Ongoing Index:
Part 1
Part 2
(Parts 3 through 88 are Lost to the Sands of Time)
I've hit writers block with "Manitoba" .... I'm not coming up with any ideas ... sooo ... we're gonna do the Ending of the story first and then work backwards from there, today.
The Journey Part 89
-a short story by D.
I finally arrived in Vancouver and made it to Tathagata Buddha on Vancouver Island's Thunder Monastery. It was a pretty nice temple. We all made it .... me, Wes, and Connecticut.
Let me describe it for you,
The vast peaks of the mountains were dotted with wind-swept trees,
They were magnificent to the eye,
Canyons were painted with rain-soaked forests,
Rivers surrounded the Monastery,
Vancouver was the Pacific Ocean's Pearl,
It looked really great....
Crossing Canada wasn't easy on foot but we made it. I'm glad I befriended Wes, the street urchin, and my old friend Connecticut along the way for they made the Journey less troublesome and lonely.
I met Wes in Cornwall, and after a strange melee with some unword-by hobos who did not live by their word, we learned that he was the re-incarnation of Erlang-Shen ... so we became fast friends. He talks funny ... but that's okay.
I met Connecticut in Manitoba, after having a strange dream about him in Toronto where he was playing video games and making movies. It turned out he was the reincarnated spirit of uhhhh John A. MacDonald or some Prime Minister or something.
I made a vow back in Saskatchewan that I'd visit this Monastery if I ever made it to Vancouver Island and now that we're here and the Journey is over ... I'm sorta sad. It was fun. There was whacky hardships and weird-ass ghosts along the way ... and let's not forget those snake monster women in Alberta ... but in the end .... it was worth it to walk across this great land.
"Say Moister .... are we here?" Asked Wes the urchin.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh, I think so," answered Connecticut.
"Yeah. We're here. This is Vancouver's Thunder Monastery where the Tathagata Buddha lives..." I said.
We walked past the large doors, they were intimidating doors, but they only seemed that way because those football players back in Moose Cavity Tooth, Alberta built this place up so much. Man, Moose Cavity Tooth, the place right next to Medicine Hat ... what a scene that was.
We asked the attendant if we could meet the big guy ... and he said, "Yes, this way, please."
"Greetings travelers," said the Buddha.
"Hi," we said.
"You seek enlightenment, gentlemen?" He asked.
"Yeah," we replied.
"Cool.... but I'm afraid you can't have it..." he said.
"Why though?" We inquired.
"You only experienced 107 hardships on your Journey.... you are ONE short," he told us.
"Really?," we asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Did you count the time me and Wes saved that city from the zombie beavers?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"What about the time we rescued the ancient artifacts back in Canmore?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Man, Buddha ... what did we miss? What didn't we check off our sufferings check list, man?" I asked.
"Do you recall back in Cornwall ... when you ordered many hamburgers but only ate seven of them?"
"Yeah, the pyramid platter? What about it?" I asked.
"You see, the trial of hamburgers was not completed. You did not complete it...." He said.
"Yeah? Buddha .... come on, man ... like..." I started.
"I can teleport you back there to complete it since you made it so close to completing all 108 trials ... but the trial will be 100 fold more difficult now..." he interjected.
"You can do that? Ok," I said.
I braced myself as he said the incantations and a mist surrounded us and we were zoomed back to Cornwall ... land of Turkeys and of Hobos... thankfully neither would come in to play this time around as the Final Trial of The Journey was the....
Hamburger Eating Contest
"Come one, come all, for the annual Hamburger Eating Contest!" The announcer roared over the PA system.
I entered the contest at the last minute. I didn't even know what the rules were to be honest ... but the announcer helped with that...
"Each contestant will be presented with 25 Hamburgers stacked in a pyramid on a silver platter ... the first to consume all the hamburgers wins!" He said.
What have I gotten myself into now? This sounds dumber than that time we tumbled down the hill and almost lost our lunches! A Hamburger eating contest, eh? What a lark this is.
I like burgers but I can't eat 25 of them. Can I? The alarm sounded and confetti shot out of a cannon ... it had begun. I looked to my left and saw everyone eating like mad ... I looked to my right and saw everyone eating like crazy. I picked up the first burger and took a bite...
.... I had another burger-related epiphany. The world stopped in time, totally in place, I looked around and really realized then and there that Life is Pretty Kooky, guys. Life is pretty whacky, you know? This burger contest might be my only real chance to ever be the Hero of This Story. So I ate....
....and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. I ate all the burgers while time had stopped. When time re-started again .... no one else was even on their third burger ... yet I was done. It was a real sight.
"..... and the winner is.....!" The announcer said.
.... all eyes turned to me. The burger champion. It was the biggest Moment of Glory in my Entire Journey!!!!
Thinking back on it all. Was it worth it? If I didn't win this burger contest I might have said "No" to that question but something in me changed after the burger contest. I finally understood it all. I finally got it. It all made a bunch of sense.
Hamburgers. It's all about Hamburgers. You thought it was about turkeys? No. You read that whole chapter wrong. I was worried about the dumb turkeys that whole time for no reason and my worry led to so many hardships. There was never any reason to ever have invested that much time and thought into turkeys. I should have invested those resources of thought and of time into hamburgers.
It WASN'T the turkeys that represented unity, grace, and giving. It was the burgers ... this whole time. I even finally understand why that mysterious ghost-hobo was so mad when I offered him the turkey.
Tathagata Buddha teleported us back to Vancouver from Cornwall as soon as he realized I had fulfilled my trials and achieved enlightenment. We got to talking about hamburgers and stuff ... me and him. He knew a lot about 'em but what really struck me is that ... so did I. I knew a LOT about hamburgers.
The buns, the sauce, the beef, the lettuce, the tomatoes ....
Eating one is maybe one of life's most greatest joys. If you can teach yourself to really enjoy a hamburger... and I mean really dig it ... you can learn to enjoy any of life's great mysteries and endeavors.
People seem to think you are born happy and that happiness is taken away from you at some point in your life due to some hardship or suffering. That's not true at all. You are born to a world you don't understand and happiness is another foreign concept just like every other concept. You have to teach yourself "happiness" and learn to be happy like any other skill in life. It takes work. It takes time. It takes effort.
It doesn't have to be hamburgers. Maybe you're a vegetarian... it's just the act of finding a basic means of "enjoyment" and teaching your senses and perceptions to really understand how to enjoy something. It could be a game, a book, a movie, a burger ... something small. Something basic ... and then applying that formula you learned to Everything Else.
When you figure out your happiness formula, keep it basic. The more basic it is... the better. When your formula for enjoyment in life starts getting too complicated or encroaches on other people's formulas for enjoying their lives ... you should go back to the drawing board and re-work your formula. That's all. No big deal.
Tathagata Buddha sat above two pillars. Atop of the first pillar to his left was a silver platter and stacked in a pyramid shape .... was turkeys. To his right atop the other pillar was the same silver platter stacked with another pyramid.... that of burgers.
....and for the briefest moment ... and maybe the only time ever, past present or future, Life Made Total Sense To Me.
Life Made Total Sense to Me.
Now I realize that I am what I am. Just a guy who likes Hamburgers.....
Buddha asked me, "Would you like to hear a prognostic poem which foretells your life's course?"
I responded, "You mean like an Animal House sort of ending kinda thing that says what happened to me after the narrative ends?"
Buddha responded, "Yes."
...but I said I didn't wanna know. I'm probably just gonna live to some ripe old age and then one day while eating a hamburger and watching the tides bore in .... maybe I'll just dissipate into dust or something.
Or who knows .... maybe I'll go out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter....
THE END?
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