It was an image of a circle comprising of four large, round stones towering about three to four meters high. I could estimate their height because there was a figure of a man standing next to them. Each of these equally rounded stones were positioned in four different directions, spaced equally from each other. The image was part of an editorial article on ‘Unseen Tourist Destinations in Thailand’ which described the site as ‘Quaternary Stones’, located at the Phu Suan Sai National Park in Loei province. The article gave general details of the location, size of the stones, travel route to the park, and the local folklore of the place.

The content of that article didn’t get me excited; it was rather the picture that had strangely captured my attention the first moment I saw it. It was so powerful that I felt I needed to visit the site at least once in my lifetime. I grabbed my phone and texted my friends.

“Hey Orin, what were the names of those five parks that you mentioned earlier?” I wrote.

“Phu Hin Rong Kla, Trakarn, Phu Soi Dao, Phu Suan Sai and Si Nan National Park,” Orin texted back promptly.

“Ok, if you don’t mind, please count me in. I’ll join you guys,” I texted back without hesitation. I even forgot about my earlier apprehension over the anticipated holiday crowds.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Orin replied enthusiastically, adding two rows of smileys to his text message.

“Great, that’s my man!” Sun joined the conversation.

“That’s great. I had asked myself how we could proceed with this trip without Tim. It’ll be more fun if we all go together,” Kate commented, followed by a happy emoji sticker.

Next morning, the four of us gathered at the agreed meeting point. We rode in Sun’s car, since he was the only one who owned a car. We created a joint fund by pooling 2,000-baht each to cover for miscellaneous expenses during the trip. Kate offered to manage the financials and handle payments for food and essentials. She had always been very meticulous and noted down everything that we spent. We told her she didn’t need to do that, and that we would top the fund up whenever it ran out. She said she couldn’t comply with our suggestion because it would make her feel uneasy and uncomfortable over the loss of fiscal control. So, we all agreed to let her handle the bookkeeping her own way, and she seemed to be contented with that.

“You know, I checked the resort in Pai that we stayed at last year on a webpage, and they have adjusted the price to 1,200-baht per night. We only paid 800-baht last year. Here’s what I wrote down,” she said.

Kate pulled out a small notebook which she had used on the previous trip. There was a list of all the places that we had stayed at, with prices, telephone numbers, the dates of our stay, and even some sort of her scoring system marked as small stars in various colours, which didn’t necessarily represent the star ratings awarded to each resort but rather reflected Kate’s very own discerning standard of satisfaction.

“Look here, do you still remember that somtam Thai salad we had at the corner of Wat Chan temple? It was so delicious and offered great value for money. Our table was filled with food, with grilled chicken, three somtam dishes, larb, namtok, grilled pork shoulder, and sticky rice. And it only cost us 330 baht in total,” Kate beamed proudly, pointing at her notes that she had taken so diligently.

“And not only that, back then there were even five of us.” As soon as she had said that, everyone fell silent.

It felt as if all the air was sucked out of the car. Everyone was feeling very uneasy. I guessed nobody knew what to say without mentioning that fifth person.

“Tim, I’m sorry …” Kate said finally, breaking the awkward silence and apologising to me.

“Nah, it’s OK, Kate. I haven’t thought about her for quite some time. Actually, I’ve already forgotten about it,” I tried to cover up my emotions and pretended that this was no longer an issue so that Kate wouldn’t feel too guilty for bringing it up.

The person that Kate had mentioned was my ex–girlfriend, Jen. She had joined our office two years ago and was assigned to my team. She was a pretty and petite fair-skinned girl and the first time we met, it felt as if fate had brought us together. I thought we had so many things in common when we looked deep into each other’s eyes. On her first working day, I took her out for lunch, just the two of us, as if to announce to everyone that she was mine.

We got close to each other very quickly, and it took only two months for our relationship to develop. I loved her so much, and we promised each other to get married as soon as we had enough money to buy a house. However, one year later, she broke up with me because she had gotten a new job with a better salary, or at least that’s what she told me. Sadly enough, I only learned later on that she had actually met someone else. I remembered that I had suffered deeply back then, and that there wasn’t a single minute in which I didn’t think of her and the new man in her life.

One night I was so exhausted, as I hadn’t slept for several nights in a row, and when I finally dropped into a deep slumber, I dreamt that Jen had returned to me.

“I’m sorry, Tim, please forgive me,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, your return already makes me happy. I love you, Jen,” I replied, hugging her in my dream.

I woke up at dawn the next morning with my heart filled with joy from that dream. I think that it was a sign of closure and a resolution my subconscious mind made for me to move on with the next chapter of my life.

I lay still on my bed with my eyes closed, holding on to this happy feeling for as long as I could. But then another thought told me to accept the fact that she had found someone else now. During that trance-like state, I felt a presence of someone standing close to me. It was a little girl, her image blurry as I hadn’t yet fully opened my eyes, but I felt her presence and knew that she was there.

“This state of misery is just another phenomenon that allows you to experience the opposite state of joy and euphoria. One thing cannot exist without the other. How could you recognise happiness if you have never experience suffering?” was what I heard.

Once the voice had faded away, I immediately opened my eyes. I thought about what she had said over and over again, about the dream that had comforted me, the reality I had to face, and the last remnant of her voice and our past.