The Seven Kingdoms (8)
The Fifth Kingdom - Part II
Reading time: 11 minutes.
Center drawing: Tenshō Shūbun (from the Zen Buddhist Ten Oxherding Pictures. Marble background: Placidplace
Hope and fear were competing for Andy’s full attention as he walked through the village gates. He almost tripped over a gang of hens and roosters running wildly through the streets. Cows whose ribs could easily be counted roamed freely, and one of them was licking something edible off a counter belonging to a vegetable store. Small children were laughing and running after one another, while older ones, entering the stage where the type of attention to and from the other sex changed dramatically, looked down upon their alleged rascality and immaturity.
While entering the circular village square, whiffs of cinnamon, ginger, cumin, mint, nutmeg, clove, and star anise entered Andy’s nostrils simultaneously. The place was filled with a variety of stalls with all kinds of spices, fruits, vegetables, but also furniture, clothing, and tea. He jumped frantically up and down after he tried to inspect the contents of a large cauldron, while the hairs on his legs almost got scorched as someone stoked the fire underneath it with a bellows. And while wine and other spirits promised initial gaiety, the end result usually came in the form of a persistent hangover with associated headache.
A large red-and-white bandstand adorned the center of the square, offering shade from the sun, and functioned predominantly as a meeting place. A large, bare-chested, big-bellied, and bare-footed fellow, wearing red-orange robes from the waist down, was holding a staff with a gourd attached. He was daubed with ashes and mud, yet his smile was as broad as the Hudson river, and radiated ten times more than all the nuclear reactors on Earth combined. A crowd was sitting around him, in an atmosphere that can only be described as merry benevolence.
“Excuse me, are you the visitor whom I’m being sent to?”
The radiant smile turned towards Andy, but as he prepared himself to receive all the warmth that he had felt around the figure and his audience, his heart turned to ice when he looked into the visitor’s eyes. For in them, he saw nothing else, but himself.
When he woke up, the visitor was holding his head and gently pouring water into his mouth. They were inside a house, and a few villagers stood around them.
“Ah, we’re coming to. Hello there stranger, how do you feel?”
Andy had to reorient himself, not really understanding where he was or what had happened.
“I…well, okay, I guess, I’m not sure.”
“You asked a question, and as I was about to answer, you fell down like a house of cards.”
“How long was I out?”
“Not long, maybe ten minutes or so. But we thought it more appropriate to bring you inside.”
Slowly, Andy managed to sit himself on the side of the bed, opposite the curiously doesn’t-appear-to-have-a-care-in-the-world-visitor of the village.
“Well, as I was about to answer before you passed out, I am indeed a visitor to this village, as I am somewhat of a nomad as it happens. But I don’t know anything about anyone sending someone to me, at least not specifically, hohoho!”
His belly was shaking enthusiastically to the rhythm of his deep and roaring laughter, with a force that made the walls of the house bulge.
“Nevertheless, what can I do for you?”
Andy didn’t dare to look the visitor in the eyes. Staring at the floor, he wanted to say: ‘I have come here to ask you to resurrect my wife from the dead. How much will that be, including VAT?’ Instead, wat exited his lips, was:
“I have come for your help. Well, not really help, more like asking you for a miracle.”
His heart sank into his shoes as the futileness and ridiculousness of his wish entered his mind.
“Well, we usually perform the impossible quite quickly. Miracles might take a little longer, but there’s nothing that is not possible, right lads?”
As the orange robe turned towards the villagers, another roaring laughter followed, shaking the house to its foundations.
“Spit it out stranger, don’t be afraid. If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Is that what you want?”
“No. I mean, I want to know.”
A big sigh escaped, and again a gut-wrenching hopelessness took hold of him while thinking of Marilyn. Then, the good natured visitor gently grabbed Andy’s shoulder, which vanished completely from sight under the shovel-sized hand.
“I don’t know what pains you, my dear friend, but I can’t help you if you don’t let it out. So, please, as difficult as it might feel, do share your pain, and let us investigate what can be done.”
Compassion enveloped Andy like a warm bath. A warmth that penetrated deep into his heart, urged him to open up.
“I lost my beautiful wife Marilyn four years ago. Since then I had convinced myself that I had mourned her death sufficiently, and had moved on. But it was all just a smokescreen. I can’t live without her, I can’t, life is completely empty and meaningless without her.”
He cried while burying his head in his hands. Then after a few minutes he sighed, and continued with teary eyes.
“I went on this journey to find meaning. Today I met a child, well, a child with one helluva left, who told me she was the Queen of this realm. She witnessed my total breakdown when my smokescreen was lifted. Then, she sent me to you.”
“I see. And what do you want me to do?”
“Well, I realise this might sound rather absurd, but I gathered from her words that you would be able to revive her.”
“Aha. Well, I will revive your wife, but you’ll have to fulfil one condition.”
Andy looked up through his tears in amazement, and couldn’t believe his ears.
“Really? I mean – really? Oh my goodness, I’ll do anything! I’ll give up my own life if I have to!”
“Hohoho, that won’t be necessary. It’s but a simple condition, because I am not in the business of making big requirements of people. So, here’s the gist: just bring me a few barley seeds from the village. However, you need to remember one thing: the barley seeds should come from a house where nobody has ever died.”
Could it really be that easy? Since Andy remembered the vast barley fields just outside the village, it should surely be no problem to find their seeds. Hope can move mountains and like a bullet from a gun he shot out of the house to go on his quest.
The first door was opened by a gentle elderly lady.
“Dear lady,” Andy began, “I am looking for some barley seeds from a house where nobody has ever died. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“A few barley seeds? You can have as many as you can carry. But alas, I cannot fulfil your request, because many people have died in our house. So our barley seeds won’t do.”
That didn’t upset him in the least, since there were many houses in the village. However, the more he received the same answer as the day proceeded, the more resentment began to pile up. And when the last streams of sunlight had withdrawn from the village streets, anger had taken hold of him like a python its prey.
“You tricked me! You knew that there was no house in the village where nobody has ever died. You sent me on a wild goose chase!” he shouted at the broad visitor’s back.
“Yes.”
“Whaaat?”
“What?”
“You admit it?”
“Of course. But you seem angry. Are you?”
“Angry?” To call the utter wrath raging through Andy’s entire system ‘anger’, would be to call Mount Everest a friendly neighbourhood knoll. It took all his power to keep him from throwing himself onto the broad back.
“Why don’t you come and sit down, please,” said the visitor as he invitingly waved an arm to a broad cushion on the floor in front of him, and spoke in a voice that betrayed nothing but unconditional love.
Defiantly Andy stormed around the visitor and threw himself on the pillow. But against all expectations, the look he received was so full of contempt, wrath, and pure darkness, that his own anger ran away with its tail between its legs. When the visitor spoke, the voice appeared to ascend from the deepest pits of hell.
“Who Do You See?”
Andy’s Adam apple danced nervously up and down as his big eyes stared into abysmal emptiness streaming out of the visitor’s eye sockets.
“What…er…I mean…”
“WHO DO YOU SEE?”
It struck him like an avalanche. This rage, this all-consuming rage, this accumulation of every little downplayed irritation, trivialized anxiety, and unacknowledged grief, was turning into a ball of magma the size of Jupiter, and demanded release at some point – in whichever way possible.
The visitor had become the most shiny mirror Andy had ever looked into.
While all these thoughts emerged simultaneously from every direction, physically it felt as if the contents of his abdominal cavity were revolving like a washing machine, while at the same time a hand slid down his oesophagus, grabbed his stomach, and pulled it back up through the diaphragm and out of his mouth. His heart was making serious efforts to break through his sternum and a warp-speed hyperventilation proved a remarkable test-case for the elasticity of his ribcage.
Andy did not consider this as being comfortable in one’s own body.
“I – see – me – ”
The subsequent scream carried enough energy to light up a small continent. Then he collapsed and cramped into a foetal position onto the cushion where he began to shake uncontrollably, while vomiting different sounds breaking with every shudder.
“Yeah, ha, ha-ha, HAHAHAHA, I see you, HAHAHAHA, but you can’t see me-hee, HAHAHAHA! No, get away from me! GET AWAY! You’re not REAL! Stop HAUNTING ME! You can’t SEE ME HAHAHA!”
He broke out into a heavy sweat as the seizures increased and his hallucinations became more and more fantastic, horrifying, and unreal.
The visitor just sat, and watched.
After about half an hour the worst was over. Panting heavily, drooling slightly, and virtually raining sweat, Andy managed to actually string enough thoughts together to form a sentence.
“What…just…happened?”
“You tell me, friend.” Love and compassion as pure as gold.
Slowly, very slowly, Andy pushed himself to a sitting position on the drenched cushion.
“That felt like bloody withdrawal symptoms.”
The visitor smiled broadly.
“Indeed.”
Andy looked puzzled.
“But I’m not addicted to anything!”
“Aren’t you, now?” as one eyebrow raised slightly yet conspicuously, and the smile widened.
With might, Andy tried to imagine what he could be addicted to, for he had not touched the usual suspects for a long time now, even after the accident.
“Marilyn…”
“Among other things, yes.”
“What?”
While handing Andy a cup of water, a kitchen towel, and a clean pillow to sit on, the visitor took a large breath before he continued.
“Think about the quest you undertook today. What has it revealed?”
“Besides there being an over-abundance of barley in this village?”
“Hohoho!” another floor shaking belly laugh.
“Yes, besides that.”
After some moments of reflection, a light bulb went on above Andy's head.
“An over-abundance of death. There was not a single house that had not seen death. Death is everywhere.”
“And how did you react to that revelation?”
“With….”
Life moves mostly gradually. But, every now and then there are seismic events, also known as growth spurts, that have as sudden an impact on a person as an M9.6 earthquake. It is as if one has been born blind, and is then all of a sudden exposed to all the colours and forms that are being illuminated by sunlight.
“Oh my God…”
He slapped his mouth with both hands, while his eyes became big like saucers. The visitor’s smile widened as he beamed with light. Andy’s mouth opened, closed, then hesitatingly opened again.
“Anger?”
Traces of disbelief were audible in his voice. A warm bath, in the shape of the visitor, was clearly perceivable.
“Am I addicted to anger?”
“Well, how can you tell if you are or aren’t?”
That’s when a next illumination emerged like newly struck oil.
“Anger gives me a feeling of control, even though it really only exacerbates already difficult situations. I know that. But, if I let it go, if I don’t go with my anger, well, you’ve just seen what happens then. So, I guess that I am terribly afraid of that happening in public, which prevents me from letting go of anger when it arises. It feels like losing control, with, as we know now, a chance of an episode of withdrawal symptoms happening, which, when that happens in public, shows an intolerable vulnerability.”
“Why intolerable?”
“Because it shows vulnerability.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Because the shame arising from the idea of vulnerability is unbearable. I can’t be seen as vulnerable. At least, so I’ve come to believe.”
“How did you come to believe such an idea?”
“You can’t show vulnerability or weakness in the rat-race. It comes from the generally accepted idea that both success and failure are all your own doing. So if you’re successful, you can take the full credits, but if you fail, no one else is to blame but yourself. And if you screw up bigtime, boy, is the outside world ready to help blaming yourself.”
Andy looked somewhat bitterly at the floor for a few minutes.
“Apart from my marriage, I don’t think there has been a single day I haven’t felt guilty about something or other.”
“Aha! Jolly good! Tell me some things you feel guilty about.”
“What are you all of a sudden so merry about?”
“With luck, you’ll find out, hohoho! Humour me, please.”
“Well, okay. First and foremost, is losing Marilyn.”
Here the visitor gestures Andy to move on, feeling that the current wave could be of the utmost importance.
“Yes, well, basically every time I get angry, I feel shame afterwards, and there is definitely guilt if my anger was pointed at someone else. And…”
The words halted, as a heavy thought became almost visible as a small thundercloud above his head.
“And?” the visitor urged.
Andy looked up.
“There’s always shame and guilt whenever I am overcome by loneliness, and that without Marilyn I’m nothing but a big screw-up.”
The visitor, seemingly fully satisfied, leaned back into a comfortable lotus position. The room appeared to radiate life, love, and compassion from every corner, while a gentle breeze stroked Andy’s skin as if silk sheets were being draped over him. A fragrance emerged, like gardenias, like incense, only infinitely more heavenly, as a predictor of inevitable enlightenment. The visitor seemed to be growing in size and glowing with a radiance coming from deep within, when he finally addressed Andy.
“So, now, my dear friend, I want you to analyse yourself. Which aspects, or emotions, have you learned to fervently and rigidly hold on to?”
Andy’s eyes widened.
“Anger, anxiety, shame, guilt.”
“Good. Now, what is the inevitable counterpart of life?”
“Death.”
“Indeed. Can we influence the fact that there is life and death, and that the one always transforms into the other?”
A faint smile appeared on Andy’s face.
“No,” he snickered, as he looked down on his hands, which, curiously, lacked the usual dancing thumbs.
“So, life and death are phenomena that we have no influence over as such. They happen, just like the sun rises every morning and the moon comes out at night. Would you agree?”
“Yes.”
“So life and death as such we can’t influence. But who is responsible for how we view them, how we think about them and judge them?”
“We are.”
“Then, how do we form our views and judgements?”
“Well, we learn about them, in school or through talks, experience, or study.”
“Is that the same kind of learning with which you learned to hold on to your anger, anxiety, shame, and guilt?”
Andy’s mouth opened, closed, opened, yet no sound came out. Not waiting for him to answer, the visitor asked his final question.
“Thus, if we can learn things, would you say we also have the power within us to unlearn them?”
In caves, on the bottom of stalactites, water particles have a habit of increasingly sticking together until they form into a tiny drop. They keep on sticking to the stalactite until a certain critical mass of water has accumulated, after which the force of gravity takes possession of the drop, which usually hits the ground with a nice, clean, ‘plop’.
In Andy’s organism, such a plop occurred. After some minutes, a second plop followed. And a third. Then all was quiet.
Until he was struck with a meteor twice the size of the dinosaur killer.
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