We continue looking at Clete's journal entry where he looks back over the days of his "jail stay," incarcerated at the Hall of Justice. I think I warned you that Qi's house gets a bit more weird. Keep the calamine lotion handy.
How would you feel if you woke up in a "magic realist" world. You'd wonder if it were a dream and when would it end and when would the world start to make sense again. When a pretty woman (or handsome boy) invites you through a "Gateless Gate," it may very well be the start. Think very carefully whether you should, but you may not even have a choice. Be warned, if you walk through a Gateless Gate with desire in your heart, it probably will not go well for you.
Thanks for reading.
Love,
Pops
The story continues...
I will not go into my humiliation
at being Qi’s slave boy a la Gunga Din as she worked with the smokehouse
crew. In addition to Qi and Lee, Mu and
Lian were present. Mercifully, they all acted as if I were not there—also a dehumanizing
act, but a kindness in a way. As far as the work was concerned, various cuts of
meat, as well as fish and vegetables, were all prepped to be hung and subjected
to the drying and preserving process. This is puzzling. Food always seemed available, this IS the
tropics, so I didn’t understand why they would smoke things, but figured it was
a cooking folkway, and they liked the taste of these traditional foods. Perhaps
Dog Island has a hunger season.
The enduring effects of menopause on
Qi seemed quite troublesome to her beyond the persistent feeling of being hot
and irritable. I strongly suspect that the chronic discomfort is oppressive and unrelenting and that she's probably undergoing some kind of mental depression because of it. I thought better of self-centeredly thinking she just had it in for me
what with all of her latent hostility and sadism, but she was just as short and
sassy to her Cousins as well. They cut her a lot of slack. THANK GOD I will
never have to go through that, nor will I have to put up with a spouse suffering
through it.
We returned to her cottage and she
seated me in her “great room” at a worktable, and I was told just to sit there
and watch her do the dinner preparation and do nothing else until instructed. I
was to pay careful attention to her since I would be preparing the supper slops
for the Hall of Justice animals during my sentence.
She had some kind of vegan slurry that
everybody on the property ate, humans included. It looked pretty much like
making mashed potatoes. Cube up various roots, pound various nuts, chop up
greens, boil til soft, mash up into a mush. I figured I had it down and my
attention began to wander. Unlike Na, Lum, and Lee’s houses, where they opened
everything up to let in daylight and air, Qi kept everything closed and dark. In the dim light I noticed a trail
of ants that were slowing dismantling a morsel of food that had been left on
the table. I just started watching them. They were slow for ants. I mashed one
to see what would happen. Usually when you kill one all the rest go hyper.
Nothing. So I just went down the line mashing one after the other.
Things went black in front of me
for a minute. I felt cold metal brush the tip of my nose and then the lights
flashed back on, followed by a loud thunk—the sound of a sharp blade being
affixed into wood. I looked down. A cleaver had been put between my hand and
the ant trail. My right index finger was
touching the blade. I pulled it up and saw that about two millimeters of nail
had been trimmed off. I looked up to see Qi giving me a very angry look.
“Um … something wrong?”
“YOU … are a walking karma factory”
“Those ants … they’re all over your table. I’m just helping clean up …”
“When I want someone to wantonly dispense needless pain, suffering, and
death in my house, I will ask for your help.”
“You’re pretty accurate with sharp objects there aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
“You take lessons from Lee?”
“Please. I taught her. We were sparring partners.”
“I don’t why you care about a bunch of insignificant ants. There are a
lot more where they came from. My mom always had me get the spray …”
“What your mother did in her own house, in her own country, following
her own religious principles is not my business. Here, nothing is insignificant.”
“That’s ridiculous. If everything is important, nothing is important.”
“I didn’t want to believe it. I try to think the best of people. That we
are all one. That we are all manifestations of the one. But YOU are as rude,
and careless, and discourteous, and blasphemous as everyone says you are.”
“Because I mashed a few ants?”
“YES! We are all moving within samsara.”
“No worries. Maybe I helped them move up quickly to being beetles or
lizards?”
“Do not patronize me. And it’s not for you to decide.”
“OK I get it. You’re tenderhearted. Is it too late to say I’m sorry?”
“Where do I even start with you? MY House. The Hall of Justice. THIS is
a karma-free zone. Got that?”
“Not really.”
In a huff she knocked on the walls,
yelling in Chinese at whom I had no idea until she opened all of her windows.
As my eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light, I was disgusted to see that
the interior walls of her house were covered in ants, beetles, flies, moths,
dragonflies, mosquitos, spiders, geckos, and colorful lizards of all kinds.
On the floor were civets,
pangolins, tanukis, shrews, wrens and other small birds. Imagine in your head the scene from Disney’s Snow White where she is singing “Whistle While You Work” while all the cute
woodland creatures assist her in her cleaning of the seven dwarves’ cottage.
Got it? OK. Now substitute in a Pacific Islander-Asian woman with Asian and tropical
fauna instead of bunnies, squirrels, robins, crickets, and mice. That is Qi’s
cottage. I suddenly jumped to my feet.
“EWWW! FUCK!”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You got like a bunch of giant red jungle centipedes right at my feet!
Those things are nasty! Their poison’ll kill you if you’re not careful.”
“YOU are the most dangerous thing in here. Calm down! The centipedes
become nervous and aggressive when agitated.”
“Get them outta here! I have no intention of testing the limits of my
liver function here. They might even dispense neurotoxins. Jesus Christ Lady! Don’t you clean your goddamned house?”
“Don’t move. One is crawling up your right leg. Can’t you feel her?”
“Not really. That leg is always a
bit numb at least to surface movement.”
“I’ll get her off. Come on dear. Right here. No, no, no. The big bad man won’t hurt your friends anymore.”
“I’ll get her off. Come on dear. Right here. No, no, no. The big bad man won’t hurt your friends anymore.”
She coaxed the thing off of me and
into the palm of her hand. She ran her finger along its shiny segmented back.
“The toxins in her feet makes your skin tingle when she walks on you.
Want to try her on your arm? I don’t know why, but she likes you.”
“No thanks. Some other time.”
“You need to get used to all of them since you’re going to be staying
here with them.”
“Ick. There's probably less vermin in a North Korean prison cell. But hey. Why
aren’t they all eating each other up?”
“Clete! What did I just tell you?”
“Oh, duh. Karma-free zone. So it’s a jungle out there, but not in here?”
“So you’re not as stupid as you seem.”
“How do you manage to modify animal behavior to such an extreme?”
“Figure it out yourself. Dr. Genius. Right now you need to atone for
those killings. Go out to the North Gate. You are not allowed beyond the
perimeter of my cottage and yard except under my escort. You will extend your arm outside the
perimeter and allow any and all creatures to feed on your blood for one hour.”
It seemed like a benign enough
punishment, but as soon as I went out and extended my arm, every flying insect
in the area came gunning for me. Just as
I was going to scream from the itching, Qi came out to me distracting me from
my discomfort. She was carrying three sacks.
“Homework! I’ve decided you need to work on learning to regard
insignificant things as being significant. I have just the didactic tool for
you. Look in these bags.”
“Rice. Bird food.”
“Millet.”
“Some kind of small bean in this one?”
“Black beans to be precise. I will empty them into that trough over
there and mix them up. While you are here, you sort them back into their
respective sacks. After that, do you see that large bin full of coconuts?”
“Yeah?”
“Using a small blade that I will give you, you will shave off the
fibrous material from each nut, which you will set aside and save to be spun
into rope. But what I want in the end is a bin full of perfectly smooth coconut
shells. I think that will make for a lot of work for you.”
“You must be a Democrat.”
“You can get started as soon as you’re done there if you like. There’s
not much daylight left though.”
“Not to worry. It’ll be like being a graduate research lab assistant all
over again. I had to count bacteria on slides back in the day.”
“You obviously did not learn your lesson then. Make no mistake Wong. I
am going to improve you.”
“Bring it on.”
She gave a sigh of disgust, dumped
the grains as she promised, mixed them with a stick, and moved back into the
cottage to start serving her slurry to all of her household “pets.” I have to
give ’ol Qi credit for creativity in her pedagogical methodology. But I think I was suffering from having become
the focus of her thinking. What new torment would she think up every 20 minutes
for my own good as her twisted, debauched mind dwelt on how to straighten me
out where she thought Lee had failed? It was going to be a long three-day
sentence.
As I stood there watching the
various skeeters and flies drain me (and I was thankful that malaria was nonexistent
on this island), my arm twitched and retracted a bit. As I did twitch, the little
critters jumped off, almost as if an invisible sleeve pushed them aside. It was
almost as if they were consciously honoring a hard limit of the no-karma zone.
Even so, to feed off a freely offered arm did not seem like a karma-accruing
act to be avoided. Was there some bodhisattva mosquito out there teaching all
these guys a prescribed and sophisticated ethic? I was now afraid that that
island bitch head case was getting to me.
Just then some of the Hall of
Justice resident bugs landed on my arm, the karma-free side, as if to watch and
commune with the others. They refrained from biting me. It was then easy to
think of them as “the good guys.” I noticed the resident bugs were slow and lethargic.
They were missing limbs too. Evidently the good guys finish last here too,
sentenced to the “nerdy wimp jail” for bugs. My intent study of the social
hierarchy of insects here was interrupted by an unexpected visit from Qin Qin
and Xiaomei.
“Doc-Doc! What happened to you? We were worried. Nobody is telling us
anything,” said Qin Qin.
“Are you here for rest?” asked Xiaomei. “Hey Professor! A fundoshi! It looks good on you.”
“You think so? I don’t think so. I feel naked.”
“Well, you are staying at a Third Branch Family house,” added Xiaomei,
“so it’s to be expected. I’m surprised you’re even wearing that. We are Third
Branch also.”
“SHE is, not me. I’m Second Branch. WE believe in modesty and decorum.”
“Do not start,” said Xiaomei.
“You said ‘we.’ I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about me.”
“There is nothing ‘wong’ about being Third Branch. You need to
understand that Professor.”
“You need to tell me about this Third Branch stuff sometime,” I said.
“You should ask Auntie Qi,” said Qin Qin. “We’re not allowed.”
“Yeah. I know. As usual. But I’m not going to even bother.”
“Are we ever going to have class again?” asked Xiaomei.
“You guys continue to meet and use the software OK? You each take turns
according to my lesson plans moderating review sessions the same way in
Socratic dialogue that I have run them. Got that? I’m probably not supposed to
be talking to you right now. But thanks for checking in on me. I’m fine for
now. Listen, I need you girls to do me a big favor. I want you to bring some
tools and equipment from my lab. Maybe later this evening? If you set it all by
that tree there I can get at it without breaking perimeter.”
“Are you not allowed out of the gates?” asked Xiaomei.
“Gates? What gates?”
“They are called the Gateless Gates,” said Qin Qin.
“Whatever. Think of it as if I am undergoing a spiritual discipline
under Princess Qi’s expert guidance.”
“Is this something that will get you in further trouble?” asked Qin Qin.
“Not any more than I am already in. It’ll make my life a whole lot
easier during my stay here.”
“But isn’t discomfort and rigor the point of a spiritual discipline?”
asked Xiaomei.
“Let’s not overthink it. You can only absorb so much of that stuff after
age 40 anyway. It’s enough that I understand the intent. It’s just two machines,
my medical kit, and a specialized toolbox for close work. I’ll take full
responsibility. By the way, you both look cute in your USC t-shirts and very
expensive Ugg boots. Don’t forget who got them for you.”
© Copyright 2012 by Vincent Way, all rights reserved.
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Be truthful and frank, but be polite. If you use excessive profanity, I'll assume you have some kind of character flaw like Dr. Wong. Tks!