17. The silence

 

He has said: « you do not know what you are doing!!!! »

 

The deep, almost hoarse voice opened the space in front of it… The words were said one by one, like a rosary, independent the ones from the others… However that was a same sentence!!!! … A same sense!!! … But they did not understand!!!

 

They were surprised by the movement of their bodies… They were aware suddenly of their cells in each one of their fibers… A new Dimension was in front of them and they remained speechless about it. They did not know anything anymore of themselves… Only space vibrated! …. Like an alive entity… different from them.

 

They left sheepish, leaving him alone, because only silence was the unique answer to this enormous pressure on their heart.

They left him alone in this room with this certainty that they missed an essential instant of their life… Because they did not understand!!!! …. But it was necessary to let him alone because that was the only movement right…

The Master was the first one to stand up and to slip gently on the wood of the floor… Hiro has followed… They were withdrawn…

The others did not do anything else but to leave!!!! … They perceived the difference when their feet touched the ice of the ground… They did not know why but they were sheepish, the head tucked into the shoulders and the back slumped.

 

- Who is he? asked Hiro to the Master.

 

The oil lamp burned between the knees of the sitting Buddha. Here silence was not the same one. Heavier, slower, as if it was slow down… They had always felt this silence like blessing and protection of the heavens… Now, they did not feel as well anymore inside… The other silence, the one created by the words of the young man still striking their body, was of another Dimension… Much broader, much deeper… Like a silence full of comprehension, of knowledge which produced its own words, its own movement to strike the body of the men…

 

- It is there to awake us, says the Master.

 

Hiro curved the nape of the neck and came to put his forehead against the thigh of the sitting Buddha… He looked for a comfort. His heart beat strongly and the belly was twisted under a hand of pincers, almost painful… The words continued to penetrate and he followed each movement of them in his body.

Him, the Master killer! …. He was captured by these words!!!!! ….

 

- No, it is not the words… it is the Silence, says the Master.

- I do not understand, blew Hiro… I do not understand!

 

The Master shook the head and looked at the heart of the sitting Buddha.

 

- Nobody can understand… It is only the Silence… The one from where Everything is created… Only the Silence!

- But he has pronounced words!!!!

- No, it is the Silence which has spoken…

 

The voice of the Master was a gentleness that Hiro did not recognize from him… A voice of the lover who speaks with his lover…

The cook looked at the Master, as if he discovered it… A new man!

The Master cried gently, the eyes in the heart of the sitting Buddha… The water ran freely from the orbits, limpid, soft. He smiled!

 

The time slipped into the darkness of the temple. Hiro quivered of anguish, a lump in his throat, the fear in the belly…

Then the Master says gently. As a caress:

 

- He carries this Silence in his body!

- I do not understand, blew the Master cook.

- This Silence IS his body…

 

The words were said one by one, slowly, as coming out of the bottom of the earth… Hiro perceived the same rhythm, the same breath like the one of the young man… All of a sudden his anguish disappeared, his fear in the belly vanished…

 

-Ah… you know too!!!!!!!!!! ..... he says, reassured.

 

The old Man carried the eyes on him and gently smiles to him.

 

- Except that Him, he is this Silence!!!! …. Me I only have the knowledge of it…

 

Hiro followed the tears of the Master, to the neck, which disappeared under the collar of the heavy pelisse. These tears were softness, love… He perceived that, but he did not understand.

 

- How his presence on Earth must be terrible for him!!!! …. In this so noisy void of the men!!!! … says the Master.

 

Then he blew so gently that Hiro had to lean the head towards the lips which opened.

 

- I now understand the pain of his body… I understand now! …. What a pretentious idiotic I am!!!!

 

Confused, Hiro tried to follow the words but he did not understand anything anymore… He did not know this Master!!!

Thus the old man looked at him deeply into his eyes… The Master killer felt the presence of the force of the Master in his forehead, then to run in him…

 

- Do not follow my words, my friend… Follow the silence of the words… And you will understand in the secrecy of your heart.

 

The oil lamp between the thighs of the Buddha sputtered.

 

The monks back in the kitchen remained in their noisy silence while preparing the meal. They ruminated the words of the young White. All of them knew now! They could not keep their lips closed on the events and let them in their rhythm until ripening… It was necessary that they speak!!!! …. It was necessary that they reveal to all the others that this young man came from another remote continent, where the skin is white and the nose long with a body releasing an alarming acid odor! … It was necessary also that they say to all of them, the words left from his throat.

 

- What want to say these words « you do not know what you are doing ? » asked again the young person who prepared the rice.

 

It is the fourth time that he asks this question. The others do not answer, because they do not know and have the same interrogation. But the young monk is young and he does not have the mastery of his tongue. The others know!!! …. But their stream of consciousness does not cease!!!! They cannot control their brain which is agitated like the leaf in the wind.

Those who have seen the young White said their fear of his look… Appalling!!!! …. Like a blade of knife which came to the Heart! …. But now these are words and they are still more afraid of the words because they are carried by the wind and can pursue them until the bottom of their hut and their bed.

 

- Do not speak thus! … You lose your Dignity to pursue your fears… Cease to always want to understand!!!! ….

 

Tong released with mood his dissatisfaction. He had not said anything of the young White, nor of his words which has run into him in his thin chest. He still feels their vibration in his heart: Worse! … He feels them growing in his belly! …. like a Force that one cannot stop.

Also he was dissatisfied when he heard in the kitchen the words of the young White to circulate from person to person… What an absence of Dignity!!!! … Him, he did not understand anything either! but he agreed to understand nothing because he knew in his Heart, and now in his belly, that these words lived by their own force and that they did not need the aid of the men to exist.

 

Angel was on his layer, dissatisfied with him. He had said too much! ..... He had opened a door to them on the other Dimension! …. But he did not want that anymore! …. He wanted that this body ceases and that he goes back home…

And he had just questioned them! … « Curiosity is the worst of the man! »… They will now pursue him to know. Once again! … But he does not want anymore…

 

Then he rectified his painful body. Almost an hour to stretch out the legs, to rectify the waist and to push on his thighs, the feet anchored on the ground! The head spun. He lacked force.

He had to wait still for a long time this way, trying not to fall down on the ground. Then he progressed, of a step, then two, then three….The steps of the veranda required his fingers to hang firm the wood banister…

Then his bare-feet were anchored in the ground and he walked towards the noise of the water behind the palisades. The door of the small garden opened in front of him without squeaking.

He went up the rocky path.

 

The torrent in lower part of him howled its fury to be wedged between these too narrow rocks. It posed the feet with half in the precipice in lower part of him. The water gave him its odor and its cold. He maintained his weight on the heels. Now it will suffice to make rock the body, gently, without brutality and he would become as the feather which is let carry by the wind.

He smiled. There, he was happy. He liked death, this departure of the world of the men who do not know anymore what they are.

- Only death can save the life of the man…

 

The sounds came from his throat. They surprise him. He muttered for him, without thought, in reflex! Thus, he was not content with him. Once again he lets go to the death and let the words escape from his lips! … But the words are the businesses of men, their manner of communicating when they lost the force of the union with them… So why he still spoke! … Which is this curious space here, this monastery, which pushes him to let the words start from his heart. He does not want anymore that. He has already said too much!

 

Then he forces his life to go in front of his body. The weight leaves the heels slowly. The howling of the river enters his ears, gains the head and starts to fill the chest. Now all is ready, all is said. He can let the weight go from itself ahead. Everything is good. The smile extends his lips and the relaxation opens out in him… absent for such a long time!

The pleasure of death is in him. Everything is said.

 

- If the bird leaves the house, the house will not hear anymore its sound and it will be empty of life.

 

It is Heidi which murmurs these words. At three steps behind the young man. She does not know how her mouth could open, so contracted. She has seen him leaving the enclosure and she has followed, the hands twisted on her fingers not to shout of pain, to remember that the life still held this body in front of her and that the hope continued.

She has remained behind because what occurred there was stronger than her. She could do nothing. Only to follow, to be there. Only to be there!

These words left her, without her opening the mouth to leave them the place to progress in front of her. These are words of her brother! …. These are not her own words because she is unable to blow this force in the life. But her brother knew, him. And it is him which has spoken.

 

The young man does not stiffen. He was not surprised because he was already at home and he could not be touched by the sounds of the men. He continued to make rock his weight on the front and the noise of the torrent entered his legs. The smile widens on his lips. The body rocked.

 

The Master killer emerged from the darkness, plunged towards the body which disappeared, swallowed by the precipice. His hand hooked the ankle. he felt involved. He had plunged too far! Now, it was him also who was going to disappear in the precipice.

He felt an enormous joy inflating his chest, a happiness to radiate in the body. He did not know that! This heat came from the body which he held in his hand by the ankle! … A force of joy! …

 

Then he has wanted to follow the young White in the precipice and to enter the water which opened already the black mouth to swallow them. He perceived the smile of the death, his eyes shining of satisfaction and he was content with this presence, clung now with the two hands to the ankle of the White. He did not want anymore to release him! He wanted to go with him where this Joy remains!

 

Delighted he felt his belly slipping on the section of the cliff. He did not close the eyes… on the contrary large opened over this moment, this discovery of this so merry passage of the world of the alive ones to those who do not have anymore a body.

 

When his legs were immobilized on the edge of the cliff, he felt a dissatisfaction, as when a fly comes to disturb his meditation… It is Tong which has just seized him to retain his fall. He also plunged behind him!

Four other monks precipitate and come in support… Hiro closes the eyes. His body is drawn out of the precipice. He holds firm his hands on the ankle of the young man. He is not happy.

 

- You do not know what you are doing! … yells the young White lying on his bed with hot-water bottles around his body to stop the tremors of his bones… They believe that it is the cold! …. Stupids, they are!

 

- I need You, said Tong, humbly, kneeling next to him.

 

The young person turned the head towards “long day without bread”. The flames of his eyes said his contempt.

 

- no, you only need one female!

 

Tong lowered the eyelids. He could not support this flame of the one right in front of him.

 

- my brother said to me… began Heidi, going to the monk’s assistance, kneeling on the other side of the bed.

- And You, what do you say! … let your brother where he is! … You will never be but one woman of second hand to witter on what the others have said! … and you will only seek a male to fill you!!!

 

The young White howled. The monks were moving back themselves in front of this fury. Hiro did not know how to act anymore, leaning against the wood of the wall opposite the feet of the young man. He tried to give again heat to the cold body.

The Master smiled, leant against the wall close to the door opening on the veranda. He muttered sounds in the bottom of his throat: « he likes to explain… then I can still save him! »

He shrugged his shoulders in front of the interrogative look of the Master cook. He had joy in his heart. His lips were stretched towards the ears in a contentment to be still alive on the earth of the men…

He muttered: « to have that one with oneself is the last challenge of the universe… Thank you ».

 

 

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