[chapter dedication: @klname | thank you for the wonderful cover!]
chapter eleven.
The thing about aspiring to be a comic book artist-cum-writer is that you are constantly learning new things about the world and about yourself. People get bored of hackneyed plotlines and the same sun-dried, roasted character dimensions, so you have to be on your feet if you want to get juice from a barren fruit tree. That's how you stand out, how you appeal to people. You roll your sleeves up, buckle your teeth, and get to work. Research, research, research. Be innovative, not just creative, but Google-worthy creative. Don't just think out of the box; make the goddamn box a Möbius strip and find a way out of it. That's how it's done, or at least the principle I've been living by since I was a kid. Picture a mouse of an eight-year-old with too many crayons for her own good scribbling on sketchbooks to illustrate tales of "fiery dragons" and "pretty princesses" saved by "brave knights". I epitomized cliché when I was a child. Then my mom brought me to the library one day to pick up some cookbooks and I chanced upon H.P. Lovecraft and that was that; weird fiction left a pungent, half-decomposed aftertaste in my mouth and I hated the oddly-tinted writing premise of the entire genre, but still I kept begging for more, and my imagination grew with every tale. Which is why I guess it's no surprise that by the time I turned fifteen, I'd figured out how to staple my fingers to the pages of encyclopedias and non-fiction books (figuratively, of course), all of which I'd used to avoid as best as I could. (Because, let's face it: How appealing were facts to us as children? Einstein's Theory of General Relativity? I have a migraine already. What the hell are !Kung Bushmen? Molecular genetics? I'll unzip your pants if you're hot, not your double helix, or whatever.)
The most research I'd ever done was when I was working on a story arc for Battle Royale – which, by the way, is a manga series adapted from the original novel of the same name, and is pretty much a more brutal, twisted, savage, and therefore mega awesome version of the Hunger Games, published years before. I'd been questioning the ethics of the entire kill-or-be-killed concept, because come on, having to decide between selling your mortality and selling your morality is pretty sticky a dilemma.
So there I was, doing some major Internet-surfing (basically the only form of exercise I've ever gotten in the whole of my existence) and suddenly I thought, hey, what would happen if I added religion to the arena? Since Christianity was too personal for my comfort, I settled on the next religion I could think of: Buddhism.
Now the interesting thing about Buddhism is that it's a nontheistic religion, which pretty much means that they don't believe in a One-Above-All God. You see, the core of the religion is based on a set of radical beliefs, and it started off like this:
There was once a prince in India named Siddhartha Gautama. He was born into a life of luxury, his father being the King. Siddhartha's mother died a week after giving birth to him, and to keep his son from witnessing the darkness of Man and the injustice of the world, Siddhartha's father ordered a palace to be built just for his son, and kept him from finding out about religion and hardship. When he was older, however, he left the palace for the first time and came across an old man, a sick man and a rotting corpse. This was all new to his eyes and he was completely shocked, but also disillusioned, for he now understood the brutal inevitably of age, illness and death.
Yet, Siddhartha had also seen a man who, though homeless, seemed to be at peace; inspired by his contentment, Siddhartha left the palace for good in pursuit of understanding the doubts he had. He spent the next six years of his life following the rules of extreme asceticism, decided that that wasn't going to help him get the answers he sought, and derived a Middle Way – a balance between a life of luxury and poverty. It was around this time that he finally achieved Enlightenment, as he sat under what is referred to as the Bodhi Tree (the Tree of Awakening) in deep meditation. He became the Buddha.
It's a broad religion, like any other, but I found comfort in Siddhartha's humble tale and ended up digging deeper into the religion. I was particularly drawn to the Noble Eightfold Path. You see, the Buddha once said, I come to teach the origin of suffering and the cessation of suffering, and that spoke out to me because suffering was a suffering indeed, and I knew that I hadn't even felt a fraction of its wrath. So I delved deeper still, devouring all the information I could find, and that was when I found out about the Noble Eightfold Path:
(1) Right vision or understanding, which I felt I'd already somewhat achieved (since I did know that suffering was a part of life to be embraced and to overcome, not to run away from);
(2) Right emotion, which required wholehearted devotion, a trait I'd always admired (because honestly, it's really hard to commit yourself spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally to a way of life, or to anything at all);
(3) Right speech, which was easy enough, I suppose, albeit the occasional moral dilemma one might face (if I don't find you attractive, am I supposed to tell it to your face or lie through my teeth?);
(4) Right action, which seemed fair enough;
(5) Right livelihood, which sounded wholesomely kind;
(6) Right effort, which seemed relatively okay (provided I spend the rest of my life gritting my mental teeth thinking of flowers and sunshine and all things bright and beautiful only);
(7) Right mindfulness, which I figured would be challenging (I'm kind of used to living in my head instead of reality); and, of course,
(8) Right meditation, which would be the toughest for sure (because it's a little hard to silence thoughts when they're yelling and clawing at every fold in your mind).
There was so much purity in the religion, with its deep-rooted altruistic foundation. So for the next few months, I internalized what I'd learnt about Buddhism, but the peace that came was oddly discomforting; it felt weird following two religions concurrently, like I was cheating somehow. I knew that Christ was my home, yet I was reluctant to shut the door on Buddhist beliefs, since they made so much sense to me.
Because, you see, the thing about Christianity is that we are all sinners, and only our genuine faith in and relationship with God can grant us salvation. So did that mean that being a good person, attributed to a respectable moral compass, was not enough, and that it would only suffice if I were a good person for God? So I had to do good deeds for God, not because I knew it was morally correct?
It never did make sense to me.
---
My mind is still when, at last, I become conscious of it; simultaneously, my eyes open, and in goes a deep breath, as if I am taking in air for the first time after having been underwater for so long.
God, I need some aspirin.
I get up slowly, shakily, because my body still feels weak, though less severely so, the tempered dryness of my throat indicative of that. To my relief, everything goes well. Within moments I am actually sitting up, albeit hunched over slightly.
The first thing I take note of is that I am alone, in front of a large tree of some sort, on a large grass patch, a rocky structure to my left, and the shore and waves in view. When I spot fresh fruit gathered in a leafy bundle about a feet away from me, I decide that Michael must've disappeared to get some food or firewood.
Maybe I should join him.
And so I do – or, at least, I attempt to. Because even though I manage to haul myself up onto my feet, my legs feel like they're missing a shitload of nerves, and I have to hold onto the tree trunk behind me for support. It's a huge tree, I realize when I glance up. The leaves look like broad, dripping, oversized hearts, ornamented with tiny, purple figs that look like specks from down below. They're all caught up in a complex bureaucracy of branches extending in all directions to form an umbrella awning of sorts, which explains why I'm not completely drenched in sweat.
As I struggle to propel my feet forward, I hear footsteps from somewhere behind me, so I turn my head and, for the first time, notice a thicket sloping uphill, from which Michael emerges, arms full of coconuts. Something inside me sizzles at the sight of him and it's such a foreign sensation that my knees give way and I stumble and fall.
"Oh my God." His voice is so faint and he sounds so weak, but all of a sudden he's running towards me, a lumbering mass of disbelief, the coconuts abandoned. It takes a while but when he reaches me at last, I can hear the fetch and miss of his disjointed breath. An arm festoons itself across my shoulders and neck.
"Not God, just Payton," I smile.
He looks like he's about to cry out of relief. "I thought you were... You nearly..." He passes his tongue across his cracked lips. "I didn't think you'd wake up."
"How long was I out cold for?"
"Far too long," he shakes his head. He presses a palm against my forehead and lets out a delighted chuckle. "You kept waking up, you know? For a couple of minutes before going back to sleep. But even when you were awake, you weren't really awake."
"I thought I was going to die."
"So did I. I had to force water down your throat every time you showed any sign of consciousness. Speaking of which..." He trots over to his gathered heap of resources and returns with a coconut brimming with water. "I was saving this, just in case you woke up."
"Thank you." And I mean that so, so thoroughly, more than I can put into words – because pending death was hands down the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced. "Half-dying was terrifying as fuck." I drink, my throat feeling a dozen times better.
"What did it feel like?" We're lying down now, side by side, heads tilted towards the canopy above, hands shielding our eyes from slanting light rays that have slipped between the cordate drip-tips.
"I don't even know. It felt like falling asleep, but without the dreams, and with unknowingness."
"Unknowingness?"
"I'm agnostic, remember? I don't know if I actually really believe in heaven. What is the afterlife, anyway? I can't wrap my head around the concept of my soul living on for eternity. Forever is a scary term."
"Payton, I am forever grateful to have met you."
I laugh. "No, seriously; I wasn't sure if I was going to be sucked into non-existence-slash-non-consciousness-slash-big-black-nothingness-oh-wait-nothingness-isn't-even-black again, or, you know, go to heaven. Or hell. Whichever. Time would be at a standstill anyway. And that's a scary thought."
I am met by silence, so I turn my head to find Michael already facing me, half a smile on his face. "Who says I wasn't being serious?" he asks, and the moment is sappier than all the plant vacuoles in the greens of this island combined, but for some reason, the words taste good, real good, and my heart feels like it's lubdubbing a gazillion times faster.
And so, with my body feeling warmer than the feeling of my skin against the ground, I smile, and feel my face flush, as I respond with the reply I would have least expected from myself:
"Michael, I am forever grateful to have met you, too."
yayayayayayay surprise update!! i did this chapter in bits and pieces whenever i was feeling tired!! yay!! hope you liked it!
love u!! muchly!!
(i adore all of your comments they make me feel so warm??!!!!?!!!)