25
A heavenly servant
stuffs wood
in a pot-bellied stove
its iron sides bulging
the black metal door
closes the orange glow
in a small glass rectangle
casting a flickering light
over the last
of the heavenly order
Mara stands in back
not taking her seat
not paying attention to anything
except the dagger in her side
She wiggles it
the sharp tip moving inside her
eyes transfixed
on the gold hilt
and the three beautiful jewels
that sparkle
in the dim light
of Lao Tzu’s laboratory.
“Should we begin?” Lao Tzu takes his place behind the podium. Eight chairs encircle him, as the soft hum of conversation dies to an expecting silence. He surveys the crowd, Erlang, The Empress, Pig, Mara, and Guanyin. The door opens and all the heads turn as Darlene enters followed by Ricky peeking behind her.
“Dang,” she starts backing out, “I was sure this was the sauna.”
“Darlene.” Lao Tzu extends his hand in invitation. “Take a seat.” She stands unmoving, glances over to The Empress who is facing forward. “Please,” he extends a palm toward an empty chair, which she reluctantly takes, drops the basket at her feet. Lil’ Darlene yelps as Lao Tzu turns toward the audience. “I trust tempers have cooled and we can talk about what comes next in a civilized way.” He looks down at the piece of paper in front of him but does not read from it. “Monkey has departed, as did the rest of the guests who didn’t express an interest or were not invited.” He locks eyes with the Empress. “We’ve made some preliminary decisions, but I wanted to say a few words before we begin.”
Pig raises his hand.
“Put your hand down Pig.” Pig puts it down as Lao Tzu slides his palm across the page flattening it against the podium. “Mortals,” he looks over the top of his glasses making sure everyone is listening, “evolve in fits and starts. We watch them struggle to find a niche, and they do for a time, lounging in the comfort of their own creation, but the ground always shifts, a forest disappears in a fire, an empire crumbles and from the scorched earth a new way is born. It’s in these moments, as they gaze into the wreckage, they become enraptured in a golden vision, an ever-receding bright light that keeps them stumbling into the future. They live like this, devising their plans, succeeding, failing, never sure what will come, and then, regardless of how they lived, regardless of whether they were a king, a carnie or a store clerk, they die.”
His eyes rest on Darlene.
“What is desired after is the peace of a living perfection, a perfection that doesn’t need to be updated, reconsidered or voted upon, a perfection that values everyone equally, that allows them to take their first unscrutinized breath, to finally, for the first time, relax in the enveloping pool of the absence and acceptance that is to come,” he looks around the room, “but this, as we know, is a lie. After death, our earthly duties are put aside for the work that’s required in heaven, and so even here, among the majesty of The Jade Pool and The Royal Palace, we work and worry and plan and scrape to get by.
The Jade Emperor. The Empress. The Heavenly Altar Cleaner.” He extends a hand to Pig who frowns back at him. “These titles have existed since time began. They’ve existed before any of us and will continue to exist after we’re gone. We wear them like clothing, and yet even in our wisdom, we confuse the clothes for our own skin. We forget it’s the titles that are immortal. Not us,” he glances at Mara, “and so there are some who’ve pointed out the inefficiencies of this order. They look at how we’ve lived and suggest something new. Democracy. And while I appreciate these sentiments, I also know that what is good on earth is not good in heaven. Democracy heralds the whirlwind of change and those winds obey one god. Not what is right, but what is popular.” His eyes settle on Erlang. “Whatever you think we’re building here today, those winds will continue to blow long after we’re gone. Factions will form. Positions will harden. The alliances that feel strong in this moment will lead to infighting. We will disappoint each other and most importantly we will disappoint the mortals below.”
He folds the piece of paper and puts it in his pocket.
“Whatever is decided, let me make one thing clear. The Way is not up for a vote. It doesn’t depend on how many people think it’s true or whether it’s enticing enough to pique their interest. It is The Way regardless of how we treat it, who walks it, or what is politically expedient,” he pauses, struggling to get the next bit out, “and yet,” his voice waivers, “I see the inevitability of a Heavenly Republic because it’s not just our buildings that crumbled today. We’ve called into question our ability to lead. That look of reverence that once beamed from the heavenly servants has turned to a glare. We’ve lost their respect and not without reason. Heaven is once again destroyed and if we can’t find a better way, we don’t deserve the robes and carriages and heavenly ornaments that come with it.”
A few in the crowd peek over at The Empress. Her face remains calm, not a hair out of place, an attentive gloss in her eyes as she sits and waits, her hands in her lap.
“If this wasn’t enough the Heavenly Peach Orchard, our connection to immortality, is lost. Now every time a heavenly being dies, there’s the potential for conflict, for hurt feelings, for division, for war. Mara lies in wait. He senses our weakness. We find ourselves in the most vulnerable state, unable to maintain what we once had, and possibly not having the strength to move forward. We need to find another way.” He lifts a robed hand. “Darlene?”
She puts her phone down and looks up wide-eyed. He motions for the basket which she lifts as he plucks the crown from it. He carries it to the furnace, sets it inside, blows a swirling fire as it glows red and an auspicious aura pulses the room. In its place 8 gold coins glow as he picks them up with his bare hands and lays them on the podium sizzling against the wood.
“Guanyin. You are the most deserving so I call you first to take your place on The Heavenly Council. This coin is your vote. Keep it safe.”
She steps forward, takes her coin then stands behind him, head bowed.
“Erlang.” He stands at attention, his spear by his side. “It’s hard for a soldier to know where his duty lies. Is it with the old or the new? It’s not disloyal to have these thoughts and as our strongest and most trusted ally, I leave the responsibility to wrestle with these questions to you.”
He places a coin in his palm. Erlang bows and takes his place beside him.
“We seek clarity in our tragedy, but often we find confusion. Instead of confronting it, we make a devil out of our discomfort. You and your father share a name, Mara, but you also share the hate of the world, for being the rock in our shoe, the itch we can’t scratch. It is for this reason I give this to you.” Her hand tightly squeezes the dagger in her side as she takes her coin then goes back to standing against the wall.
“Pig,” Lao Tzu calls. Pig waddles over and takes the coin as Lao Tzu hesitantly lets it go. “Let’s just say I’m not thrilled with this but eight is an auspicious number, and everyone else has left.”
“That’s my speech?”
Lao Tzu strokes his mustache as he examines the monstrous face before him.
“Your voice is important in that it tells us what we should not do, and that may end up being the most important voice of all.”
Pig waddles back and stands next to Mara against the wall.
“Darlene,” he calls. “Darlene,” he says again. Darlene looks up from her phone. “Darlene!”
“Pfffft.” She waves him off. “I’m no Heavenly Being.”
Lao Tzu walks around the podium.
“In an afternoon you escaped the land of the dead, enslaved The Peach Orchard Fairies, bested one of the Heavenly Kings, decapitated The Jade Emperor, overturned a million years of heavenly order and now I find you seated in my laboratory wielding the flaming sword of Mañjuśrī. Stand up and take your coin.”
Darlene sits with her arms crossed, not budging. Guanyin gives her a soft smile.
“Aww, what the hell.”
The coin presses into her palm as she turns towards the audience, greeted with scattered applause and a searing look from The Empress.
A lamp is strung above her, the one light source in the room. Mara watches the shadows pull down on Darlene’s face, darkening her wrinkles. Here blond hair is matted after being stuffed in a wig, and her roots have started to darken. She wobbles back to her seat, her hand grasping in approximation, ‘The chair’s here somewhere,’ but is too drunk to see it. Mara watches that hand, bloated, chipped red nails, reaching into the darkness, trying to grab something that isn’t there, groping the shadow that surrounds them. The tips of her fingers touch the back of the chair and she clutches it, rests all her weight against the one point of safety then plops down in an exhausted sigh.
Mara looks around the room. Pig, Darlene, and then to her own hand, the gold coin heavy in her small palm. She imagines herself standing up and yelling, “This is bullshit!” as the room turns, all the eyes fixed on her. She sees herself standing confidently, a speech flowing out of her. “Lao Tzu, promoting the worst heaven has to offer, all the while handing out shiny gold coins,” but Guanyin and Erlang. They don’t deserve that. She falters. Turns red. The awkwardness of having stood up overwhelms her, even though she’s still seated. She leaps to her feet. All the heads turn as the door slams behind her and she walks into the unending brightness of heaven, her small feet shuffling over the debris-covered clouds.
She feels herself wanting to look back, but won’t allow it. There’s a burnt ottoman overlooking a bluff and she sits down in a huff. The frame of a painting lays in the grass in front of her, the gold curling off the wood as the empty rectangle punches a patch of ground into focus. She tries to make something out of it, the way a piece of shrapnel is lying against the rock, how a tuft of daffodils is poking through the mess. “It’s a sign,” she thinks then looks harder. “No. It’s the ground and this is just a frame lying in this particular spot.”
The servants have stopped working, the dings and scrapes of the picks and shovels have fallen silent. No hustle and bustle. Just the piles of debris sitting under the ever-expansive whiteness of sky. She wipes her eyes, glances back hoping someone will come after her. But no one comes. There are things she wants to say but she can’t think of them, not without someone standing next to her.
She looks at her nub of an arm, fixes her gaze, and it starts to shake. The flesh crawls, then grows, bit by bit, till her arm pokes out, shiny and pink. Squeezing her hand into a fist, she turns it over to look at her palm then pulls the dagger out of her side, angles it watching the reflections move up and down the blade. Resting it against her pinky she swipes with a single cut. It falls in the grass and she looks at it lying there like it’s just another thing. She wrinkles her forehead in concentration and her finger pushes back out. She cuts it, feels the pressure build to a great silence then, nothing. Cuts it again, then again, till there‘s a small pile of fingers below..
“I should be in that room. This is what I wanted.” But the more she explains, the more it feels like someone else’s words hastily thrown together falling out of her mouth. She looks at the fingers lying in a tuft of grass, little hotdogs, little pink logs stacked in confusion. “Those are my fingers,” she thinks but they’re not. “They’re just another thing like the rocks or the grass or the sky.” She peers down to the dagger, the three jewels in the gold hilt, exquisitely cut in briolette teardrops. As she twists the handle, the color shifts from a silver to an emerald green to a deep ruby red.
“Hey,” Pig calls slow walking from behind. She gives him a glare then relents, drops her head in defeat. He waddles over and plops down next to her. “You done with those?” He picks up a finger and turns it over in his fat pig hand. “I know where this little piggy is going.” He pops it in his mouth, takes another and leans back. She watches him, munching, completely relaxed. He looks over and gives her a smile.
“How can you live with yourself?”
“Well,” he pops another finger then picks up the rest of them, “if you do one bad thing it haunts you the rest of your life.” He crunches through the tiny bones. “A half dozen or so and you’ll get flashes of the horrible things you’ve done,” he tosses the rest in his mouth, “but a thousand, two thousand, after awhile your mind gets swamped. I can only keep track of so much shame, and so that’s the amount I feel. I’ve already reached my limit so it doesn’t make sense to stop now that I’ve passed it, you know what I mean?”
She leans forward, thinking then puts her hand on his knee.
“Everyone else pretends to be wise or noble, but you’re the same old idiot. It used to bother me, but now I’m starting to understand. At least you know who you are.”
Pig grows silent. Takes her hand off his knee.
“You don’t want to do that.”
Mara looks him over.
“She sold us out you know.”
“Darlene?” Pig shrugs. “I might’ve done the same.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No one asked.”
She looks away.
“You’re the closest thing I have to...” She stops herself, picks up a small twig and rolls it between her fingers feeling the small bumps. “I want you to do something for me.” He wipes his fingers on his t-shirt. “I want you to,” she turns back toward him, “eat my arm.”
She holds it out.
Pig laughs. Swipes it away.
“I’m not going to eat your arm.”
“Eat it!” She looks him in the eyes. “I want you to eat it.”
“Nobody wants to be eaten. I don’t know how to do it when it’s not…you know…against their will.”
Mara slices it off. Holds it out to Pig.
“Are you just going to let this go to waste?”
He looks at the hand hanging limp.
“I don’t like it when there’s someone more depraved than me.” He grabs it. Takes a bite. “Makes me have doubts.” Takes another. “This is good
“Yeah?” Mara watches him, his greasy lips smacking, crunching the bones. “I want you to go to hell with me,” she says after he’s finished.
Pig wipes his mouth.
“Shouldn’t we go to the movies first?”
“There’s nothing for me here. I can’t be a part of this and I can’t go back to where I was. I need to see him.” She puts her hand back on his knee. “I need your help.”
Pig looks at the hand then to her face.
“Gives me a little arm and now she wants me to meet her dad.”
“Be serious.”
“Remember how we just got through talking about how you like me because I’m not serious?”
“Will you do it?”
Pig rolls his eyes. Let’s out a little groan.
“I’ve done stupider things.” He scrunches his face up. “I’ll…think about it.”
She rests her head against him as he puts his arm around her. They sit together looking over the great expanse interrupted by a post slanting up from a concrete slab. A tapestry from the great hall has wrapped itself around the shaft as the fabric whips in the air then falls limply. On top of the pole is the remnants of a dragon, its mouth opening to a milky glass globe, the cast metal teeth sinking around it, and perched on top of that sits a crow, head cocked to the side, its black marble eye watching the forms of Pig and Mara for a time, then because of a gust of wind or a fit of boredom it lifts off, soars up to the heavens of heaven. It flies past what used to be the palace, past Lao Tzu’s laboratory and the great heavenly stables, the ashes of the peach orchard and the great western gate, all the way to the outermost edge of heaven, deserted except for a small pagoda about the size of a storage locker and a strange looking monkey seated in the lotus position, eyes closed, his wrinkled monkey hands laying calmly in his lap.
He pops one eye open as the crow lands, its feet gripping the red clay roof. Monkey watches the bird watch him, then notices himself watching the bird then his legs start to itch, and he thinks about how he’d like to scratch, and then is immediately proud of his restraint. Another second he’s vigorously digging his nails into the fur then smiles and hops to his feet. He turns the brass knob of the gnarled wood door and peers wide-eyed down a long marble hall as a song rumbles up from the depths below.
Oh, my love, my darling
I've hungered for your touch
Small paintings are hung on the wall. The first depicts the time he captured The Bull Demon. The strong trunk of the tree, split in two with The Bull Demons’ massive horns curling up into the branches, the demon’s scorched eyes painted in delicate gestures of oil swimming on top of dollops of white. The next miniature is his fight with Red Boy. There’s his spear sticking in the earth and Guanyin off in the distance surrounded by clouds of effervescent light. He keeps walking as the images trail behind. A lush green rectangle of foliage and bramble. There he is ripping apart a pack of tigers, the thin black lines squiggle across their orange skin as the tiny triangles of their teeth gleam against the trees and brush of the forest. A black velvet portrait shows him sitting on his summersault-cloud looking down on a mountain of fire. Another has him posing as a statue in a great hall, the delectable snacks stacked in bowls and dishes and platters as a rosy-cheeked Pig shoves the offerings into his mouth.
A long, lonely time
He stops by a glass shelf with paper Monkey masks on wooden sticks, Monkey chopsticks, Monkey lunchboxes, t-shirts and headbands, some pinned in display cases, others left hanging from a silver hook. Little action figures stand on a ledge, Goku as a child, his small face shining as Monkey takes it in his hand and turns him over, the simple clean anime head smiling back at Monkey’s own hideous face. There’s a whole collection of Monkey King comic books with large red letters scrawled across the front, “Uproar in Heaven!” featuring a cute slender monkey, bright cartoon face, no wrinkles, no scars, beautiful, smiling, happy.
And time goes by so slowly
There’s a shelf of VHS tapes, the dust jackets showing Monkey as a child, a young man, the gold band around his head, a signed headshot of Stephen Chow then a whole series of ancient scrolls, a drawing of Sand, his demon quelling staff leaning on his shoulder as he looks back in black ink to Tang Sanzang surrounded by demons.
and time can do so much
He continues past an original copy of the heart sutra, a lithograph next to it of the monk, his lifeless body floating in the blue wash of a river as Monkey stands in a boat looking over to the other side, the Buddha off in the distance, eyes closed, hand touching the earth, pink skies and auspicious clouds spotted with majestic cranes.
Are you still mine?
The hallway opens to a small room, craggy rock floor, lotus blossoms hanging from the ceiling, peacocks resting on glowing salt rocks, cherry blossom trees on either side of a gold altar and sitting in the middle on a brocaded heavenly cushion, Tang Sanzang, deep in meditation, a beaded jade curtain hangs on each side, a room inside a room, the small rocks strung together swaying ever so slightly, as fragrant incense burns.
I need your love
I need your love
Monkey approaches, not wanting to disturb him, but not knowing what else to do. He rests his hand on one of the glowing rocks, feels the heat on his palm then notices a small plastic cord coming out of the base that twists its way down to the floor disappearing behind a bed of moss. He lifts the orange salt lamp and on the bottom is a Target bar code sticker.
God speed your love to me
He looks closer at the sheets of plastic moss. The ground is faux rock, tiled to look random. The peacocks are unmoving, regally stuffed, heads cocked toward the door, eyes shining forever forward, the plastic cherry blossom branches fastened with metal brackets to the drywall behind.
Lonely rivers flow
to the sea, to the sea
to the open arms of the sea
Monkey approaches the altar, pulls back the jade curtain, sits in front of his master waiting for him to awaken, but…nothing. He pulls on the end of his white robe, softly at first then harder. Tang Sanzang remains seated, eyes closed, at peace. Monkey touches his shoulder, squeezes, puts his hand to his face. Nothing.
Lonely rivers sigh
wait for me, wait for me
I'll be coming home, wait for me
Monkey bows, rises, then bows again. He grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, gently at first, then harder. He throws one of the salt lamps against the wall. It shatters into a million pieces but not a single one of them breaks the trance. Monkey jumps up and down, pulls his cudgel out and smashes the peacocks, their stuffing floats in the air as he reaches into his pouch and takes the translucent heart, bows again holding it out, his body heaving with sobs as he touches his forehead to the floor.
Tang Sanzang sits at peace, perfectly empty, not a ripple, not a drop, not a single thought. There is nothing to add or subtract, nothing to cling to or run away from, a stillness that cannot be disturbed, an empty glass that is already filled. He holds a small bowl of water in his hands, his mind like a pane of glass, like the surface of the water, like a hollow gourd, like none of those things, like nothing, impenetrable.
Monkey sobs before him, his hands covering his head as the tiniest speck of dust falls from the seam in the drywalled ceiling, past the ripped-up peacocks, the swinging jade curtain, the Target salt rock lamps, past the inner peace of Tang Sanzang’s expressionless face down to the bowl below.
One tiny ripple
the soft glow of the translucent heart
the tiniest bit of warmth
on his face
pulls him back to the room
his legs crossed
the pain in his knees and back
the stiffness of the brocaded pillow.
He inhales the smoke swirling around him
coughs
then opens his eyes.
Ohhhhhh, my love, my darling
He puts his hand on Monkey’s head who looks up startled. Tang Sanzang tries to stand but his legs won’t work. Monkey hops up to help, holds the monk’s fragile body against his small monkey frame and leads him out of the room, down the hall, Tang Sanzang worriedly looks back to the altar that’s quickly disappearing behind him.
I've hungered, for your touch
They walk the hall passing by the heart sutra, the ink drawing scroll, the VHS tapes, Dragonball merchandise, lunchboxes, chopsticks, the tiny paintings and paper masks.
A long, lonely time
and time goes by so slowlyAnd time can do so much
They get to the door and everyone is standing outside. Lao Tzu is there in ceremonial robes, his hands behind his back. He bows his head as Tang Sanzang steps out, the light from outside blinding as he adjusts. There’s Erlang, Mara, The Empress. Pig, his face badly scared, ear chopped off, belly cut open and sewed back together stands leaning on his rake. He gives a slight smile as the monk puts a hand to his cheek. Monkey walks him to the edge of the billowing clouds, where a crisp patch of blue pokes through the white.
Are you still mine?
Monkey extends his hand as the clouds part. His master crouches to look at the vast green country surrounded by sparkling blue water. He looks closer and see’s each person, all at once.
I need your love
A woman waits in line at Walgreens absent-mindedly flipping through a magazine talking to her mom as she glances a glossy photo spread of cookies shaped like turkeys, their red sugar necks stacked on a platter of dying autumn leaves. He see’s a family gathered to celebrate the birth of their first child. The water boils as Mr. Wan ties his apron, opens the fridge, happy to be staring into the soft glow
as a child screams with the joy of being tickled too much. There’s a teen eating a slice of Sabarro’s alone, knee excitedly pumping under the table, making his untied laces dance on the 1’ x 1’ ceramic tiled floor of the food court as all the trains leave Bejing, each and every ship, bobs up and down in the ocean, and the millions of people on vacation, sunning themselves, all the colored trunks, like strangely shaped seashells, as Mrs. Li hangs the laundry for the first time after her husband’s death, the steady rhythm of a basketball bouncing on a court in Taipei, the relentless beating of the waves, the sunglass salesman walking the beaches and the tourists landing in planes, pulling their bags out of the overhead compartments as a young nun prays her heart out staring up at an image of Jesus, all the pain and suffering and joy of the world squished together in a single moment as Tang Sanzang, unable to take anymore, turns away.
I need your love
God speed your love to me
The monk collapses to the ground. Monkey and Pig stand over him, watching his small frame heave up and down, not sure what to do. They lift him as the sun breaks through the clouds below. The shadows dissolve on their faces as the monk pulls them closer so their heads are touching, his eyes wet with tears. His lips open but nothing comes out. His legs, unable to support themselves, hang limply as he squeezes them tighter. Monkey wipes his face as Tang Sanzang holds his head up, looks down on the world, and smiles.