Chapter 11 — The Ganga
And thus begins Chapter Eleven.
Now, children.
When last we left the Unbegun,
he had sat beneath trees with three mysterious swamis,
smoked something he could not identify,
and been given a memory reality itself had refused him.
The council remains quiet.
Bongo.
Dyno.
Together.
For a few impossible seconds.
Then it ended.
No lingering haze.
No strange aftereffects.
No twelve hour voyage through alternate dimensions.
Just
vision.
Tears.
Done.
The council nods.
Almost surgical.
I stepped out of the Beatles Ashram,
onto the road,
and did what the Unbegun always does when presented with two possible directions.
I chose forward.
The council applauds.
Navigation.
And so I walked.
No map.
No destination.
Just the path ahead.
The trees continued for a while.
The city remained somewhere behind me.
Then the road shifted.
The forest opened.
And there she was.
Again.
The Ganga.
The council smiles.
Children.
By this point,
the river had become a recurring character.
I kept finding her.
Or perhaps,
she kept finding me.
Different roads.
Different parts of the city.
Different versions of myself.
Yet somehow,
eventually,
water.
This part was quieter.
Far quieter.
No crowds collecting bottles.
No ceremonies.
No confused Unbegun attempting to imitate rituals with eighty percent confidence and twenty percent understanding.
Just river.
Trees.
Stone.
Sky.
And me.
Sober.
The council gasps.
An unusual state.
Correct.
Whatever had been inside that chillum was gone.
Completely.
The vision remained.
The substance did not.
My head was clear.
My body was mine.
And perhaps because of that,
I decided not to move.
The council leans forward.
Children.
I sat down.
No quest.
No stranger.
No smoke.
No destination.
Just sat.
I removed my shoes.
Rolled up whatever required rolling.
And placed my feet into the Ganga.
The council watches.
Cold.
Not painfully.
Just enough to remind you that water has opinions.
I let my feet settle.
Watched the current move around them.
And looked out.
The bridge stood in the distance.
The same bridge I had crossed again and again.
Sometimes lost.
Sometimes high.
Sometimes following strangers.
Sometimes barely certain I was moving in the correct direction.
From here,
it looked different.
Smaller.
Still.
The council nods.
Perspective does strange things.
The water moved past.
Constantly.
Never hurried.
Never stopping.
Just moving.
And for once,
I wasn’t.
Children.
There are moments in a wandering where nothing happens.
They rarely sound impressive when you tell them afterward.
“I sat beside a river.”
The council waits.
That was it.
No rave.
No bungee jump.
No police officer potentially hallucinated into existence.
No teenage pilot trying to launch me from a scooter.
Nothing.
I sat.
And gods,
it was lovely.
Then I noticed them.
The council perks up.
Dogs.
Two.
Nearby.
Naturally.
Children.
At this point,
dogs appearing in the story should surprise no one.
I looked toward them.
Gestured.
Come here.
One considered the offer.
Then approached.
The council smiles.
Good boy scratches administered.
Behind the ears.
Head.
Neck.
The premium package.
The dog accepted this arrangement immediately.
Now.
The second dog watched.
The council understands.
Children.
Dogs are excellent economists.
If another dog is receiving free affection,
the market must be entered.
And so the second came over.
Good boy scratches.
Also administered.
The council applauds.
Fair distribution.
And then,
something happened.
Nothing.
Again.
The council grows quiet.
The three of us sat there.
Me in the middle.
One dog beside one hand.
The other beneath the other.
My palms resting against their heads.
Scratching occasionally.
Petting absentmindedly.
The Ganga moving in front of us.
The bridge in the distance.
And the sky slowly changing.
Children.
No one needed anything.
The dogs didn’t know my name.
They didn’t know why I had come to Rishikesh.
They didn’t know about the house that had started draining my light.
They didn’t know about the weight.
They didn’t know Bongo.
Dyno.
The vision.
The secret cafe.
The mysterious packet waiting in my bag.
They knew exactly one thing.
This human provides scratches.
The council nods.
A relationship built on honest foundations.
And perhaps that was exactly what I needed.
No explaining.
No performing.
No trying to translate whatever existed inside my chest into words.
Just two warm heads beneath my hands.
And water.
The council listens.
Eventually,
the sun began descending.
The sky softened.
Light stretched across the river.
Not the dramatic cinematic sunset people travel across countries specifically to photograph.
Something quieter.
A slow changing of colors.
A reminder that the day was ending whether or not anyone had properly appreciated it.
The council smiles.
I stayed.
Long enough to watch.
Not until the end.
Children.
Let us remember who we are dealing with.
Darkness approached.
And I possess questionable navigation skills even under ideal visual conditions.
The council applauds.
Self awareness.
If I can barely find Odin’s Abode while equipped with full daylight,
adding darkness seemed unnecessarily ambitious.
So before the sun disappeared completely,
I stood.
Removed my feet from the water.
Put my shoes back on.
Gave both dogs one final round of scratches.
The council nods solemnly.
Payment for services rendered.
Then I began walking.
Back through the trees.
Slowly.
Because this time,
I knew I had no reason to hurry.
The forest passed.
The roads returned.
Then the market.
The familiar stalls.
The lights.
The smells.
The people.
Up the steep roads.
The council sighs.
Children.
Rishikesh may have taught me stillness,
but apparently it remained committed to murdering my lungs through elevation.
I climbed.
Stopped.
Resurrected respiratory function.
Continued.
The ancient ritual.
Eventually,
the familiar area appeared.
Then Odin’s Abode.
The council applauds.
Again.
Every road.
Every detour.
Every nonsensical route.
Somehow,
home.
Temporary home,
perhaps.
But home enough that I recognized the relief of seeing it.
I entered.
Walked to my room.
The Ghost Roommate remained committed to whatever plane of existence had claimed him.
The council nods.
Consistency.
I lay on the bed.
And for the first time,
the end of the wandering felt real.
Tomorrow.
My last day.
The council grows quiet.
There is a strange feeling that arrives when a trip begins ending.
Suddenly,
everything becomes numbered.
Last night.
Last morning.
Last cigarette on that rooftop.
Last walk down that road.
Last time you see a place without knowing whether you will ever see it again.
Children.
The road had barely finished introducing itself,
and already it was preparing to say goodbye.
I stared at the ceiling.
Then remembered.
The packet.
The council leans forward.
Still sealed.
Still waiting.
The small thing the bald Tibetan woman at the Secret Cafe had pressed into my hands.
Her instruction remained simple.
“Open it on your last day.”
Tomorrow.
The council murmurs.
Children.
I had resisted.
A remarkable achievement.
Several days had passed.
Curiosity had screamed.
The Unbegun,
a creature who willingly follows strangers into alleyways and smokes unknown substances from forest swamis,
had somehow demonstrated restraint toward one tiny packet.
The council applauds.
Perhaps miracles do happen in Rishikesh.
I could have opened it that night.
Technically,
midnight would make it the final day.
The council becomes suspicious.
Children.
Do not tempt me with loopholes.
No.
I would wait.
Properly.
Morning.
Last day.
Then the mystery would end.
I closed my eyes.
And for a while,
before sleep arrived,
I thought about the river.
The dogs.
The vision.
The quiet.
The strange way this wandering had unfolded.
Kasol had been a story I chased.
Rishikesh felt like a story I kept stumbling into whenever I stopped chasing anything at all.
The council listens.
A dog had led me to Odin’s.
An ashram had led me to a hidden cafe.
An unknown road had led me to the Beatles Ashram.
The Beatles Ashram had led me back to the Ganga.
And the Ganga had led me nowhere.
For once,
nowhere had been enough.
Thus concludes Chapter Eleven.
The River.
The Two Dogs.
The Almost Sunset.
And The Last Night Before Goodbye.
Children.
There were no miracles that evening.
No visions.
No revelations.
Nothing supernatural.
Just a boy sitting beside a river with his feet in the water,
two dogs beneath his hands,
and an ache in his chest that had become slightly quieter than before.
Perhaps that was the miracle.
The council grows still.
But first,
there was one final mystery waiting in my room.
A small sealed packet.
A gift from a stranger.
Instructions attached only by memory.
Open it on your last day.
And children,
morning was coming.
