Chapter 10 — The Vision
And thus begins Chapter Ten.
Now, children.
When last we left the Unbegun,
he had discovered that the narcotics officer sleeping in his room may or may not have been real.
The council nods.
An entirely normal problem.
Eventually,
the paranoia faded.
Sobriety returned.
The world stopped looking like an elaborate sting operation.
And so,
naturally,
I smoked my last joint.
The council collapses.
Children.
Recovery is a complicated process.
Now.
With agriculture depleted,
I wandered out once more.
No destination.
No map.
Just roads.
But this time,
I chose one I hadn’t taken before.
The council leans forward.
I had seen it.
Passed it.
Considered it.
But never followed it.
And children,
untaken roads possess a particular kind of arrogance.
They sit there.
Existing.
Quietly suggesting:
You have no idea what is down here.
The council nods.
Unacceptable.
And so,
I walked.
At first,
Rishikesh remained Rishikesh.
Buildings.
Shops.
People.
Traffic.
Dogs.
The usual beautiful confusion.
Then slowly,
the city began disappearing.
The council watches.
Buildings became fewer.
Trees became more.
The roads grew quieter.
People became scarce.
Traffic faded.
And suddenly,
I wasn’t really walking through the city anymore.
I was walking away from it.
The council becomes concerned.
Children.
This should perhaps have inspired caution.
Instead,
I continued.
Because no maps means no maps.
Once you’ve committed to the philosophy,
you must occasionally accept the possibility of becoming a missing persons report.
The council sighs.
Eventually,
I found something.
A gate.
A ticket booth.
A sign.
The Beatles Ashram.
The council perks up.
Children.
Apparently,
it was under renovation.
Parts of it looked abandoned.
Parts looked ancient.
Parts looked like the forest had spent years slowly trying to reclaim custody.
Perfect.
I approached the ticket booth.
There was a man.
I paid.
He allowed me inside.
The council applauds.
The smoothest transaction of the entire wandering.
No QR based kidnapping.
No tuk tuk relay.
No child operating a scooter.
Just money.
Ticket.
Entrance.
Suspiciously normal.
Now.
I followed the path.
And gods,
it was beautiful.
Old buildings scattered among the trees.
Walls covered in age.
Nature pushing through cracks.
The sort of place that looked less constructed
and more remembered.
The council grows quiet.
I recorded.
Naturally.
Building?
Recorded.
Tree?
Recorded.
Interesting wall?
Recorded.
Possibly uninteresting wall?
Also recorded.
The archivist does not discriminate.
Then I saw something strange.
The council leans forward.
Igloos.
Well.
Not actual igloos.
Concrete structures shaped like them.
Little domes.
Stone cells.
Children.
They looked like someone had designed meditation chambers after briefly hearing a description of Eskimo architecture.
And inside some of them,
people sat.
Cross legged.
Still.
Eyes closed.
Meditating,
I assumed.
The council nods.
They possessed the pose.
Good enough.
Now.
I continued down the path.
Past the domes.
Past the buildings.
Deeper into the trees.
And eventually,
I reached a small cluster of them.
The council becomes interested.
Men.
Three of them.
Grey beards.
Hair tied into buns.
Clothes somewhere between robes and things acquired after abandoning society entirely.
The council studies them.
Swamis?
Perhaps.
Sadhus?
Possibly.
Homeless forest wizards?
Visually,
also possible.
Children.
The archive records appearance.
Not qualifications.
They sat beneath the trees,
smoking from a chillum.
I walked past.
Looked at them.
They looked at me.
The council waits.
Then one of them gestured.
Come here.
The council becomes very still.
Now.
Let us examine the situation.
I was alone.
Far from the city.
Inside a partially abandoned ashram.
Three mysterious men beneath the trees were beckoning me toward them.
The council nods.
Surely,
surely,
survival instincts would finally activate.
Children.
No.
I walked over.
The council collapses.
Of course.
I sat beside them.
Three mysterious swamis.
One wandering cryptid.
Silence.
The council leans forward.
And then I spoke.
“Sup.”
The council goes completely silent.
Children.
I said:
Sup.
To a grey bearded swami beneath a tree in the Beatles Ashram.
The council erupts.
CENTURIES OF SPIRITUAL TRADITION.
AND YOU SAID SUP.
I panicked.
Socially.
That was what emerged.
The council writes this into the archive with visible disappointment.
Now.
They didn’t say much.
Perhaps they didn’t understand me.
Perhaps they understood perfectly and decided silence was the kinder response.
Either way,
conversation was apparently unnecessary.
One of them lifted the chillum.
Inhaled.
Then released the smoke.
And children.
A smoke ring.
The council gasps.
Perfect.
Clean.
Floating through the air like sorcery.
I stared.
Because smoke rings remain one of those skills I fundamentally refuse to believe are achieved through physics.
Magic.
Clearly.
The chillum moved around the circle.
Then it reached me.
The council becomes concerned.
I accepted it.
Naturally.
Took a puff.
Then attempted absolutely no smoke ring.
Because I know my limitations.
The council applauds.
Growth.
And so there we sat.
Three swamis.
One cryptid.
Passing a chillum beneath the trees.
No introductions.
No names.
No questions.
No:
Where are you from?
No:
Where are you going?
Nothing.
Just smoke.
Silence.
Trees.
And four men who,
if photographed from a distance,
probably looked equally homeless.
The council nods.
Perfect camouflage.
Now.
Children.
I do not know what was in that chillum.
I know what tobacco feels like.
It wasn’t that.
I know what pot feels like.
It wasn’t that either.
The council grows quiet.
Because then something happened.
Not visuals.
I had experienced visuals.
Patterns.
Movement.
Reality becoming decorative.
This was different.
This was a vision.
The council listens.
And it lasted,
perhaps,
seconds.
Maybe less.
But inside it,
there was time.
A little world.
A tiny day.
I was walking.
And beside me was Dyno.
My golden retriever.
The council smiles.
My boy.
Present.
Alive.
Walking beside me.
Nothing strange about it.
Nothing magical.
Just us.
Then,
in the distance,
something moved.
The council watches.
A dog.
Golden.
Running toward us.
And before my mind could question it,
I knew.
Bongo.
The council falls silent.
My first golden retriever.
Gone for almost a decade.
Children.
Some absences stop screaming eventually.
They become quieter.
You learn where they live inside you.
You stop touching the place every day.
But they do not disappear.
Bongo never disappeared.
And there he was.
Running toward me.
The same way he used to.
Alive.
Happy.
Coming home across a place that did not exist.
I dropped down.
The council listens.
Dyno beside me.
Bongo reaching me.
And for one impossible moment,
they were together.
The two boys who belonged to two different parts of my life.
Two lives that reality had refused to let overlap.
Children.
One of my quietest wishes had always been simple.
I wanted them to meet.
That was it.
Not some grand miracle.
Not immortality.
Not undoing death.
Just once.
Let Dyno meet Bongo.
Let me sit between them.
Let me put my arms around both.
And somehow,
for a few seconds,
I did.
The council grows very still.
I hugged them.
Both of them.
Felt them against me.
Held them close.
And somewhere inside that tiny impossible world,
I was happy.
Not excited.
Not high.
Not distracted.
Happy.
The uncomplicated kind.
Then I opened my eyes.
The trees returned.
The ashram returned.
The three men returned.
The chillum.
The earth beneath me.
Everything.
The council watches.
And I was crying.
Not beginning to cry.
Already crying.
Tears running down my face.
Children.
For once,
there was no joke waiting behind it.
No clever sentence.
No council interruption.
I just sat there.
And wept.
Because for several seconds,
something I had wanted for years had become real enough for my heart to believe it.
The council remains silent.
Was it a hallucination?
Obviously.
A dream manufactured by whatever I had inhaled?
Probably.
A strange chemical accident happening inside an exhausted brain?
Perhaps.
Children.
I don’t care.
Not really.
Because whatever mechanism produced it,
I got those seconds.
I got Bongo.
I got Dyno.
I got them together.
I got to hold both of them.
The universe had refused me that memory.
So my mind made one.
And I will take it.
The council nods.
Gratefully.
Forever.
Now.
Eventually,
I wiped my face.
Reached into my pocket.
Pulled out some cash.
And offered it to the men.
The council watches.
They refused.
No words.
Just gestures.
No.
I tried again.
No.
Children.
Apparently whatever had happened beneath those trees was not a transaction.
So I searched my pockets.
And found something else.
A packet of biscuits.
The council pauses.
Ah.
The sacred currency.
Exactly.
I offered it.
This,
apparently,
was acceptable.
The council smiles.
I placed the biscuits with them.
Pressed my hands together.
And using one of the limited Hindi phrases I could deploy with confidence,
said:
“Dhanyavaad.”
Thank you.
Not merely for the smoke.
Not merely for letting some strange tourist sit in their circle.
For the moment.
For the memory that never existed.
For giving my mind whatever doorway it needed to walk through.
They nodded.
I stood.
And left.
The council watches me walk away.
Back through the trees.
Past the strange meditation domes.
Past the old buildings.
Toward the gate.
Toward the road.
Toward Rishikesh.
And children,
something had changed.
Not dramatically.
The sky did not open.
The universe did not explain itself.
I had not achieved enlightenment.
The council nods.
Thank gods.
But the ache.
That old weight in my chest.
The reason I had boarded the train.
The thing that had followed me from home.
It felt
less.
Not gone.
The council listens.
I don’t think things like that simply disappear because you travel far enough.
Pain is annoyingly portable.
But less.
A little quieter.
A little smaller.
Like someone had loosened a knot I had forgotten could be loosened.
And perhaps that was enough.
The council grows quiet.
Kasol had taught me how to run.
Run toward mountains.
Run toward strangers.
Run toward noise.
Run until the sadness couldn’t keep pace.
But Rishikesh?
Rishikesh kept asking me to stop.
Beside a river.
Inside a hidden cafe.
At a chai stall.
Beneath some trees with three men whose names I would never know.
Stop.
Sit.
Feel it.
Let the thing arrive.
Let it hurt.
And then,
when it is ready,
let it pass through.
The council nods.
Stillness.
Again.
Thus concludes Chapter Ten.
The Beatles Ashram.
The Three Swamis.
The Chillum.
And The Memory That Never Happened.
Children.
I went down an unfamiliar road because I refused to use maps.
I entered an ashram because it happened to be there.
I sat beside three strangers because they waved me over.
And somewhere inside that ridiculous chain of decisions,
I got to hug a dog who had been gone for almost ten years.
The council falls silent.
There are memories life gives you.
And there are memories life refuses you.
Perhaps occasionally,
if you wander far enough,
the mind becomes generous.
It lends you one.
Just for a moment.
I left those trees knowing Bongo and Dyno had never really met.
I knew that.
I still know that.
But somewhere inside me now exists a place where they did.
Where one ran toward the other.
Where I sat between them.
Where both of my boys were together.
And children,
real or not,
I will keep that place.
Some relics hang from bracelets.
Some fit inside pockets.
And some can only be carried in the chest.
Perhaps that was why,
as I walked back toward the city,
mine felt a little lighter.
