I yawned. It was nice to get a breather after all the intensity of the past days, hunting aliens and killing Skugs, but after a while I could not help my mind from wandering. I kept wondering how I could garrotte Mong and flee this nuthouse while these fucks sat in their mental masturbation with eyes closed. If I could sneak out and make a break for it… I opened one eye. A simpleton’s plan, Rusco. Monitors ranged the hall, scanning the rows of acolytes with cane whips in hand. These whips had metal-edge flails. I could see them glinting in the dim sconce light. One poor schmuck at the front had the bad luck of wavering in his seat and a flail came slashing down on his shoulders. He let out a miserable wail. The female attendant who had administered the blow grunted then raised the weapon again. The guilty aspirant sat up in rapt attention. A painful lesson on the path to enlightenment.
The others stood with backs ramrod straight, keeping silent, maintaining equanimity, if not in more rigid attention now. They pretended as if nothing had happened. A weird scenario, if you asked me. Gave me the chills. Suffice it to say I stayed quiet and played the obedient monk. I did feel a new strength come over me as if there were a concentrated force of mental power in that hundred and fifty or so gathering doing their mediation, but soon a thousand qualms plagued my brain. Where was Wren? I doubted Blest or Volia were sitting as comfy as I was.
Twice I caught myself nodding off, barely saving myself from a cane-lashing.
The session came, thankfully, to an end, though after what seemed endless hours. We filed out, many of us blinking like owls and looking very zoned out. I had to admit I did feel refreshed, more than after a good sleep. My ears buzzed with the sounds of silence. There was a peculiar alertness to my brain as if I sensed every sound around me, even the cicada huddled behind the manicured boulder. Maybe, just maybe, I needed more sleep and this tranquility was my natural state?
Or maybe Mong had some subaural brain stimulators or brainwashing devices running on half power in that Zen cult room of his? What the fuck did I know?
The sun hurt my eyes after coming out of that dim lighting inside. I sure couldn’t wait to get back to prayer session for more breath-taking excitement. The romp through cricket world on amalgo transit seemed almost a letdown compared to this nail-biting adventure of sitting with pins-and-needle ankles for hours on end. That said, I would not want to trade places with Lady Volia or Blest any time soon.
Chapter 19
There was a lot more going on here than just passive monks going about their business, conducting hokey prayer habits. Activities abounded… Climb a ladder and stand straight on the top of a high pole, teetering with vertigo. Then jump from said pole that towers over the cement below. The bungee cord would catch you before you mashed your face in free fall. Anyone with a fear of heights was dead meat. I was about a six on a scale of ten, so was not as unfortunate as some. Men and women blubbered like babies, bawling their eyes out, retching their guts, white as ghosts, fighting tooth and nail not to go up that ladder and stand on that one foot square pole with the wind blustering. But Mong’s enforcers shuttled them up and pushed them over if they chickened out. Somehow it shattered their nerves. Did it accomplish anything outside of breaking those individuals’ spirits? I doubted it. Just another form of torture.
The activities continued. The browbeating, the physical conditioning, the brutal hand-to-hand combat. The repercussions high in cases of cowardice or failure. Also of interest, the fire walk. Walk slowly and you were doomed. The undersoles of your bare feet scorched by red hot coals. Move fast and keep an eye ahead on the target and one has a chance. Slip and fall in that 8’ by 30’ pit of ash and cinder, as one poor schmuck did and had to be carted away yelling with agony, the whole left side of his body charred and smoking, and you’d be sorry for not taking better care. Those who thought to dodge off the path were cane-whipped along by meslars on either side. Nowhere to go but forward. Mong had an endless supply of new recruits, so he didn’t care if a few got damaged beyond repair or lost their minds. “It’s the warrior’s way,” he quoted at a prayer session he had come to attend on one of the following days.
I growled under my breath. “Sick fuck.”
“Anything to add, Rusco?” Mong’s ears perked up with interest like those of an alert hound. “Please share with your brothers and sisters.”
I remained sullen. How I’d like to put a fishhook in the mongrel’s brain.
There was Seva too, a term he had coined from some ancient term of spiritual service. Out in the rice paddies, watering and weeding in the hot sun. One to two days a week, working for the common good.
A soothing voice rang over the loudspeaker, announcing that a time for rest had come—one hour, and that evening prayers would resume after.
A small grassy rise set back from the fire pit caught my eye. A solitary figure sat with a grass blade stuck in his teeth staring off into space. I approached and plopped myself down beside him, hoping to find out his story. He squinted up and I sighed. “I think of all the he-man exercises, the pole is the scariest of all, on account of my fear of heights. Something about plunging off into thin air. It unsettles the soul. For a spaceman I reckon that’s
