The Other Bodhi (For Justin)

Chumpar and Dulcifer had made it. Two kindred souls well met in their final life time, they had reached the cusp at the same time. Several life times of loving kindness and endless seeking of enlightenment had led them there. Behind them lay the endless cycle of birth and death from which they had finally escaped, while ahead stretched the beautiful empty of Nirvana.

Chumpar had stood in the way of a tank that was on its way to shoot fire through the homes of his people. He was run over. Dulcifer had run to his side and prayed for him, and for that he was shot.

Dead at the same time they traveled together. The wheel of karma had spun them completely free, and up into the stuff that the God’s breathe. Hanging between the border of life and nonexistence, it appeared they had a choice to make.

Chumpar, looking back on all those still lost and struggling said to Dulcifer: “I think I should go back. Now that we’ve found Nirvana I can help point those in the right direction who don’t even know they are lost.”

“But brother,” said Dulcifer, “It took us so many life times of wandering that waste land of illusions to find the only thing in this world that makes sense: nothingness. I cannot submit myself to such an existence once more.”

“I understand. Do what you must.”

“And to you the same,” said Dulcifer.

“Best of my love to you,” said Chumpar, as he already began to fade into his new reincarnation, a fetus floated transparently in his solar plexus. As he faded, it grew more solid.

“No, save your love for them,” he replied. And Chumpar was gone. The fetus fell to the Earth, stretching like a beam of light. Dulcifer sighed and turned to face the holy simplicity of Nirvana. It beckoned to him in waves of numinous dissolution. He offered himself to it without another thought.

Upon first contact, the fabric of the all dissolved into thousands of piercing blades. Dulcifer then descended into hell.