Chapter 4 — Good Life
And thus begins Chapter Four.
Now, children.
There we were.
Walking.
Nuo.
Hat.
No Hat.
The Golden Retriever.
And if you are a normal human being,
you may assume the next few minutes went something like:
“So where are you from?”
“How long are you in India?”
“What’s your name?”
“Are you travelling together?”
Children.
Have you met me?
The council sighs.
No.
Of course not.
Introductions?
Skipped.
Again.
At some point in life,
I thought this was coincidence.
A strange little feature of certain encounters.
Maybe the other person also hated small talk.
Maybe circumstance simply pushed us past it.
Isolated event.
Understandable.
But children
when the isolated event happens approximately seventeen times,
we are forced to reconsider the data.
The council opens the personality file.
CHARACTER TRAIT.
Yes.
Or flaw.
Depending on how highly you value knowing someone’s name before discussing mortality.
Personally?
Overrated.
The council refuses endorsement.
Fine.
But the pattern remains.
I somehow meet people
and immediately skip past all the normal social scaffolding.
Name?
Later.
Where from?
Eventually.
Relationship status?
Who knows.
But
what does your death bracelet mean?
Excellent.
Now we’re talking.
And that is more or less what happened.
Hat and I talked.
Not about biographies.
Not about travel plans.
About
memento mori.
The council nods.
Of course.
She had recognized the bracelet.
That alone had promoted her from:
Random Foreigner
to:
Woman Of Culture.
So I explained.
Or perhaps elaborated.
The skulls.
The tags.
The idea behind carrying reminders of mortality.
Tibetan Buddhism.
The symbols.
What some of the tags said.
Why I wore them.
The relic system.
Perhaps not the entire Wandering mythology in one uninterrupted TED Talk.
Children.
I do possess restraint occasionally.
But enough.
And Hat?
Interested.
Actually interested.
Not polite nodding.
Not the expression people make while waiting for you to stop explaining your weird bracelet.
She asked things.
Added things.
Understood references.
The council smiles.
Resonance.
Yes.
The kind where conversation does not need pushing.
You say one thing.
They know the doorway behind it.
You walk through.
Another thought appears.
Then another.
No work.
Children.
This is rare enough to notice.
And No Hat?
The council turns toward her.
What was she contributing?
Joy.
Pure joy.
Children.
No Hat was simply
happy to be here.
Walking beside us.
Smiling.
Listening occasionally.
Looking around.
Golden Retriever Energy at full operating capacity.
Hat and I could be discussing death,
impermanence,
Buddhist symbolism,
and the philosophical purpose of carrying mortality around your wrist
and No Hat existed beside us like:
Beach!
Friends!
Sun!
Good day!
The council laughs.
Adorable.
Very.
She did not need to dominate the conversation.
Did not need to know what every symbol meant.
She was simply part of the party.
And apparently content with that.
Children.
Some people bring conversation.
Some bring calm.
Some bring chaos.
No Hat brought:
An adorable smile.
The council records this as a valid contribution.
Eventually
lighthouse.
We approached.
Large.
Obvious.
Still exactly where lighthouses tend to remain.
And children
I saw my opportunity.
The council already knows this will be childish.
Correct.
I pointed upward.
Dramatically.
“LIGHTHOUSE.”
Pause.
Then
pointed toward the beach beside it.
“LIGHTHOUSE BEACH.”
The council erupts.
No Hat looked at me.
Offended.
Not genuinely.
The particular offended expression of a Golden Retriever
after you pretend to throw the ball
and reveal it was still in your hand.
Children.
Betrayal.
How dare Nuo continue mocking the geography question.
Hat chuckled.
No Hat gave me the look.
I considered the matter successfully concluded.
The council nods.
Excellent tour guiding.
We continued down.
Onto the beach.
Now.
Objective remained simple.
Swimming.
For them.
We checked.
Signs?
No no swimming warning.
At least not where we entered.
Good.
Children.
This was the important part.
Not:
Nuo vaguely remembers this place from a decade ago,
therefore enter dangerous monsoon sea.
No.
We looked for current restrictions.
None visible there.
So Hat and No Hat headed toward the water.
And Nuo?
The council waits.
Stayed on land.
Yes.
Children.
Do I dislike the sea?
No.
You have read Varkala.
You have read Kapu.
You have read enough water related nonsense to know that I am very capable of entering the ocean and immediately making questionable decisions.
But
this Wandering happened yesterday.
And literally the week before,
I had been in Varkala.
Water.
Waves.
Jet ski.
General ocean nonsense.
Children.
My aquatic quota for the season?
Met.
Satisfied.
Completed.
The council checks the ledger.
WATER NONSENSE:
Full.
Exactly.
So I did not follow them.
No dramatic shirt removal.
No running into waves.
No:
WAIT FOR ME.
I simply
plopped.
On the beach.
The council nods.
Good verb.
Plopped.
Not elegantly sat.
Not assumed meditative posture.
Plopped.
Sand.
Sun.
Sea ahead.
Hat and No Hat entering the water.
And me?
Nothing.
For once.
No immediate quest.
No next marker.
No decision.
The party had temporarily dispersed.
They had reached their objective.
I had completed mine as accidental guide.
And my brain had not yet generated:
What now?
So
sit.
Children.
There is a freedom in not having to decide.
You arrive.
You stop.
The beach exists.
That is sufficient.
Then
dog.
The council immediately brightens.
Of course.
Children.
Dog Protocol.
Mandatory.
Universal.
No jurisdictional exceptions.
A stray wandered toward me.
Perhaps curious.
Perhaps seeking shade.
Perhaps correctly identifying Nuo as a reliable source of scratches.
Whatever the motive
come here.
Pet.
Scratch.
Good boy.
The council smiles.
Objective acquired without need for quest marker.
Exactly.
One hand.
Dog.
Slow.
Peaceful.
And every so often,
I glanced toward the water.
Not anxiously.
Important.
I was not guarding Hat and No Hat
like a mother watching toddlers near a swimming pool.
Children.
They were adults.
Foreigners, yes.
New to the beach, yes.
But functional humans.
I merely had one tiny social concern.
I had guided them here.
Therefore
they must have fun.
The council pauses.
Why?
Because otherwise my directions were a failure.
Logical?
No.
Emotionally?
Very.
If you ask Nuo:
Where can we swim?
And Nuo says:
Follow me.
Then you reach beach
and have terrible time?
Betrayal.
The council laughs.
All that guidance.
All that Lighthouse Mockery.
For nothing.
So occasionally
check.
Hat?
There.
No Hat?
There.
Having fun?
Yes.
Especially No Hat.
Children.
Golden Retriever had entered water.
Of course she was having fun.
The council imagines splashing.
Archive law.
No invented choreography.
Correct.
But visually
happy.
Enough.
Mission successful.
I relaxed.
Then
another dog.
Pause.
Children.
Upgrade.
Two dogs.
The first already on one side.
Second arrives.
Other side.
The council looks at Nuo.
Number of hands?
Two.
Number of dogs?
Two.
Perfect engineering.
One hand.
Scratch.
Other hand.
Scratch.
Children.
Symmetry.
Balance.
A moment so structurally correct that even the universe could not improve it.
There I sat.
Dog to the left.
Dog to the right.
Both receiving appropriate tribute.
Me in the middle.
Hat and No Hat somewhere in the water ahead.
Sun overhead.
Waves arriving.
Retreating.
Arriving again.
Click clack bracelet temporarily quiet because Nuo had finally stopped moving.
The council sighs contentedly.
And children
this.
This is the good life.
Not the grand version.
No luxury resort.
No infinity pool.
No expensive drink.
No perfect itinerary.
No enlightenment breakthrough.
Just
sand.
Sun.
Two dogs.
Sea.
Nothing urgently required of me.
The council nods.
Slow.
Yes.
Peaceful.
The kind of peace that arrives when the day has not asked for meaning.
Remember the motive.
Boredom.
That was all.
I had not left home because I was sad.
Not because I needed to reset.
Not because something inside hurt so loudly I needed distance.
I was simply bored.
Forty minutes later,
I sat between two stray dogs on a beach
while two women I had met perhaps half an hour earlier
played in the sea.
Children.
That is enough.
Maybe that is the privilege of conscious wandering.
Not every road has to rescue you.
Some roads merely give you a nicer place to exist for a while.
The council grows quiet.
Present Nuo language.
Yes.
Story Nuo?
Who’s a good boy.
Correct.
Protect immediacy.
Always.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Dog perhaps shifts closer.
Other dog perhaps demands equal service.
Children.
No favouritism.
Two hand protocol.
The sea continued its work.
Wave.
Foam.
Retreat.
The sounds behind us
shops,
people,
tourist movement
became less important.
Forward?
Water.
Slow horizon.
Hat and No Hat occasionally visible.
I lost track of them at moments.
Not because they disappeared dramatically.
Just because I stopped looking.
Good.
That means I trusted the situation enough to stop monitoring it.
The council notes this.
And I think that is the mood I remember most vividly.
Not excitement.
Not:
Something is happening.
The opposite.
Nothing needed to happen.
Children.
That is rare in the Archive.
Usually Nuo is falling off something.
Missing transport.
Getting high.
Meeting strange people.
Accidentally leaving civilization.
Being searched for.
Searching for himself.
Washing cows.
Escaping fathers.
Today?
Sit.
Dogs.
Beach.
The council checks for disaster.
None yet.
Do not tempt fate.
Fair.
But for this moment
none.
And so I remained there.
Two dogs beside me.
A hand on each.
Sun warming the sand.
Waves collapsing ahead.
The Seventeenth Wandering breathing slowly.
No lesson.
No quest.
No urgency.
Just a small stretch of time that felt
good.
Children.
Sometimes that’s all the Archive needs.
Thus concludes Chapter Four.
The Complete Failure To Ask Names.
The Seventeenth Confirmation That This Is Now A Character Trait.
The Memento Mori Conversation.
The Tibetan Buddhist Tangents.
Hat The Woman Of Culture.
No Hat The Golden Retriever.
The Arrival At The Lighthouse.
“LIGHTHOUSE.”
The Arrival At Lighthouse Beach.
“LIGHTHOUSE BEACH.”
The Betrayed Golden Retriever Face.
The Clear Swimming Area.
The Aquatic Quota Already Filled By Varkala.
The Plop.
The Temporary Party Dispersal.
The First Dog.
Dog Protocol.
The Casual Check That The Foreigners Were Actually Having Fun.
The Second Dog.
Two Hands.
Two Dogs.
And
The Good Life.
Children.
I had left home because I was bored.
Now I sat beneath the sun,
one stray on either side,
waves breaking ahead,
with nowhere else I needed to be.
Slow.
Peaceful.
Good.
