Chapter 3 — Vibe
And thus begins Chapter Three.
Now, children.
There I stood.
Two blonde women before me.
Beachwear.
Tourist energy.
Obviously attractive.
One
hat.
The other
no hat.
The council pauses.
Names?
No.
Government identification?
Irrelevant.
Children.
The Ancient Naming System requires only what is visible.
Hat.
And No Hat.
Efficient.
Elegant.
Impossible to misfile.
The council approves.
They had approached me.
I had turned around expecting Commercial Bonk Offer Number Four.
Instead
foreigners.
So I deployed the ancient Unbegun response.
“Sup.”
Silence.
Children.
I am who I am.
Some people say:
Hello.
Some say:
Good morning.
Some say:
How can I help you?
Nuo?
“Sup.”
The council has stopped fighting this.
Good.
No Hat spoke.
“Hey, all the beaches have signs saying no swimming.”
I nodded.
Because
yes.
Monsoon season.
The sea was not operating under casual tourist conditions.
A lot of the shoreline had warnings.
No swimming.
No entering.
No attempting to discover whether the Arabian Sea respects optimism.
The council nods.
And No Hat continued.
“Is there any part that’s safe to swim?”
Pause.
Children.
Now this was interesting.
Because I knew almost nothing useful about current Kovalam.
We established this.
Navigation?
Blank.
Recent layout?
No clue.
Where exactly does this path go?
We shall discover together.
But this question?
I knew.
The council looks surprised.
Competence?
Briefly.
Enjoy it.
Because roughly ten years earlier
family trip.
Also monsoon season.
And somewhere in the dusty storage department of my brain,
a route survived.
Walk past lighthouse.
Lighthouse Beach.
Continue a little further.
Then
beach.
A section calm enough that swimming had been allowed.
At least on that old visit.
Children.
Memory had preserved something useful for once.
Not a man’s ass above Marina Beach.
Actual navigation.
The council applauds.
Thank you.
So I explained.
Go toward the lighthouse.
Past it.
Lighthouse Beach.
Then a little further.
There should be a safer stretch.
Directions
competently delivered.
The council looks proud.
And in return,
I received
pure incompetence.
No Hat looked at me.
“Where is Lighthouse Beach?”
Pause.
Children.
I stared.
Blank face.
There are questions that deserve patience.
There are questions that inspire philosophical reflection.
And then there are questions where the answer is currently towering over the landscape.
I lifted my arm.
Gestured dramatically.
Toward
the lighthouse.
“My brother in Christ.
Next to the lighthouse.”
The council erupts.
Hat giggled.
No Hat looked.
“Oh.”
Exactly.
Children.
And there
something happened.
Tiny.
Immediate.
Vibe.
You know it.
That moment when a stranger says something
or reacts a certain way
and some primitive part of the brain goes:
Ah.
Same species.
The council looks around.
All human?
Technically.
You know what I mean.
Same idiocy wavelength.
Potential resonance.
No Hat had looked directly at a lighthouse
and asked where Lighthouse Beach was.
I had responded with:
My brother in Christ.
Instead of offence
Hat laughed.
No Hat simply accepted:
Oh.
Children.
Excellent.
No defensiveness.
No awkwardness.
Just stupidity meeting stupidity
and recognizing itself.
The council updates:
SOCIAL COMPATIBILITY:
Promising.
Then Hat looked down.
Not at my shoes.
Not at my sleep deprived homeless aesthetic.
At
bracelet.
The council grows attentive.
Ah.
The relic circle.
Yes.
Sixteen tags.
Skulls.
Bones.
Click clack with every step.
The object that usually requires explanation before someone assumes I have either joined a cult
or am preparing to summon something unfortunate.
Hat pointed.
“Memento mori?”
Pause.
Children.
Internal combustion.
The council gasps.
She knew.
SHE KNEW.
No explanation.
No:
What’s that supposed to mean?
No:
Why are there skulls?
No:
Is that Satanic?
No emergency seminar on mortality symbolism.
No desperately explaining:
Children, skull does not automatically equal demon worship.
Hat looked once
and understood.
Memento mori.
Remember you must die.
The council stands respectfully.
Woman of culture.
Exactly.
I nodded.
“Yeah.”
Outside?
Calm.
Inside?
Fireworks.
Children.
Someone had finally recognized the bracelet
without requiring the full museum tour.
Hat had earned immediate points.
Many.
The Ancient Recognition Bonus.
And suddenly
the roles clarified.
Hat?
Woman of culture.
Observant.
Memento mori literacy.
No Hat?
Golden Retriever.
The council looks at her.
Because of one question?
Not merely.
Energy.
Children.
You know Golden Retriever Energy when you see it.
Bright.
Open.
Slightly confused.
Happy to be here.
May ask where Lighthouse Beach is while standing within visual range of lighthouse.
The council nods.
Classification accepted.
Hat and No Hat.
Scholar and Retriever.
Perhaps unfair.
But effective.
Then came the next question.
“Can you show us exactly?”
Pause.
Children.
Now.
To me
native.
Kerala.
Been to Kovalam before.
Know lighthouse exists.
Know beach exists beside lighthouse.
The navigation seemed comically obvious.
Follow large lighthouse shaped object.
Arrive near lighthouse.
Beach appears.
Excellent.
But then
perspective.
The council quiets.
Foreign country.
Foreign language around them.
Unknown roads.
Monsoon warnings.
Signs telling them not to swim.
Different geography.
Different assumptions.
And suddenly,
their request made complete sense.
Children.
I only had to look backward.
Kasol.
Rishikesh.
Every place where I had stood somewhere
that was obvious to the people who lived there
and completely unreadable to me.
Road points left.
Local says:
Just go there.
Nuo:
Where is there?
The council laughs.
Exactly.
Obvious does not mean easy
when everything is new.
A lighthouse may be visible.
That does not mean you know which path reaches it,
whether the road curves away,
whether some section is closed,
whether you’re accidentally heading toward somebody’s backyard,
or whether local geography has decided to become a puzzle.
Children.
First timer logic.
Understandable.
So
I obliged.
“Yeah.”
Simple.
No grand decision.
No:
Would you like to join my Wandering?
No.
They asked.
I knew roughly where.
I was walking anyway.
The council nods.
Party formed organically.
Again.
Exactly.
This happens a lot.
No recruitment screen.
No handshake.
No:
Tell us about yourself.
One moment
strangers.
Next
walking together.
Nuo.
Hat.
No Hat.
The Golden Retriever.
Children.
And off we went.
Toward the lighthouse.
Click clack.
Click clack.
My bracelet announcing us.
Hat perhaps looking toward it occasionally.
No Hat perhaps looking toward beach.
The path ahead becoming less vague simply because now there were three idiots walking it instead of one.
The council smiles.
And something else had changed.
Minutes earlier,
I had been walking alone.
Declining commercial bonk offers.
Wondering whether Kovalam had become one giant bonk marketplace.
Then
“Excuse me.”
Now?
Company.
Unexpected.
Unplanned.
Exactly what conscious Wandering promises without promising anything.
Children.
You leave space.
Sometimes nothing enters it.
Sometimes
Hat and No Hat.
The council nods.
And I liked them already.
Not deeply.
Children.
We had spoken for what?
Minutes?
But vibe does not require a resume.
Hat understood memento mori.
No Hat asked one of the funniest possible geography questions without realizing it.
Both laughed easily.
No visible fear of the sleep deprived jingling man they had selected as local guide.
Excellent start.
The council checks current objective.
SAFE SWIMMING BEACH.
Yes.
Guide?
Nuo.
Confidence?
Disturbingly high considering navigation history.
Correct.
But this time
lighthouse.
Children.
Even I can follow a giant tower.
Probably.
The council refuses to guarantee this.
Fair.
We walked.
And for once,
the Ancient Naming System had produced a complete party before I knew a single government name.
Hat.
No Hat.
Nuo.
Perfect.
No need for bureaucracy.
Not yet.
Perhaps ever.
The Archive only needs what memory needs.
And memory had already chosen.
One had a hat.
The other did not.
One understood death symbolism.
The other had Golden Retriever Energy.
Children.
What more identification could possibly improve this?
The council has no answer.
Exactly.
And so we continued.
Toward Lighthouse Beach.
Toward whatever waited beyond it.
No plan.
No itinerary.
One accidental guide.
Two foreign travellers.
One relic bracelet jingling loudly enough to make stealth impossible.
Click clack.
Click clack.
Children.
The Seventeenth Wandering had finally acquired companions.
Not because I sought them.
Not because they sought friendship.
They just wanted to swim.
And somehow
that was enough.
Thus concludes Chapter Three.
The Two Blonde Women.
Hat.
No Hat.
The Ancient Greeting:
“Sup.”
The Monsoon Swimming Problem.
The One Useful Ten Year Old Memory.
The Lighthouse Directions.
The Question:
“Where Is Lighthouse Beach?”
The Answer:
“My Brother In Christ.
Next To The Lighthouse.”
Hat’s Giggle.
No Hat’s:
“Oh.”
The Recognition Of Shared Idiocy.
The Bracelet.
The Question:
“Memento Mori?”
The Internal Combustion Of Nuo.
The Woman Of Culture.
The Golden Retriever.
The Request:
“Can You Show Us?”
The Reminder That Obvious Is Not Always Easy In A Foreign Place.
And
The Party Formation.
Children.
Minutes earlier,
I had been alone.
Then two strangers asked for directions.
One understood my bracelet.
The other could not locate a beach named after the giant lighthouse standing within eyesight.
I liked them immediately.
And so
Nuo,
Hat,
and No Hat
walked toward the sea.
