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Yes, apart from paying taxes, we all are assigned a new citizenship duty of figuring out what the nation's Army chief is up to, who tried to kill the country's foremost political activist in a style that would have embarrassed Al Capone, and whether or not the prime minister's right-hand man remains loyal to him. There is no time to suffer from the Songkran trauma, because fresh intrigues are coming thick and fast, including some jaw-dropping rumours that made us want to spend the rest of our lives in solitude.

We are very much in a state of flux and it isn't hard to see why. Thaksin Shinawatra is all but finished and Abhisit Vejjajiva is anything but strong. Whereas the political legacy that Abhisit inherited after years of turmoil is by no means enviable, the state power that he has in his shaky hands involves enormous interests too lucrative to ignore. If the blues - the shadowy alliance allegedly associated with Army commander-in-chief Anupong Paochinda and Newin Chidchob - credit themselves with the December power shift that landed Abhisit the premiership, they could be thinking, "We didn't do it for charity".

A prevailing question after Songkran is, "How real are the blues?" Was the emergence of blue-shirted protesters - who clashed briefly with red-shirted counterparts, culminating in the collapse of the Asean Summit in Pattaya - taken too seriously? Whatever the motive of the clash - to discredit and block the red shirts or to give them an excuse to storm the Summit hotel - the apparently minor incident was drowned out by the red rampage in Pattaya and Bangkok and the subsequent military clampdown. And everyone would have forgotten about a non-red, non-yellow political force but for the failed attempt on Sondhi's life.

No matter how real the blues are, these things happen all the time. Best friendships were betrayed and alliances broken up repeatedly in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and we don't have to look further than American-German-Russian relations during and after World War II to see the ultimate truth about friends and foes. Domestically, we have our own historical example of crazy political realignment. After overthrowing the Chatichai Choonhavan administration in a coup in 1991, the military, the following year, collaborated with the very politicians they had condemned in a bid to hold on to state power. We all know what happened afterwards.

Assuming the blues are real, their apparent compact structure makes them well-poised to carry out key manoeuveres and take advantage of the reds' diversified, if not clashing, components, and the yellows' awkward position at the border of state power. After all, an Anupong-Newin alliance could make many things happen, both in Parliament and outside the corridors of mainstream politics. Over the past four years or so, both names have been synonymous with resilience and clever scheming rather than loyalty or ideology.

Rumours have it that the reluctant yellow-blue alliance that installed Abhisit as prime minister may have run its course. The birth of the Bhumjai Thai Party earlier this year, while sending a message to Thaksin that the loyalty he enjoyed from local politicians was waning, might worry the prime minister more than the fugitive. Since taking office, the young Democrat leader has been in a strange position. On the one hand, most of his backers are obliged to support him because he has been, and still is, their only choice. On the other hand, he probably couldn't feel lonelier.

Whether or not Bhumjai Thai will do a Sammakhitham (the notorious party set up just before the 1992 bloodbath to help extend the military's influence in politics) remains to be seen. While many circumstances between now and then are oddly similar, there are also many different factors.

One of those factors is Abhisit himself. Somehow he has come to represent the parliamentary system's last hope, no matter how controversial his rise to power was. Untainted and considerably popular, he is probably the reason why the best the blues can do at the moment is to lurk with ambition.

He is in unknown territory. The yellows - a long-time ally - are getting restless and view with great scepticism his flirting with the idea of pardoning more than 200 banned politicians. The reds still want him out and the blues, while remaining friendly on the surface, may be working behind the scenes to gain greater leverage against him. Last but not least, can Abhisit still trust Suthep Thaugsuban with his life? Probably, although that means discounting some gossip saying otherwise.

To survive, Abhisit needs to be more resilient than Anupong and Newin combined and at the same time be firm on key principles. Information on who was behind the Sondhi attack must be sought not only for criminal investigation purposes but also for the future mapping of Abhisit's own political strategy. The assassination attempt and the Songkran riots only serve to confirm that it's all becoming a full-scale power play that has been exploiting the exhausted spirit of democracy. Political realignment, whether it is going on or will take place in the future, will be for the sole purpose of winning a battle, although it will naturally be proclaimed a national service.

As for us Thais, there is not much we can do except to wait for all the "colours" to show their true colours, so to speak. That is a job we are being taxed for.