Two parts in search of a third

Two parts in search of a third:

The pink dawn slashed across the roofs of Bangkok. I noticed the way sooty spindle-like chimneys poked up from the layered roofs of the temple; it was the same filthy phallic way my life poked from the pages of my history.
The little caged birds at the entrance of the temple looked ready to go. 8 bajt (about a quarter) bought me a healthy looking one. I pried at the cage door with my American Express card before putting my wallet away and the door popped open. She jutted her beak toward the opening; her jerky movements froze for an instant. I froze too. The bird hopped to the threshold looked both ways and instantly shot into the air already crowded with the smoky smell of seared meat and mysterious foods that had been unrefrigerated too long. Watching her sweep away, I wondered if this bird had been set free before. Had I set her free myself?
This purification ceremony completed, I entered the temple. My knees skinned the stone floor behind an undulating crowd of men wrapped in muslin. The randomness of my desultory existence felt vaguely tempered by the profound feeling of how out-of-place I was. See? There must be a place I belong, a place called: Not Here.
The seriously impassive expression on the face of the deity contrasted with his pointed hat. Anyone wearing a hat like that should be grinning. No one grinned here; the human faces glowed with the businesslike diligence of self-sedation.

Ellen realized she was next in line; more severe than a sudden awakening it was more like the sudden alertness and sense of loss experienced during a bikini-wax as a patch of sensation loving hairs is yanked away from around ones privates. She stepped to the counter. The little green visor on the Starbucks server at this airport was the same visor they wore back home, she asked the boy for an expensive coffee; the visors may be the same but she thought the boys were taller back home- she liked it when the boys were taller. She scorched this one with her ‘no holds barred’ smile as his tip.
Determined to set free all her local currency before flight time, Helen expunged her remaining Bajt like crumpled leaves onto a toothless beggar. The heat of the coffee burned the roof of her mouth. The tip of her tongue rubbed at the stiff chalky wrinkles of her pallet as she savored the pain.
What would she tell Brian when she got back to Seattle?