parents to know that we are hustling, selling our asses, or whoring in the cesspits of Asia.

Some things must just remain private.

'He was off his head, walking around my apartment, in his sleep, and pissing in the corners.'

Sounded like she was talking about me.

But Jane was talking about Stan's last days.

Was he off his head on datura?

Agnes had the best access to Stan.

She even scored drugs for him and would  send over little packages of Valium to him in Australia.

She was traveling around Thailand, lots of the time, and it was easy to buy them over the counter.

Didn't Stan know that all he had to do was see a doctor and get his prescription?

He wanted Agnes to feel useful.

She was looking for something more.

The divorce dragged out and eventually, the house settlement set her free to travel the world.

But that wouldn't happen until a few years after Stan was dead.

Meanwhile, she was with me in Johor, offloading.

I suggested we hit Indonesia.

Johor Baru, though edgy, is a comfortable place.

It's best to leave before you get too comfortable and either a copper or a local try to sting you.

It happened to me in another Malaysian city.

If they see you linger for long, they start asking questions, assuming you have lots of money.

Usually they aren't half wrong.

I said carry your own stuff into Indonesia.

I didn't want to risk it.

Agnes was cool about it.

We took the ferry to Batam.

It was nice traveling.

She didn't have to pay for a visa.

I did.

That pissed me off.

Many things pissing me off but paying for a visa really pisses me off.




We were getting on well.

But I felt my space was crowded

I'm not use to traveling with a white chick.

I'm not use to traveling with anyone, actually.

I find it hard to travel with myself let alone another person.

But what was about to transpire was worth every bit of the wait

We had some great moments.

But I was set on my course, and couldn't detour too much.

Stan was dead and what else could I do about it.

It was pretty final like that.

What actually happened leading up to his death is still a mystery to me.

I guess we didn't see it coming.

And then the eulogies flow thick afterward.

Wasn't he a great guy and all.

Stan wanted me to meet him in Bangkok.

I was in Bali.

I didn't really want to meet him in Bangkok.

I had my own demons to face and being parked in a short time hotel on Sukkunvit wasn't good for my mental health space.

Give me Bali and the great outdoors and access to delightful islanders and Tramadol any day.

Don't get me wrong.

I love Thailand.

Spent many years there broke, sometimes homeless.

Being cashed up was always the way to go.

But I had a history there.

There were some people who would love to see me dead.\

Especially in Bangkok.

They didn't get me the first time, but knowing my luck, I'd run into them and then they'd get me.

It would be a bullet to the head and thrown into the Chao Phraya river.

I just didn't want to be another floater.

Stan told me over the phone, a month before he flew out to Thailand, that he had knifed someone and they were now floating down the Chao Phraya river.

Nothing surprised me.

He wasn't a killer and he wasn't going to take that secret to the grave.

Who knows, maybe the first kill had unsettled him.

Maybe he took drugs to escape killing another fellow traveler.

It's all speculation.

But a good starting point.

For Agnes he was an angel.

'Let's go eat,' she said.

We left our hotel, small rooms and cheap and took a walk.

We were in downtown, whore central.

We found a little Warung on the street and ordered some food.

It was hot and humid and the street was crowded with expectations.

It made for a change from Johor Baru.

For some reason, we changed hotel rooms.

I had a meeting with Joe Writeson, the writer.

He suggested a nice hotel not far from his house.

We were open to the suggestion.

I really admired Joe as a writer and later as a person.

I really want this story finished, Agnes.

So do I, she said. She was also writing her own book.

Joe's wife was a hunny. I'd have fucked her in a heartbeat.

'I knew you could write, my little petal flower.'

It was encouraging to receive Agnes' support.

She had also translated my book,  Medan Madness, into French.

'Yes, I did it two years after I met you.'

My traveling hadn't slowed down. I had a body of work to complete.

Joe gave with one hand and took with the other.

He had a bad knee.

I had no idea how bad it was.

It was swollen.

It restricted his mobility.

He had a house in a housing estate.

Modest but clean.

He lived in the front room which had an aircon unit.




He did most of his writing there.




He really needed to get a knee a transplant.

At the rate he was going, it would fester and he'd lose his leg.

I'm not a doctor but I knew he was in extreme pain.

He had fallen.

He was once cashed-up, managing international infrastructure projects.

Now he was doing little dirty deals that could backfire on him.

This story isn't about him.

I've since lost contact with him.

I don't know if Joe is alive.

He has two kids and a lovely wife.

And he deserved more than living off a pension in a country that treated expats as third rate citizens.

Joe didn't trust me. That's why he had a copper come along with us on a trip to the next island.

He was an odd duck, who didn't even trust himself.

He had made decisions in life that would affect him ways he'd never anticipated.

Stan was the same.

Agnes massaged Joe's knee.

I'm sure that wasn't his real name.

But boy could he write like the wind.

He had a grip on what was going on in Indonesia.

He just didn't have the backing of a major publisher.

He was the George Orwell of Indonesia, writing about the common people.

His observations took us back to the Road to Wigan Pier.

Joe was loosing the battle.

He'd have to have his leg amputated.

Even I could see that.

But he didn't let pain worry him.

He had five or six books he was working on at once.

'I need these books to take off so that it will provide for my family when I'm not here.'

Joe's beer drinking days were over.

He was a spent force and all he had to look forward to was his pension.

He held onto his ATM like it was the most precious thing in his life.

It was.

It was work a couple of hundred dollars a week, to feed his young family.

Joe took the gamble.

He had succeeded.

He still owned his house.

Or was it rented?

Joe never gave much away.\

He called his wife Mommy.

Joe was regressing.

Only a matter of time, before some bad business deals caught up with him.\

Joe helped me out kindling my book.

I also interviewed him on Batam.

He crept into my book Bintang & Batam, often.

'If the authorities see it, I'm screwed.'

Joe was paranoid.

Being around Joe cost me money. 

I had to stop it. 

I got tough. 

They didn’t know why. 

I felt I was being observed by them.

I really wasn’t sure what the copper was doing on our trip.

I was waiting for the bigger pinch.

Joe had already stung me.

Maybe he was building up to something bigger. 

Having a copper as a friend helped.

Was he really a copper. 

Joe was setting me up. 

He was that desperate. 

I just couldn’t risk it, I told Agnes, who agreed we fuck off to the next island.

We could explore Stan’s death further. 

We were suppose to fly to Borneo together. 

I don’t like sharing. 

I travel alone. 

And I buy my own food. 

My time is my own time.

That’s how I can souce out stories. 

Alone. 

They are usually better and unfiltered. 

We had a little dispute about the airline ticket.

I had bought it for her and she paid me back eventually.

You could say I was still fuming over my Mac Pro being destroyed. Agnes was fluffing around my desk and some liquid in cup went splash across the table and soaked into my lap top.

I was pissed off. 

If I did it. 

I’d cop it sweet. 

She never offered to replace it.

Nothing. 

And going to Borneo and footing her bills wasn’t something I was into.

She said her ATM wasn’t working. 

That’s when I wanted to part. 

I felt I was being scammed. 

I had an escaped plan. 

I’m afraid of flying. 

We never traveled to Borneo.

I am the Flight Misser and deliberately missed that flight.

Besides, Angnes needed her own time. 

It was now time for healing. 

All the talking had been done. 

A little bit of introspection is what she needed. 

The story gets convoluted.

Nothing is straight forward.

There's never a direct line from A to B.

It's from C to Z.

I dumped Joe.

I had enough of parting my money.

Given, he had his wife cook up nice curry.

It was bighting.

It had a real kick.

Joe was proud of his wife's cooking.

But it didn't cut the grade for me.

I could see he was working on me.

Agnes massaged his knee on her first and last visit.

Joe managed to get movement in his toes.

'It feels much better.'

Poor Joe.

He was lost in the world of words and his body was rebelling.

But so long as Joe could write, he would always be free.

Agnes was getting island fever.

She wanted to island hop.

Even Joe recommended Bintan Island. 'It's where I want to retire.'

Joe wasn't ever leaving his air conditioned room.

But I wasn't going to tell him that.

We were getting too comfortable in the hotel.

And Joe knew where I was.

I told his wife who was coming around to pick me up that I couldn't come.

It was a tough call.

I felt bad.

His wife was so fuckable.

But it was only going to lead to big trouble.

I needed fresh air.

Bang bang.

It was Agnes.

'I'm sleeping.'

'I'm leaving.'

So I quickly packed my stuff and left with her.

It was time to travel.

We were stagnating in this hotel.

It was too comfortable.

And not cheap either.

Agnes would place her crystals and Stan paraphernalia on her bed head.

It was her shrine to Stan.

It was verging on the sick.

The demonic.

She needed to get out of here as much as I did.

The ferry ride to Bintan was the most happiest 90 minutes of my life.

Traveling does that to you.

We passed oil platforms.

Fishermen.

Islands.

This was traveling.

Any further East, we'd be in Borneo.

There is nothing pure about the dirty traveler.

We live outside of time.

The boat made it to Bintan.

It was time to find a hotel.

Agnes fancied one a  little walk from the town.

It was a grungy dirty hotel.

I had one I wanted to go which was further out of town.

Agnes took her room.

She was happy with it.

I let her be and continued on to find my hotel, a clean place that catered for Singaporian with room service.

I was happy as pig in shit.

Agnes wasn't.

I'd have to check up on her.

I wasn't getting a good feeling.

She failed to meet me at my hotel.

We had been inseparable for a month now.

And Agnes wanted to go alone.

I hadn't booked a flight to Borneo at this stage.

It would be on our return to Batam.

So many things were playing out.

Stan was causing havoc with Agnes' senses.

She couldn't discern what was happening in the real world and the paranormal one she had created with Stan, who was playing god.

It's hard to explain.

Agnes thought Stan was talking to her from the other side of her grave.

She actually believed this shit.

She was vomiting in the toilet.

She was having a hard time at it.

'Get it out, ' I said, as I rubbed her back.

Her room didn't have air-con.

But it was a big room and Agnes had everything unpacked to resemble home abroad.

I said you need to get out of here. The evil spirits were hot on her heels.

Spoken that way, she agreed and I helped pack her backpack and walk her to my hotel.

She leaned on me most of the way.

It wasn't a long walk but the airconditioning, nicely decorated room, white sheets, and soft bed, plus wif and cable television, would help distract to her that she was dying.

I think she paid for her room.

I put her into bed, taking her shoes off.

She was in the room opposite mine.

It was nearing 9 pm.

She was out with the pixies.

Now it was time to get back to my porn and chain-smoking.

I'm not always writing, you know!

Agnes came good.

During the night I'd look in on her.

In the morning we indulged in a pot of coffee.

I didn't want to come across as the hero.

I had a bad feeling about that place.

She wasn't reading my signals to continue on until we found a better hotel.

I just felt a woman in her fifties, staying in a cheap Indonesian hotel, wasn't a good option.

Besides, I wanted some luxury.

A nice hotel can be really good for a frame of mind.

A dive can really get you down.

'You saved my life,' said Agnes,' I was dying.'

Dying from grief.

Even I could see that.

We moved hotels.

This one was in the town and near a mosque.

Agnes loved the sound of prayers, it soothed her.

I loved the hotel we were at, but it was booked out for Singaporeans on the weekend.

It was time for a change.

Changing hotels is always a good thing.

It reminds you that change is good for you.

I have a knack with finding them.

This one had a high atrium and a grandfather's clock.

It was half the price and with good wifi too.

I would return back to this hotel, at a later date.

You only work on a month in Indonesia.

That's the standard visa.

It goes pretty fast.

Getting the second month is a pain in the ass.

Everything that happened in Indonesia was over a month.

Agnes flew out.

I didn't go.

I wasn't ready.

I still had some exploring to do myself.

I felt that our travels together were over.

Any longer and we'd become enemies.

The tiny things would add up.

Getting her to go to Borneo would broaden her horizons.

I'd be in the same town a few years later.

It just wasn't meant to be.

You could say I was getting sick of the Stan saga.

It wasn't good for my mental health space.

When I travel, I like to harbor on my own shortfalls.

Harboring on other people's problems was a luxury that I couldn't afford at this stage.

We had done some sightseeing.

Agnes misplaced her passport at a Mosque.

Instead of leaving the guy who returned it, with all her cash and cards, she just said thanks.

Another time a guy gave me the password of the wifi.

I paid him a tip for the information.

No money came out of Agnes purse.

We just worked differently, that's all.

But it did raise a flag.

I guess I worked differently on the open road.

She was lucky to have her passport returned.

It was at a very famous mosque on another island just off Bintan.

The guy was expecting a tip for his honesty.

He never got it.

Who am I to tell people how they should behave.

I had told Agnes that I'd spot her until she got her cards and passport back.

Luckily it didn't get to that.

Joe Writeson was about to rip me off.

Wait, I've already said that.

I missed my flight to Borneo and made my way back to Bintan.

Batam was just a bit too edgy for my liking.

Too many hawks wanting the tourist buck.

Bintan was alot more lay back.

Tourists only visited this place on a day trip.

I made it my base for another week.

Then I'd have to catch a ferry back to Johor Baru.

It was all in the realms of can do.

And I did it.

I was far away from the con artist writer and Agnes was in Pontianak, Borneo, finding herself.

It couldn't have been any other way.

She needed time with herself.

And she really opened up.

She was on the mend.

And I continued my travels.

I did regret being a pussy and not going to Pontianak.

But I think having a visa running out was another reason why I didn't bother going.

My trajectory was somewhere else.

Borne would have to wait.

I'd arrive, sooner, or later.

I wonder to what purpose these writings have reached.

I sent a video of Stan I took of him treading on the mud flats of East Java.

He was fearless.

He didn't care if he was going to fall through the thin mud crust.

His father never replied.

The grief was too much for him, seeing most likely the last video footage of him.

On that trip I was with Stan, he was heading back to Paris to pick up his scuba diving gear.

I'm hoping that he visited his father.

I'll never really know.

Me and Stan lost contact after that.

We both went our separate ways.

He was one of the more interesting guys I've met in BackPacker Ville.

He was appreciative of the work I offered him and respectful.

I couldn't say that about the other French I had helped out.

Stan is dead.

His father told me that he never saw Stan's body in the coffin at the cremation in Bangkok.

Just as I suspected.

Stan could well be alive.

'I just didn't want to see Stan that way,' he said.

The answers lie with Agnes.

She hasn't really gone into nitty-gritty details of Stan dying in the hospital bed.

It's all pretty generic made-up stuff.

I'm only saying this in the hope that Stan pulled off a really big one and is doing in his thing on the Andaman Islands, dabbling in brown sugar and fishing for his breakfast each morning.

That was Stan, a really simple guy who had to take the complications out of his life if he was to continue living.

Life insurance.

A million dollars.

It was Stan's last big gig.

And I want to believe that he pulled it off.

I've written about Stan through Agne's eyes. At times it verges on the pornographic. Hay, Stan wouldn't have denied any of it.

I'll let the reader see Stan through her eyes.

It might be more insightful than through my own speculations.