oron gives me a ride with my bags around the corner to my new place. i have two giant bags and he has a basket on the front of his scooter that looks like he peeled it off of a two year old girl's tricycle, smirking and singing the whole time.

for the last week at 5.30am i've been waking up to someone singing loudly, walking around the courtyard of sinbi muay thai.

"wha fugg" i'd mumble with righteous indignation and turn back over for the precious last hour of sleep.

so a couple days ago i'm working the bag with VICIOUS COMBOS, probably well on my way to breaking my previous high score of at least a billion, when i hear the same "hunnnn dada nunda ho nun nunna nun..."

my brows wrinkle with the unquenchably vengeful fury of vaguely remembered interrupted sleep, and i wheel to glare at the ring. oron, of course, sees me eyeing him like a hungry dog in a cage while someone shakes bacon just beyond the bars. he shoots up his eyebrows as his face breaks into that tormentor's smirk and sings a little louder.

"oron ! that's YOU singing at 5 in the ay-em ?!" i yell. i shoot for cimmerian menace but probably land somewhere around whiny teenager.

"yes," he smiles, then blushes a little bit.

unprecedented ! i think to myself, then look at wang who is grinning at us.

"he good singer !" says wang. "he champion !"

i naturally assume i'm being put on with the ol' leg-tug but oron's deepening blush tells me this supposed gag might actually be for real. not of course that i know thing one about thai singing but oron does hold his notes very well and he doesn't smear across the scale, he jumps cleanly the way he throws flying knees. confidently.

of course if i tell him this he will be positively insufferable.

"noooo," i say crossly and hold my gloves to my ears, "no champion. torture champion maybe..."

they both laugh and wang points at oron. oron answers by grabbing wang's ass.

so i daydream of oron singing and smiling while stripping some infant's bike for parts as he takes one of my bags and puts it at his feet. "ah ?" he gestures at the back of the bike.

"sure ok what the hell. today's as good a day to die as any," the cimmerian answers for me, but he doesn't control my strong reservations. oron sings as he delivers me uneventfully to my destination. "tomorrow !" oron says as i get off his bike.

"tomorrow," i say back, "as long as there's no singing." he hands me my bag with one hand and with the other he pinches my ass.