[Gift, Quirky]

  After my meditation session I went back to the hut, Nyx and Frida were sitting out front enjoying the sunshine.

  “Frida, I think you are wrong, I’ll ask Jaq. Jaq, they offered to help me be more honest and open, but that’s not what you want right?”

  “Well Nyx, I think what they are offering you is to act more like you want to and not what you think I want you to. Are you happier as Nyxi or as Nyx?”

  “During the day as Nyx, that way I can talk to you both, but at night as Nyxi, because it is warm and fun to sleep with you both, because I feel safe.”

  “That was you being open and honest and honestly the Nyx I love is always open and honest with me, even if she is making fun of my admittedly tiny breasts.”

  “What about you Frida, do you want me to be open and honest with you too?”

  “Absolutely I do Nyx.”

  “Frida, I really love your lovely knockers, they are just the perfect size for your body, unlike poor Jaq’s itty-bitty mounds”

  “Thank you Nyx, but you don’t have to compare mine and Jaqs.”

  “Oh there is no comparison Frida, yours are ten or twenty times the size of Jaqs.”

  Just then the sister who’d shown me the portal earlier came over.

  “I’m sorry but I forgot to introduce myself this morning. My name is Wei Mok. Please call me Wei.”

  “Sister Wei, it is nice to see you again.”

  “The master asked me to show you the monastery’s greatest treasure, after lunch. I was wondering if you would like to eat in the dining hall or would you prefer to eat in private.”

  “I’d like to see the dining hall, Frida, Nyx. What would you like to do?”

  “Let’s go see what it’s like, okay Nyx.”

  “Sure, is that where we’ll eat if we stay.”

  “You’ll always have a choice, some days if you’d rather eat privately you can just pick up your food and eat in your hut or outside if you prefer.”

  “Who does all the work, Sister Wei?”

  “We have four regular cooks, they make up a schedule each week amongst themselves. One of the four is always in the kitchen, supervising the trainee cooks, we have eight of them. They also make up their own schedules but two of the eight are always in the kitchen between six am and four pm, preparing the next meal. The rest of the brothers and sisters do the cleaning, they also make a schedule and a few of them are always either cleaning one of the common areas or washing the dishes, pots and pans. Everyone who can works, those that can’t might also need help if they are sick or injured. So someone helps them with whatever is needed.”

  “Do they all get paid?”

  She laughed. “God no, we have no money, nor anything to buy if we did have it.”

  “Where does all the food come from Sister?”

  “We have a huge kitchen garden that the assistant cooks and some gardeners tend to. Every one in the monastery helps turn over the garden in the spring and helps with the last harvest in the fall. The exercise is good for the person doing and the work is good for the community as a whole.”

  “Does the master get the best cuts of meat?”

  “No Jaq, the master is a strict vegetarian and we all eat out of the same pot as they say.”

  “What’s the worst thing about living here?”

  “If I fart in the middle of the night, my roommate makes fun of me. I hate that.”

  “Do you like your roommate?”

  “Yes, I love her like the sister I never had, but I hate it when she teases me in the middle of the night.”

  “Could we look at your hut Sister, or would that be an invasion of privacy?”

  “Sure follow me, then I’ll take you to lunch then to our greatest treasure.”

  We followed Sister Wei to her hut, which was almost as nice as ours, but more telling, nicer than the masters.

  “Sister Wei, you have a better hut then the master.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Yes it’s true, we ask him everytime a new hut is built, to please take a newer hut. But he always refuses, he prefers the hut he was assigned as a novice. He says that everyday must be looked at with fresh eyes and only a novice can do that so insists on staying where he is.”

  “So he gets nothing extra as the leader.”

  “Sure he does, he gets extra work as the leader, on top of his cleaning duties, he makes sure all the schedules are decided, that we’ll have enough food, if we should make more or less pottery.”

  “Why would you make less?”

  “Because we don’t need the money to buy food or medicine. The aim is to have just enough, or a whisker more than enough. Never less than what is needed. Speaking of food, if you’re hungry let's go eat, I’m starving.”

  We walked to the largest building I’d seen so far, it wasn’t as beautiful as the meditation hall with its gleaming hardwood floors, but it shared the hall’s architectural design of sliding doors which were all open right now. We tailed Sister Wei as she picked up two bowls and a spoon. Frida, Nyx and I did the same and we followed her to the front of the hall, two brothers stood besides huge pots, sister Wei held out the small bowl to the Brother and he filled the bowl to overflowing with rice, then she went to the next brother he filled the other bowl with a vegetable stew.

  I did the same as Wei had done, each of the brothers gave me a half bow, which I tried to return without spilling my rice. We found a spot at one of the tables that had enough room for the four of us to eat together.

  The dining hall smelled delicious and the food was as good as it smelled. It was also subdued, not quiet but definitely not as loud as you’d expect from so many people in such a small space. But when you looked around it wasn’t a dour or somber atmosphere, quite the opposite. The brothers and sisters all seemed to be smiling and chatting quietly with their neighbors.

  After we had finished, Wei collected her two bowls and spoon and walked into a little room in the front of the building. There was a short line so we queued up behind diners who’d finished shortly before us. We each washed our two bowls and spoon then left them to air dry on trays placed on a small table nearby. Brother Chow stood next to the tray and when it was filled he moved the cleaned bowls to another room. While he waited for it to be filled he spoke quietly with the diners.

  I was surprised to see the head of the monastery doing such hard manual labor, especially at his advanced age and said so to Wei.

  “Sister, I was so surprised to see the master doing such hard physical labor. Does he always work like that?”

  “Yes he claims that it helps him sleep better, and the reason that he even reached old age, he credits to the exercise. On the day’s he’s not scheduled to work, he walks for miles to get the exercise he craves. You should see him work in the laundry. I swear he does twice the work of the new novices who aren’t used to any type of physical labor. Speaking of which, we need to stop at the laundry for towels.”

  So we walked over to the laundry, two very large men were stirring giant cast iron kettles that were steaming from the wood fire underneath. Their arm muscles rippled as they stirred, but they were smiling and chatting and greeted us like old friends.

  Sister Wei grabbed four towels and handed us each one of our own. Then we started up a gravel path that quickly turned into carven rock steps. At the top of the steps was a large hotspring. Ten or twelve women relaxed in the water. There was a changing room where we could leave our clothes on shelves and soap and water to wash and rinse before entering into the rock bowl of steaming crystal clear water.

  After washing up and rinsing off we walked naked, out into the steaming hot water. I felt muscles loosen that I hadn’t realized were tight.

  “This is glorious,” said Frida.

  “I’m so relaxed I can’t even make fun of Jaq’s minuscule mamaries.”

  “Yet you just did.” I said with mock anger.

  Sister Wei just laughed and said. “I do hope you stay for a while.”

  “The monastery seems too good to be true, Sister, if you could magically change one thing about it, what would you change?”

  “I guess, I’d have more people visit. I love my brothers and sisters but it’d be nice to see a larger cross section of the world. More groups like yours visiting, not that I can imagine another group like yours anywhere in the world.”

  “Would these groups have to pay to come, or would you give them free room and board?”

  “I don’t know a lot about the monastery finances, just that we always shoot for breaking even. So maybe 1 gold piece a day for food for a group of five or ten.”

  “You should suggest it to the master. Set up a portal to transport the group both ways, just keep the groups very small. I hitchhiked around Europe and most people are really nice but one out of ten or twenty can be really nasty.”

  “We have chapter meetings once a week, to talk about the monastery. If you stay, maybe you could help me prepare and actually stand up with me to answer any questions the brothers and sisters might ask.”

  “Doesn’t the master decide everything?”

  “Oh, no, he’d never go for anything like that. Now we make all the community decisions in a meeting where ideas are presented then questions asked, then usually a vote is scheduled for the next week, so everyone has time to consider. Unless it’s something urgent about the food supply or housing crisis, then the debate will last longer and the vote will happen that night. So will you help me if you stay?”

  “How can I refuse? You've been so kind to us, but I can’t be sure what we’re going to do. We decide things the same way, so I’ll talk to my friends and we’ll decide if we are staying or not.

  That night after supper, I explained to everyone that I got the info on my grandfather, he was here for a year but left a year ago. I also told them that Sister Wei had shown me a portal back to Tregaron, we could go back right this second if we wanted to or we could stay for a month and the same amount of time would have passed. But let’s hear from everyone about your day, what they offered or asked of you and what you want to do.

  Groucho leapt up.”If we won’t lose any time looking for the old coot, I say we stay, they want to teach me how to defend the group with a stick called a staff that the Monkey King supposedly used.”

  Draco said, “they asked me to teach them philosophy, which I’ll be happy to do.”

  Harry went next, “they want to teach me pottery techniques, I’ve never seen before, I’d love to study here.”

  Nyx said, “They want to make me more honest and open, and it worked out well so far, so I think it’ll be good to learn and if I don’t like it I can always go back to lying and secrets right?”

  Frida said, “They want me to teach them the skills I use to be a model, I’d be happy to do it, the people here are so nice.”

  I went last, “they offered me a way to better control my ADHD and I’d love to learn it. I kept waiting all day to see this place's fatal flaw, but it seems like a nice place, with nice people, so I’d like to stay.”