“I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me.”
“What? But how do you… how do you know…?” Joshua was utterly confused. The old man was smiling.
“No mystery there. Oasis are a multi-million selling band. They’re known all over the world.” Josh looked as though he wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. “What did you hear last night?” the old man asked him.
Joshua backed away slightly; his mind was spinning circles. The old man was making him feel uncontrollably nervous.
“So? What did you hear?”
“Nothing,” he said defensively.
“Did you try?”
“Sure I tried! I sat for over an hour, listening! And I didn’t hear a goddamn thing! No cows, no birds, no animals, at all, not even any insects! No human hustle and bustle, no temples bells going off, no chanting - not even the wind ‘cos that had stopped as well. No-thing.”
The old man whistled softly. “For over an hour you say? Wow…” he exclaimed, obviously mocking. “Your confusion is turning to anger Joshua. This happens, but don’t give in to it. Try again this afternoon. You’ll hear something if you really listen.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Josh stood up moodily. “I’m going for a walk,” he said and stomped off.
*
Joshua did not return until the middle of the afternoon. While he had been away though, something had happened to him. That much could be seen in the spring of his step and the big, beaming grin on his face.
“Swami! Swami! I heard it, I heard it!” He dropped to the floor beside the fire. “Swami I listened - really listened - and I heard it!”
Handing him a stack of chapattis and more lentils the old man nodded, smiling. “What did you hear?”
“I heard a bell, Swami. The bell! The silence was so total, so complete, and then inside it, inside the silence, I heard the bell. Just one note, one peal, clear and never-ending. It was beautiful. Utterly beautiful!”
“Good, good. Perhaps you are ready now to learn about ghee. After you have eaten,” he added as Joshua was about to speak. “After you have eaten.”
*
“So what is ghee then,” Joshua asked when the old man finally accepted that all the food was gone.
“No mystery there. It is clarified butter.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the cookbooks say, but what exactly is clarified butter?”
“Clarified butter is the end product of a long, long process and a lot of hard work - some might say tedious, but boredom is merely a state of mind. Besides, it really is very simple - if you want the ghee you must do the work. It will not just magically appear, come to you out of the aether. Of course nowadays you can always buy it in the shops, but then it is not the real thing as you like to say.”
Joshua waited for more, but nothing seemed immediately forthcoming. “Yes, but what does ‘clarified butter’ actually mean? I’ve had ghee before, but it was nothing like the stuff you gave me yesterday.”
“No mystery there. I told you, what you buy in the shops is not the real thing. When something is mass produced it loses its true essence. The food of a humble housewife is often far superior to something you might find in a restaurant. Food from even a top chef may have taste, but does it have substance? Does it have Love? Of course, the housewife may be a terrible cook - then it would be different…
“Anyway, clarified butter is butter which has been strained and refined time after time and again. It is boiled up and agitated - please take note of the word: agitated - releasing all of the impurities which can then be scooped off or drained away.
“Again and again and again this process is repeated. Refine, refine, refine,” he said as he stirred the pot. “Purify, purify, purify.”
“Wait a minute!” Joshua shouted. “What are you doing?” He had watched the old man stir the bubbling liquid in slow spirals, from the outside near the rim, to the centre. First one way and then the other.
“Life moves in spirals; haven’t you noticed?”
“Yesterday you said it had to be clockwise! ‘It always has to be clockwise’ you said!” The old man did not respond. He just continued to stir, first one way, then the other. “Hey!” said Joshua. “HEY! Damn it, answer me! You said it had to be clockwise!”
“Did I?” said the old man, looking up. “Maybe I was wrong. Oh no, wait a minute - I am right of course, according to you. Ahh, see? You scoff; I said you would.”
Joshua’s face was scowling darkly. As his anger and frustration rose his frown grew deeper. Deep as the valley. All very suddenly he was furious.
The Yogi just shrugged and turned his attention back to the pot. “Maybe that was just yesterday,” he said.
“What? Come on! You can’t just blow off something you said as ‘that was just yesterday.’” As he repeated the last words he attempted to mimic the old man’s voice, and mockingly wobbled his head.
“Funny - by your own standards, the latter or most recent is always the most ‘relevant.’” The Yogi’s voice changed to replicate exactly the sound of Joshua’s voice. “‘The most… appropriate. Or, yeah, you could say the best, I guess.’ That was just yesterday. Today you can stir it any way you want.”
A few seconds of tense silence followed. Joshua opened his mouth to say something, but the old man pre-empted him. He started to sing.
“I’m free-ee, to be whatever, whatever I choose and I’ll sing the Blues if I want.”
Joshua simply stared.
“Free-ee, to be whatever I, whatever I like, if it’s wrong or right, it’s all right.”
“Stop it!” Joshua shouted, clamping his hands to his ears. “Stop doing that!” He was a mess now. “I don’t understand! Why are you doing to this to me?”
“No mystery there-” the yogi began.
“And stop saying that, goddamn it!” His angry voice echoed off the fifteen mountain peaks across the valley. He put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand.”
“Who understands anything of anything at all? And why should she? What is there to understand?”
“You! Me! The Universe, goddamn it! And whatever the hell it is you’re talking about!”
“Today, was gonna be the day, I was gonna give it back to you,” the old man sung.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!”
“By now, you should have somehow, realised-”
“Fuck off!” Joshua leapt up and started off towards the cave. Then he stopped, turned and came back again. “I don’t know what stupid game you think you’re playing old man, but I’ve had enough of it! I came a long way to see you in good faith and all you’ve done is mess my head up and fuck me about! And stir that stupid bloody pot!
“And what’s all this horse shit about ghee all of a sudden?” The yogi gazed up at him impassively. “What the hell did you mean, ‘ghee is the answer to everything’?”
“Did I say ghee? Maybe I meant almonds.”
Joshua snarled and aimed a heavy boot at the pot, kicking it from the three stones it was resting on. Then he kicked the stones away and stamped down on the coals, scattering the ashes to the four winds.
“There! Stir your stupid ghee now you old fucker!” he spat and then stormed into the cave where he began furiously stuffing his few belongings back into his backpack.
The old man, without so much of a sigh, got up and righted the pot, now only three quarters full. As the golden liquid which had spilled seeped slowly into the grey-white soil he fixed the stones back in place and then turned his attention to what remained of the ashes.
Holding his hand out, he circled it three times and then turned it palm down. Ashes poured from his hand which then gathered themselves into coals upon touching the earth. He smiled down at them and they began to glow.
When Joshua came out of the cave with his backpack, ready to leave, the pot was bubbling away once more. He broke down in tears and stumbled like a sleepwalker over to the yogi.
“What the f... How did you… What did
you do?”
The old man looked up, compassion showing deep in his bright brown eyes. “No mystery there,” he said softly. “I relit the fire.”
“I don’t understand!” Joshua cried. He reached an arm out, but then, not knowing what to do with it, he let it crash down to his side again.
“Just remember the ghee, Joshua. Remember the ghee.”
Joshua sobbed and walked away. “I don’t understand,” he moaned one last time as he left.
The old yogi watched him all the way back to the elephant rock, and as the young Canadian clambered nervously around it and disappeared out of sight, he shook his head. “No mystery there Joshua Laden from Canada. No mystery there…”
***
###The End###
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About the Author
Painter, photographer, Reiki Master, traveller and horse trainer, Stephen Brown is a lover of Creativity in all its guises. His writing is varied, from fantasy, sci-fi and other novels to poetry and haiku. He tries to be both deep and thought-provoking as well as humorous and nonsensical at the same time. In no way does he see these things as contradictory. Feel free to drop by and take a look at what he’s up to. Come on now, don’t be shy...
Website: https://www.thestephenbrown.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=631936832&ref=tn_tnmn
Twitter - @Dizzylemming
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Other Works
The Cripplesby Diaries Trilogy
Bread
One man’s obsession with Scotland. One Shamanic detective. One twelfth century monk catapulted through time to present day England.
A demon, a megalomaniac maths lecturer and the world on the brink of economic collapse. It sounds like a convoluted tale, but it all fits together - honest!
And what’s more, while it doesn’t actually explain how time travel is possible, it does at least prove that it does exist. Irrefutably.
That is, of course, if you believe the word of a man whose business card contains no contact details, who smokes mushrooms through a pipe and who talks to Mooses.
And just what does any of this have to do with Scotland?
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For a print version, please visit my website: www.thestephenbrown.co.uk
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McRoots
Elliot and Geeza are thrown together once more, travelling through Africa in a race against time to stop a mysterious, but hideously evil entity. As ancient as the Earth itself, it has remained dormant for millennia, but is now shaking free.
Together with a maverick scholar, an expert in archaic forms of writing, they discover that the fate of the World somehow revolves around the three Great Pyramids of Egypt which were actually built by… Scotsmen?
Discover a host of earth-shattering revelations such as the real truth behind the origins of Man even as Elliot & Geeza desperately fight against their malevolent foe, avoid being over-run by hairy, black caterpillars and try to stop the authorities from opening a tiny door set deep within an air shaft of the Great Pyramid itself!
The Da Vinci Code meets Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, McRoots takes you on a wild and totally weird ride - can you hold on long enough to save the world?
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For a print version, please visit my website: www.thestephenbrown.co.uk
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Corazon
Geeza Vermies, Shamanic Detective is hot on the heels of a gang of poachers. Bumping into his old friend Elliot, they join forces and follow the trail to Mexico, but their investigation quickly uncovers a far deeper plot, and once again they find themselves in a race against time to save the World!
Meanwhile Father Sadfael, the bumbling, out of time Benedictine monk, also finds himself in Mexico, sent to stop a vitriolic campaign of destruction being carried out against the entire Christian Church.
Who are the sinister figures orchestrating their deadly schemes from the shadows of the jungles? Could a rogue vicar burning down churches have any connection to a plot to bring back the bloodthirsty Gods of the Americas? And if so, what can anybody do to stop it?
Not a lot really, not when you don’t know what it is that’s supposed to happen, who’s going to do it or where it’s going to take place!
And especially when you’re up against a Jaguar Priest of exceptional power – not to mention the small matter of the Aztec Gods themselves...
***
For a print version, please visit my website: www.thestephenbrown.co.uk
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The Greater Good
An assassination attempt on the Burghermeister of Werpenstad sets in motion a disastrous chain of events that threatens to engulf the entire Stad in a horrifying wave of blood and violence.
As rumours of inhuman monsters and the tell-tale signs of a bloodthirsty cult emerge, Vice-mayor Karl Kreigel is left but one option - to send for the Jaegers of the Holy Order.
When they arrive however, the Stad is plunged into a living nightmare as their brutal practices threaten to tear the city apart. Forced to tread a dangerous tightrope between cooperating with the Jaegers and reining in the worst of their excesses, Karl must also somehow attempt to uncover the roots of the sinister Cult of the Half Tail, whose tendrils appear to grow disturbingly close to home.
With events fast spiralling out of his control, Karl knows he is in a race against time not only to catch the assassin and root out the insidious cult, but also to put a stop to the insanely-dangerous Jaegers from pulling his Stad apart or else burning it to the ground...
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For a print version, coming soon, please check my website: https://www.thestephenbrown.co.uk
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Stalking the Shadows
A FREE short story, taken from Part One of The Greater Good
Karl Kreigel is Vice-mayor of Werpenstad, an important trading town in Bergen, the westernmost Province of the Empire. When an assassination attempt is made against the Burghermeister, it is up to him to lead the investigation and take control of the town.
With the killer still at large and rumours flying around about man-sized rats stalking the sewers, Karl knows that whoever - or whatever - he is, it is only a matter of time before the assassin returns to strike again...
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Agilka
In November 2014 David Hitchins was Chief of Operations for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission which landed a scientific module on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Despite the great hopes they had for Rosetta, twenty-five years in the making, it was lost after just two days - power failure after an awkward landing being cited as the reason.
Eighteen years later, Hitchins is now Chief Scientific Officer for the ESA and stands ready to oversee the attempted touch-down of the widely criticised return mission. As the lander draws nearer to the Agilka plateau, Hitchins has to face the select gathering of scientists he has invited to come and witness this momentous event and reveal to them the true nature of this latest mission - along with what really happened to Rosetta nearly two decades ago.
Will this be the most important scientific discovery of all time, as Hitchins contends, or is the Shackleton Mission just another white elephant?
What secrets does the Agilka plateau hold?
A novella.
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