I woke up with a freshly bandaged hand, wrapped in a blood-stained and somewhat torn parka. Weak sunlight filtered into a diner, empty but for one man. This of course was none other than Mr. Zen. His face was like a beaming chestnut, perfectly shaved and round, his stocky frame accented with a pink flowery apron. He’s in the business of slinging short-stacks and making friends, standing in the street and calling to any foreigners who wander down Happy East Street. It just so happened I was dragged in.
“Hey! You awake now. You fall in the street. Someone pick you up and bring you to me. You a foreigner, huh? American? You looks Chinese. Here, drink this. Green tea with ginger and honey. This help you. You got altitude sickness. You look like dying! Hee hee! Drink, drink!”
I reached out with T-Rex arms that seemed to tremble from the weight of the mug, set the steaming hot cup down on the table, and sipped from the rim like a child. The steam entered my sinuses and cleared the impenetrable clouds that swirled about my dome. There was visibility on the mountain.
I looked at Mr. Zen in amazement as he giggled with glee. Something about the hot steam, the lemon zing, the sweet honey, and the sharp ginger revived me for at least a few moments of relief. I had enough energy to sit up now. I hadn’t eaten for what felt like days. Mr. Zen got started on a plate of chicken fried rice, something that would go down easy. I could barely get the spoon to my mouth without losing half of it along the way, but he pretended not to notice. He made me feel at home; he let me eat and did most of the talking. He mostly talked about all his fan mail, the letters and postcards that adorn his “hall of fame.” And there they were, in snapshot, in caricature and frame, the mayor of maple syrup and all of his friends.
I got about half of the plate in my stomach before the effects of the ginger tea wore thin. I felt like passing out. Mr. Zen stretched me out in the booth, threw a blanket on me, took my shoes off, and brought the portable heater closer to my feet. There was no way I could possibly thank him. My life force was completely drained as if sucked away by phantom parasites. Every cell depleted of oxygen. My entire body was gasping to breathe. But at least I could die with warm feet.
Around lunchtime, I was able to sit back up and drink a little more tea. Mr. Zen was describing the scenes on Happy East Street during the summer horse festival, his gentle way of admonishing me for coming at such a foolish time of year and in such a state. “Everybody coming from their home and meeting here! Many, many people! Many, many horses! Horses everywhere! Big horses, fast horses, good-looking horses. Good-looking girls, too!” he giggles. “All the streets filled with Tibetan horse-riders. Tibetan learn to ride horse when they are just a baby! Tibetan people love horses! They come and race and dance and sing. Many, many drinking! Everybody have a good time! My restaurant busy day and night!”
Suddenly Mr. Zen cut his narrative short and jumped up from the table with a huge grin on his face, stepped outside and yelled, “You! Hey you! Hey! Come here! Come here!” gesticulating fervently.
“Do you know him?” I asked Mr. Zen as he cackled with glee.
“No, but look! He coming! He coming!”
I bolted upright seeing the guitar case on the stranger’s back and instantly envisioned the weapons within. This was one of Interpol’s clean-up crew sent to take me out, to put an end to the mission, destroy all evidence, close the file and seal my casket with a tidy little bow. He looked like a traveling musician, a vagabond with a Sherpa hat on his head. His bearded smile and twinkling eyes met mine, and in that moment, I knew I was being replaced.
“Don’t do it here. Not in Mr. Zen’s restaurant,” I said weakly.
“I heard this was the place for banana pancakes,” the stranger smiled, setting down his guitar case.
“I’ve got a guesthouse. It’s a real piece of shit,” I said between wheezing breaths. “Do it there. No one will mind the mess.”
“Sounds great!” the stranger grinned. “Nothing I like better than staying in a piece of shit room! My name is Roi.”
“My name is Sam. There’s some things I need to tell you. Things you won’t believe,” I said, looking white in the face. “But I’ll need some help getting out of here. I feel like I’m dying.”
“Say no more! I am your happy companion. But first, some pancakes? I’m starving!”
“I love this!” Mr. Zen cheered. “You come from your way and you come from your way, and you meet here and go together! You want pancake? Coming right up!”
As Mr. Zen went in the back to flip stacks, Roi and I locked eyes, each of us zoomed in, squinting, knowing, ready to show our cards. Roi took out his and I took out mine. Mine slapped the table; his made a clear thud. He broke out into an open grin now, displaying to my astonishment pages of notes tattooed with foreign cities spanning five continents at least, inscribed and circled in helter-skelter scrawl, crossed and slashed with question marks about flying off to space to reassure himself that no real commitments were truly made until the job was finished; the daily planner was used as a diary instead. I looked at my own skitter-scatter of Post-Its and napkins, some of my notes used as actual napkins, and felt engulfed in shame. How many jobs had he done? How many missions completed? And now he was coming to replace me, a washed-up agent with no clue where to go or how to make the next move. He was an explorer of alleyways and side streets, a connoisseur of street food, a curator of handicrafts, bus depots and train stations to him being the eternal waiting rooms of love. He did the job with romance and style, a real member of the old-school. I couldn’t help but feel impressed.
I watched his pancakes disappear between sentences. We were now beyond the pleasantries of introduction. He had just come from Tibet while I was headed in that direction; our paths were crisscrossing here at the border. I gradually began to relax, sensing that he was a messenger and not a replacement, as I had feared. But if he was sent to bring me intelligence, he was less than forthcoming about it. His manner was indirect, yet verbose; a matter of gleaning grain from syrup. Why was he being so evasive? Was Mr. Zen a snitch?
“No traveler should ever go in the same direction as another. As for me, I have no plans. I follow the stars guided only by my empty stomach and desire for sleep. Occasionally, there is music and love. I might end up in India again. I was in Varanasi for a month learning transcendental meditation. That’s where The Beatles wrote the White Album. If that album was a woman, I would marry it.”
“I’m more of a Black Album kind of guy.”
Roi laughed.
“It’s a shame. We could’ve gone to Tibet together. It was quite an experience. But I’m not going there again. I would seriously reconsider going if I were you. The situation is dark. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I can handle the cold. I’m almost starting to enjoy it.”
I constantly felt numb.
“It’s not the cold you should be worried about. It’s the Chinese,” Roi paused, glancing around the empty restaurant, continuing in a whisper. “The Chinese have soldiers on every street. You can’t get in or out. I was lucky I was able to escape without too much trouble. I have an Israeli passport. But you? An American? Forget it. They’re too afraid of people finding out. They want to keep it quiet.”
“Keep what quiet?” I asked, my eyes growing wider.
“The rebellion,” he quickly murmured into his syrup and smiled up at Mr. Zen, who came and stood next to the table.
“How do you like it?”
“Best pancakes I’ve had in my life!” Roi grinned.
“Everybody say that!” Mr. Zen beamed proudly. “You boys going to visit Old Town? Walking take one hour. Not much time. Come back early. No lights in Old Town. Hard to see! Hee hee! Be careful of wild dog!”
“Ah, Old Town,” Roi sang. “A nostalgic stroll through the last standing vestiges of past civilizations, a mixing of oohs and aahs with remorse for the things we have lost through the modern age. A chance to romanticize the pastoral lifestyle while mourning the loss of ancient traditions. What do you recommend, Mr. Zen?”
“Hmm. . . ” Mr. Zen rubbed his shaved head in thought. “Not much to do now. Too cold for hiking. Ground frozen, no good for horse. Maybe visit monastery and see sky burial?”
“Sky burial?” I echoed, and the bandage on my right hand began throbbing with a glowing force.
“A beautiful representation of death and a new beginning,” Roi launched in. “The body of the deceased is carried to the top of a mountain and offered to the vultures. They eat the body to the bone. Then the monks will crush the bones into powder, and the vultures will consume even that. All of one’s essence returning back into life through death, the never-ending cycle. Hopefully, they’ll return somewhere closer to Nirvana, the end of all cycles.”
“The end of all cycles,” I whispered. “Of course.”
“I don’t like vulture. Eat dead animal. Ugly, too. Not good dharma,” Mr. Zen said with a shake of his head.
“Where do we find these filthy creatures?” I asked.
“Top of mountain there is monastery. Famous monastery. Birthplace of seven Dalai Lama. Very special temple. But hard to walk. You okay?”
“One more cup of ginger tea should do it.”
By late afternoon, we reached the top of the mountain and stood before the gates of the temple. The sky was a blazing blue diamond as we ascended higher up the staircase, golden like a lion’s mane, the windblown dust. Roi helped me up the final tier and leaned me against a stone. We turned in breathless awe at the endless plateaus before us. I could barely move or speak, yet I felt a radiant energy.
“According to tradition, the Dalai Lama was an ancient soul who chose to recycle his soul over and over again throughout time to be reincarnated as an infant born to lead the Tibetan people. He is more than their king. He is more than their leader. As outsiders, it would be very difficult to understand the spiritual connection the Tibetan people have with him.”
“Maybe that’s why they want him dead. Cut off the head, the body follows.”
Roi nodded grimly.
“I’m afraid of what the army will continue to do to these people if they fight back. They’re fighting now, even as we speak.”
Catching my breath, I hobbled over and joined Roi at the precipice. The wind whipped freely and sang.
“At the end of the day, the trail always leads to yuans. What could they possibly want from Tibet?”
“They say there are trillions in untapped mineral resources buried in the mountains,” Roi mused. Then he shook his head. “But I think it’s more than that.”
The wind paused as a shower of light passed over the valley.
“How do the souls know to always return here, to the promised land?”
“It’s not just a matter of floating around in space, I don’t think. Although some Buddhist traditions do describe it that way. I think it is simply a dimension of reality we cannot understand.”
“The fifth?”
“Maybe higher.”
I gulped and stood on trembling legs beside Roi at the edge overlooking the infinite vista. Above us, I saw vultures circling. We climbed up the endless white stone steps to the place where the sky itself seemed to rip asunder and opened to great burgundy drapes parted in the middle, welcoming all who came wandering.
We entered and found ourselves immediately cloaked in the darkness of an empty prayer room. Incense burned softly in the distance, but the smell was tinged with something sulfurous. An evil spirit, a bad vibe. All around us, demonic deities bared the teeth of wild beasts in hell, a samsara that never ends, born into endless lifetimes until a final descent to the very bottom, wherever that may go. Hundreds of arms waved in hypnotic circles, a menacing vibration.
We stumbled farther in hopes of a smiling monk in waiting, happy to explain the religious significance of this nightmare, but nearly collapsed in shock instead, both of us gripping each other in horror and devastation. We fell into a pit and found the desecration of an ancient forest, trees of wisdom chopped down, sawed open, logged. The many faces of Buddha were crushed, dented, broken beyond healing, by rifle butt, hammer, and god knows what else.
“With the jihadists destroying what’s left of the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan, and the Chinese destroying the ones in Tibet, there’ll be nowhere left for people to go,” Roi spoke somberly. “To pray, I mean.”
A giant bronze Buddha lay on its side before us, its fingers still curled in that symbol of eternal peace.
“Roi, didn’t you say that prayers are like energy? That they can even change the shape of water?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“What if that energy can be seen in this other dimension? This world between worlds where the souls go before they return back to the cycle?
“I suppose anything’s possible in the spiritual realm.”
“Don’t you see? That’s why the Chinese are destroying the Buddhas! They’re like signal torches for the souls to follow back to their homeland! There must be some life force, some interdimensional channel that controls it! How else could the Dalai Lama have reincarnated back into the same temple seven times?”
“Are you saying the Chinese are destroying these statues because they want to keep the Dalai Lama from coming back to his homeland?”
“Or they want to find a way to control the life force for their own designs.”
“Control reincarnation?”
“World domination.”
“Everyone comes back Chinese.”
CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.
The sound of sarcastic applause echoed in the chamber.
“Congratulations gentlemen. There aren’t many who can make the journey, not at this time of the year. Even Chinese soldiers couldn’t handle the weight of these statues in the ice.”
A monk stepped forward from the darkness. His gaunt face flickered with love and peace, but there was a weariness to it.
“Sorry to startle you. Tibetan tradition. Wakes up the spirits. Come, I have much to show you.”
Roi and I looked at each other warily, yet followed the monk into the candlelit darkness.
“Sorry about the mess. Every now and then the Chinese government sends its soldiers to intimidate us. A rebellion breaks out in the streets because the Han have taken over our ancestral lands and set up their own businesses, and so they send their police with tear gas and batons and beat us like dogs. They lock us in their prisons and torture us, and even send some of us back in boxes. They’ll do anything but start an all-out war because it is a war they know they cannot win. The free nations will not support it. But in the meantime, they do whatever they can to humiliate us, break our spirit, and make us give up, so they come to places of holiness to desecrate our temples and make us lose heart.”
We paused at a dark stone stairwell and looked up toward a distant crack of light at the top.
“We live in a world where only the violent have power, and the powerful reconstruct history as they see fit,” the monk echoed in the dark. “What can we do to survive in a world of such violence?”
I felt his body pause at the top of the stairs. A loud creak, and suddenly we were blinded by shockingly blue and white light. We regained visual clarity and saw the monk stepping out into an open terrace. The strata before us moved wispily in the air, conforming to the spiral of wind and jetty. We looked down and saw the wild range of mountains below. We were on top of the Himalayas in a stone tower, a satellite for the lost souls of the Dalai Lama, soaring through a place without wind.
“We give our lives,” the monk concluded, and with a wave of his hand, pointed our gaze toward the opposite end of the terrace, where the statue of a meditating Buddha in the lotus position sat, pointer and thumb forming the holy Om.
Right before our eyes, a flock of vultures descended from the vast blue desert and picked the sculpture to dust. The Buddha crumbled in a flurry of sand, ash, and embers. The vultures squawked and pecked at each other with mangy beaks as it disappeared with a swirl into the ether.
“You! What are you doing?” the monk cried out.
“You want a body?” I said, removing my last article of clothing. I walked butt-naked onto the veranda. “You’ve got one!”
“Sam! Get back here! It’s freezing!”
“Stop! The vultures don’t—”
Their cries vanished in the wind; I spread my arms before the circling eaters of bone and offered myself on crucifix, lying on frozen brick.
“I am Jack! Jack is Sam! This is the only way to stop the cycle!”
With a flash of light, I warp into a PC room in Old Town. The arcade is filled with shaved-headed little monks, all dressed in their robes, huddled around PC stations, cheering at the digital mayhem. Is it so ironic that this little monk just shot a pedestrian with a shotgun at close range?
A cheat code makes an armored tank drop down from the heavens. Soon they all know the code and the tables are turned. I lead the carnage speeding around in a S.W.A.T truck, but I don’t know where I’m going. There’s somewhere I need to go. I can’t remember. . .
I feel myself flying through night, my avatar falling from an endless height. I land in darkness. I am brought back to life. I have infinite lives. Another chance for Jack to carry out his mission. Another time I must stop him. But if I stop the cycle, is it just Game Over?
Enter two coins. Press Play.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
I wake up in a candlelit room, and see that look of love and peace standing over me. I grab the monk’s bald head and give a hard yank.
A reverse wig!
The false monk stands before me, grinning with wild cowboy hair blowing crazily in the suddenly wind-filled room, the candle flickering like mad, a cigarette in his mouth as he hoses himself down with ice-cold water. His laughter echoes as I am sucked into a space between two worlds flying through the darkness towards a river of constellations. I can almost reach out and touch the stars. My soul rockets at light speed. All lights fade but for one; the rest are jittery flames. One point in the distance growing brighter, warmer, larger, until it captures you in endless light beams. You see a blurry face, the blinding and terrifying dazzle of lights and cold air. The sound of an operating room.
Beep. . . Beep. . . Beep. . . BEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPP!!!!