Mira always asks for a funny story at bedtime.
Not a moral. Not a lesson. Just something that makes her laugh into the pillow before sleep takes her. I’ve always wanted to write them down, not because I distrust my memory, but because I know how memory works. One day she will be taller than the raft was long. One day she will have her own rivers. I want her to be able to come back to this—to the three of us, wet and ridiculous in Khao Lak—and relive the countless nights we recounted the story with wild nightly cackles.
Khao Lak was meant to be gentle: cliffs, turquoise waters, mango sticky rice, som tam with crushed soft-shell crab.
Then someone said “bamboo rafting,” and the day grew teeth.
The raft was three bamboo poles tied together. I had seen more optimism in a group project. It looked like escaped furniture seeking revenge. The oarsman waved us aboard with the calm of a man who had seen this joke before.
Neha stepped on first. The opposite end rose in salute. She stood like someone who had just learned floors were optional.
I followed. The raft listed hard to starboard. Water climbed my calves and when I sat down I was hip deep in water, my behind scraping the bottom of the riverbed. Mira watched from the bank, already composing last words.
Mira boarded.
Geometry resigned.
“Will there be crocodiles?” Mira asked doubtfully.
“No,” I said, mustering all the courage I could when standing on three sticks in a river.
We pushed off.
“Will there be snakes?”
“No,” I said, just as the boatsman pointed at overhanging bamboo and said, helpfully, “Snake.”
Mira’s scream melted into the loud white rapids over which the raft bounced along.
Neha made a sound that might have been prayer. It was primal communication. Mira’s scream continued, silently swallowed by the forest rain. We were three wet commas in a sentence the river was writing too fast.
Downstream we ate coconut ice cream even if we looked like wet laundry.
“You said no snakes.”
I wrung out my shirt stoically.
The oarsman smiled; the smile of a man who would do this again tomorrow. I never posted the photos. Some stories are funnier when they stay wet.
Funnier still when recounted at bedtime.
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