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Literature |
HeavensGate-Chapter03Website: http://www.yellowtailshark.com/Literature/HeavensGate Chapter 3I smell burning ashes. Slowly I opened my eyes. It took awhile to adjust to the bright sunlight beaming across the tile floor. Lying in front of me was a pair of polished red apples sitting on a towel. I sat upright against the wall, and remembered I was sleeping on the ground with a light fleece blanket wrapped around my shoulders. The sun poured through the windows above my head, though it was the type of windows that allowed for light, and not so much for peering into the outside. I looked at the apples, then continued my gaze further into the long room. I was in a temple. Linh was kneeling on a brown pillow before a statue of Buddha with a burning incense tucked between her fingers. Her eyes are closed in meditation. I stood up and walked over next to her, grabbed another pillow and proceeded to light an incense for myself to pray for my family, or at the very least my mother who was the only family I knew. Linh bowed and then placed her incense into a pot filled with already-burnt stubs. "Are you praying for your family?" I asked her. "Maybe," she stood up and walked over to the apples lying on the ground, "most people pray to their ancestors because they hope they've been improving their lives. They're asking for forgiveness." I was praying for my mother, hoping she would forgive me for leaving home without a word, except a letter I left on my desk. Linh picked up the apples into her hands. "But for me, I'm not asking for forgiveness from my ancestors. If anything, I'm trying to forgive them." Linh hands me an apple, "Breakfast." Where we were going, I wasn't so sure. We traveled west by motorbike in the hopes of landing at the port city of Yếnkhanh where my friend Tâm should be. I wasn't so sure if he was still there, or how I would find him, but that was the only person I knew outside of my home village. Every evening I replenished the batteries for my vespa and we often stayed at a temple, sometimes informing the resident monks, sometimes not. Linh's right eye was swollen red now instead of a black and blue ring, perhaps healing. Within a week we arrived at the village of Hàgiang. The sunset revealed a mountainous terrain, one that we needed to climb before reaching the port. The gentle slope coming up to Hàgiang, however, caused a problem with the engine. I wasn't sure how to fix it. We stopped by the side of the road near a junction, and I shut off the engine to examine it, though I could only see steam rising from the metal pipes. The road was empty, and it seemed there was no one in sight for miles. And why would they, since most people would take the train to Tâysơn anyway? While I was examining the engine, Linh walked back and forth along the fork in the road, trying to look for something to remedy the situation. The sun was no longer in view, giving the sky a brilliant turquoise haze, and I grew a bit restless when I couldn't see her anymore. I heard a faint hum in the distance in the direction of the sparsely traveled road. Only it wasn't the sound of one motorbike revving up the narrow road. I made out, in the ever-dimming evening, the presence of at least a dozen motorbikes! The first bike had two passengers, and when they stopped in front of me, the rear passenger hopped off and removed the helmet. It was Linh. She took a deep breath and smiled. "Looks like I found some help." The driving passenger took off his helmet and revealed a young man about the same age as I was. Except he had a scar gashed across his eyebrow. "Ain't free of course." |