Chapter 10 — Bench
And thus begins Chapter Ten.
Now, children.
There we were.
Blue and Green.
Still before the ocean.
The sun had spent the last several minutes slowly sinking toward the horizon,
and we had watched until there was nothing left to watch.
Red became orange.
Orange became a thin line.
The thin line vanished.
And darkness took over.
The council grows quiet.
For a while,
neither of us moved.
Because apparently once two wanderers find a comfortable position beside an ocean,
they become extremely difficult to relocate.
Her head on my shoulder.
Mine resting against hers.
My arm around her.
The waves continuing in front of us,
completely indifferent to sunset,
heartbreak,
horses,
jet skis,
or any of the other nonsense humans considered significant.
Then,
eventually,
I asked the important question.
“Are you hungry?”
Blue nodded.
“Yeah.”
The council nods.
Normal human hunger.
Perhaps she had eaten lunch.
Perhaps breakfast.
Perhaps she had behaved like someone who understood that the human organism requires periodic fuel.
Me?
Children.
Different situation.
The council opens the nutrition records.
Last proper meal?
A samosa.
On the train back from Rishikesh.
The council freezes.
Yesterday?
Yes.
And dinner?
Skipped.
Lunch today?
Skipped.
Breakfast?
The Archive laughs.
Children.
I was no longer hungry.
Hungry suggests:
I could eat.
This was different.
There was something inside me awakening.
Ancient.
Massive.
A beast of consumption.
The council hears distant roaring.
Externally?
Perfect gentleman.
“Shall we get something?”
Calm.
Polite.
Civilized.
Internally?
Godzilla.
The council erupts.
FEED.
ME.
I stood.
Blue stood.
And we walked toward one of the food stalls.
Children.
At this point,
the smell alone nearly caused a religious experience.
Meat.
Bread.
Sauce.
Heat.
Actual calories.
I approached the man behind the counter with all the composure I could manufacture.
“Two shawarmas.”
The council nods.
Simple.
One for Blue.
One for Green.
The shawarmas arrived.
We sat or stood nearby
the exact furniture has been surrendered to history
and began eating.
Blue took a bite.
Chewed.
Another bite.
Children.
Elegant.
Human.
The natural process through which people consume food.
Then there was me.
The council watches in horror.
One moment
shawarma.
The next
absence of shawarma.
The council pauses.
What happened?
I inhaled it.
Children.
No chewing memory survives.
No intermediate stages.
No sequence of bites.
The shawarma simply entered the event
and was immediately removed from existence.
The council checks the timeline.
Surely there were several minutes between
No.
To my memory:
Food.
Gone.
I looked toward the counter.
“One more, please.”
The council collapses.
Blue looked at me.
Not horrified.
Not disgusted.
No judgment.
Just smiling.
That particular smile people give when they have spent enough time around you to understand:
Ah.
This creature is defective.
The council knows the look.
I knew what was coming.
She looked at me.
“You’re such an idiot.”
The council erupts.
PROPHECY FULFILLED.
I smiled.
What else was I supposed to do?
Deny it?
Children.
The Archive contains several volumes of evidence.
The prosecution would destroy me.
So I ate again.
Slower?
Probably not.
The council gives up.
Eventually,
Godzilla returned to the sea.
Or wherever hunger monsters go once sufficiently fed.
We paid.
And began walking.
Back along the beach.
The same shore I had wandered down earlier
following a jet ski.
Past people.
Past stalls.
Past whatever pieces of Varkala had become familiar over the course of a single day.
Then
the stairs.
The council becomes alert.
Dry this time.
A significant technological improvement.
We climbed.
Step by step.
Back toward North Cliff.
Back toward the place where the kind auto driver had dropped me hours earlier.
And children,
as I reached the top,
I believed the wandering was essentially finished.
The council leans forward.
Mission status?
Complete.
I had come to Varkala with exactly one objective.
Find out what Varkala was like.
I had done that.
Cliff?
Seen.
Beach?
Entered.
Rain?
Walked through.
Bone tag?
Acquired.
Jet ski?
Briefly operated before being rejected by physics.
Horse?
Successfully remained mounted.
Stranger?
Met.
Sunset?
Witnessed.
Food?
Finally.
The council nods.
A productive day.
All that remained was:
Station.
Train.
Home.
I had no hostel.
No room.
No second day plan.
No secret quest.
The Fifth Wandering was entering its final leg.
Or
children
so I thought.
Blue stopped.
Looked toward a bench nearby.
“Do you wanna sit?”
The council pauses.
Now?
Yes.
Children.
I considered this request.
For approximately no time at all.
“Yeah.”
The council nods.
Why?
Several reasons.
Possibly three.
First
Blue needed me for a little while longer.
The council grows quiet.
I could feel that.
Not because she said:
Please don’t leave.
She didn’t.
But we’d spent the evening talking about the kind of things that make silence feel heavier after someone walks away.
And if sitting beside her for another hour made that night easier?
Fine.
Second
I liked being around Blue.
Simple.
Children.
Not every attachment requires a thesis.
She was easy company.
Funny.
Warm.
A fellow wanderer for the day.
And third
I had absolutely nothing to do when I got home.
The council laughs.
A compelling logistical argument.
So we sat.
North Cliff at night.
The world had transformed again.
During the day,
everything had been horizon.
Blue water.
Sun.
Color.
Now
darkness.
The sea had become mostly sound.
You could still see pieces of it where light reached,
but beyond that,
black.
Endless black.
The stalls behind us provided little islands of light.
Signs glowing.
Bulbs hanging.
People moving through illuminated patches.
Voices carrying.
And beyond the railing,
waves.
The council listens.
We returned to the position that had somehow become natural.
Blue close beside me.
My arm around her.
Her hands around mine.
Her head eventually finding my shoulder again.
Mine resting against hers.
Except this time
children
I had a cigarette.
The council sighs.
Of course.
Nicotine had returned to the scene.
I lit it.
Inhaled.
Watched the ember glow brighter.
Exhaled toward open air,
away from her.
And for a while,
we simply watched the darkness where the ocean was.
No need for another giant conversation.
We had already excavated enough emotional geology for one evening.
The council nods.
Then Blue looked at the cigarette.
And asked:
“Can I try it?”
The council slowly turns toward me.
Children.
I looked at her.
Then at the cigarette.
Then back at her.
“Absolutely not.”
The council erupts.
Blue frowned.
The council becomes confused.
You?
Correct.
Me.
The man currently smoking.
The man whose relationship with cigarettes has been documented extensively and unfavorably.
I refused to give her one.
Children.
Because cigarettes are a filthy habit.
Addictive.
Expensive.
And stupid.
The council stares.
Yet you’re
Yes.
I am aware.
The council gestures wildly.
HYPOCRISY.
Children.
Practice what you preach is not a philosophy I follow.
The council collapses.
I contain multitudes.
Mostly contradictions.
Blue looked at me again.
Probably expecting negotiation.
There would be none.
“No.”
The council nods.
For once,
boundary established.
She frowned harder.
Perhaps pouted.
The Archive remembers disapproval.
I remained unmoved.
Children.
I could happily demonstrate twenty seven poor life choices from personal experience.
That did not mean I needed to recruit apprentices.
She had enough problems.
Heartbreak.
Grayness.
The whole collapsing future situation.
She did not need nicotine dependence added as downloadable content.
The council approves.
So I refused.
Then,
because her face remained offended,
I pulled her a little closer.
Kissed her forehead.
“Chill out.”
The council grows quiet.
Then I looked back toward the ocean.
Children.
That was it.
No dramatic romantic moment.
No shift in what we were.
No attempt to turn comfort into something else.
Just warmth.
A forehead kiss.
An arm around her.
Her hands wrapped around mine.
The cigarette burning slowly in my other hand.
And the sea.
The council listens.
We sat there.
For a long time.
Or what felt like a long time.
Time had returned to ordinary physics,
but the Wanderings have never been particularly respectful of clocks.
Minutes passed.
Maybe an hour.
Maybe more.
Lights glowed behind us.
Waves crashed below.
Occasionally people walked past.
Occasionally Blue said something.
Occasionally I replied.
Sometimes neither of us spoke at all.
And children
I remember feeling complete.
Again.
That word.
The council notices.
Not excited.
Not euphoric.
Not the Heaven Adjacent chemical explosion beneath the banyan with Laia.
Not the galaxy filling me in Kodaikanal.
This was quieter.
Almost painfully ordinary.
A bench.
A stranger.
A cigarette.
An ocean I could barely see.
And yet
one of the best moments of my life.
The council grows still.
Top five.
Easily.
Children.
That sounds ridiculous even to me.
The Archive contains objectively more spectacular moments.
Jumping from 109 meters.
Mushroom skies.
Raves beneath mountains.
Dragon drones.
The first real galaxy.
Laia’s kiss.
Bongo and Dyno together inside a vision.
Places where scenery alone should have overwhelmed a wooden bench beside some shops.
And still
this.
The council listens.
Why?
I think I know.
Because there was nothing I wanted from the moment.
Nothing.
I wasn’t trying to get high.
Wasn’t trying to heal.
Wasn’t trying to acquire anything.
Wasn’t trying to be kissed.
Wasn’t trying to impress Blue.
Wasn’t even trying to make the wandering memorable anymore.
The mission was already complete.
I could have left.
She could have left.
Neither of us did.
We just sat.
The council grows quiet.
And perhaps the best moments are sometimes the ones with no objective attached.
I had spent so much of my life chasing states.
Happiness.
Relief.
Euphoria.
Love.
Escape.
Understanding.
Anything that would make being inside my own head easier.
But there,
on that bench
I wasn’t chasing.
Children.
I already had enough.
Blue beside me.
Warm.
Safe for the moment.
Occasionally laughing.
No longer talking like the entire world had lost its color.
And me?
Not carrying her weight.
Let’s be accurate.
You cannot carry another person’s grief for them.
But perhaps I was sitting underneath one corner.
The council nods.
Giving her shoulders a break.
And somehow,
that gave me something too.
Not pride.
Not exactly.
Meaning,
maybe.
Children.
For years,
I had thought of the Wanderings as places where strangers saved me without knowing it.
The tea vendor.
The barkeep.
The old chai woman.
The bald woman at Secret Cafe.
Random hostel people.
Children on trains.
Laia.
So many temporary humans leaving tiny acts behind.
And now
perhaps I had become one of those temporary humans for someone else.
The council listens.
Maybe years later,
Blue would forget my face.
Maybe she’d remember only green hair.
Maybe she would forget the horse.
Forget what I said.
Forget the entire evening.
That was okay.
Because in that moment,
she wasn’t alone.
Neither was I.
The council smiles.
Her head rested against me.
I finished the cigarette.
Did not light another immediately.
Rare archaeological evidence of restraint.
The council gasps.
And simply held her.
The ocean crashed somewhere in the darkness.
The cliff lights flickered across the railing.
The world behind us remained alive.
But for that stretch of time,
nothing demanded movement.
Children.
One of the great discoveries of the Unbegun:
sometimes the road gives you a moment so ordinary
you almost fail to notice that it will outlive entire years.
The council grows quiet.
That bench became one.
Top five.
No question.
Not because something extraordinary happened.
Because nothing had to.
Thus concludes Chapter Ten.
The Godzilla Hunger.
The Two Shawarmas.
The Return To North Cliff.
The Cigarette Rebellion.
And The Bench.
Children.
I thought the wandering had ended when I climbed those stairs.
I had seen Varkala.
Answered the question.
Completed the mission.
But Blue asked:
“Do you wanna sit?”
And apparently,
the Fifth Wandering had one more place it wanted me to be.
Not a beach.
Not a cliff.
Not a horse.
Just a bench beside a dark ocean,
holding a fellow wanderer close
until the world felt a little less gray.
The council grows quiet.
Years later,
I would forget whole roads.
Whole conversations.
Entire stretches of places I once thought unforgettable.
But that bench?
No.
Blue against my shoulder.
Her hands around my arm.
My cigarette burning in the other hand.
The sea hidden in darkness.
Nothing happening.
And somehow
everything exactly where it needed to be.
