Read Online Children of the New World: Stories by Alexander Weinstein - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alexander Weinstein
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and lights blinking on in the dusk. Around him, masses of tourists, heavy with backpacks and vacant looks, milled about. And amid all this churned a perpetual stream of cars and mopeds, nudging their way around pedestrians, honking, yelling out of windows, and raising endless dust. It all seemed far from enlightenment.
By ten that night, the shops had shut down. Abe wandered back to his hotel to the sound of Beatles cover bands filtering down from terrace cafés. A couple skinny Nepali teens emerged from the darkness. “Hash, Pollen, Sex?” they asked, but when Abe asked for Moksha, they turned squirrelly and retreated back into the doorways. So Abe returned to his hotel room, stretched out on his bed, and wondered if it was all bullshit, and Jeff had sent him on a fool’s errand that’d cost him his savings.
Moksha, it turned out, wasn’t bullshit. It’d just gone into hiding ever since the twenties when the U.S. cracked down on Nepali distribution. There had been nonstop busts at yoga studios and health spas in the U.S. An oxygen bar in Sedona had been found with makeshift crown plates hooked up to an old Sega Genesis console. The CIA had confiscated the equipment and sentenced the owners, a gray-haired, dreadlocked couple, to life. By the time Abe was in high school, and just starting to get interested in experimenting with enlightenment, it was impossible to find. The U.S. government had strong-armed Eastern religions. Transcendental meditation classes were raided, tai chi groups disappeared from the parks, and churches began burning esoteric Buddhist texts. The closest Abe had come to scoring any enlightenment was when some seniors, troubled kids with a penchant for Lao-Tzu, had cannibalized an old iMac and built a crown plate out of tinfoil. Abe had placed the foil cap on his head and closed his eyes.
For a moment, sitting in the kid’s garage on a nylon beach chair, Abe had thought he felt something. He sensed a dull light behind his eyes, fuzzy and warm, and his heartbeat expanded. The sound of the air-conditioning unit kicking on droned into a melody, and he’d had a vision of his mother asking him, as though he were still a child, if he wanted her to pack him a lunch. Light streamed through the window over the kitchen sink, and for a split second he saw her sadness. Then something in the makeshift machine popped, sending a curl of plastic smoke into the air. The seniors had yelled shit and poured their Pepsi on the electrical fire, and Abe found himself back in the dank, oil-stained garage, as unenlightened as he’d ever been.
Later that night, in the safety of his room, Abe thought of how stupid he’d been. The DEA had scanners to pick up the bioenergetic emissions of neighborhoods. He’d risked his freedom for a split-second vision of his mother in the kitchen. And so he’d shaken his head, looked at his psychedelic black-light poster of the Dalai Lama, and told himself he was a fucking idiot.
And yet, here he was in Nepal, having gambled everything on this trip, approaching yet another tourist shop to ask for Moksha. The store was crouched down a narrow side street behind Durbar Square, far from the streets of Thamel, where shops sold colorful yak scarves and were filled with desperate tourists looking for cheap prayer flags. There the shopkeepers all shook their heads when Abe asked for Moksha, telling him to buy a thangka painting instead. But here, amid the collapsing buildings, where the kids played on piles of rubble and bricks, was a small storefront. An old woman sat on a stool, barely visible amid the stitched bags and prayer bowls.
“Namaste,” Abe said, and she answered by putting her palms together. “Moksha?” he asked.
She looked at him, her eyes silver between the lids. For a long time she said nothing, and Abe was about to give up when she asked, “How long you stay in Nepal?”
“Three weeks.” That was as long as he’d given himself to find enlightenment.
“Why you
By ten that night, the shops had shut down. Abe wandered back to his hotel to the sound of Beatles cover bands filtering down from terrace cafés. A couple skinny Nepali teens emerged from the darkness. “Hash, Pollen, Sex?” they asked, but when Abe asked for Moksha, they turned squirrelly and retreated back into the doorways. So Abe returned to his hotel room, stretched out on his bed, and wondered if it was all bullshit, and Jeff had sent him on a fool’s errand that’d cost him his savings.
Moksha, it turned out, wasn’t bullshit. It’d just gone into hiding ever since the twenties when the U.S. cracked down on Nepali distribution. There had been nonstop busts at yoga studios and health spas in the U.S. An oxygen bar in Sedona had been found with makeshift crown plates hooked up to an old Sega Genesis console. The CIA had confiscated the equipment and sentenced the owners, a gray-haired, dreadlocked couple, to life. By the time Abe was in high school, and just starting to get interested in experimenting with enlightenment, it was impossible to find. The U.S. government had strong-armed Eastern religions. Transcendental meditation classes were raided, tai chi groups disappeared from the parks, and churches began burning esoteric Buddhist texts. The closest Abe had come to scoring any enlightenment was when some seniors, troubled kids with a penchant for Lao-Tzu, had cannibalized an old iMac and built a crown plate out of tinfoil. Abe had placed the foil cap on his head and closed his eyes.
For a moment, sitting in the kid’s garage on a nylon beach chair, Abe had thought he felt something. He sensed a dull light behind his eyes, fuzzy and warm, and his heartbeat expanded. The sound of the air-conditioning unit kicking on droned into a melody, and he’d had a vision of his mother asking him, as though he were still a child, if he wanted her to pack him a lunch. Light streamed through the window over the kitchen sink, and for a split second he saw her sadness. Then something in the makeshift machine popped, sending a curl of plastic smoke into the air. The seniors had yelled shit and poured their Pepsi on the electrical fire, and Abe found himself back in the dank, oil-stained garage, as unenlightened as he’d ever been.
Later that night, in the safety of his room, Abe thought of how stupid he’d been. The DEA had scanners to pick up the bioenergetic emissions of neighborhoods. He’d risked his freedom for a split-second vision of his mother in the kitchen. And so he’d shaken his head, looked at his psychedelic black-light poster of the Dalai Lama, and told himself he was a fucking idiot.
And yet, here he was in Nepal, having gambled everything on this trip, approaching yet another tourist shop to ask for Moksha. The store was crouched down a narrow side street behind Durbar Square, far from the streets of Thamel, where shops sold colorful yak scarves and were filled with desperate tourists looking for cheap prayer flags. There the shopkeepers all shook their heads when Abe asked for Moksha, telling him to buy a thangka painting instead. But here, amid the collapsing buildings, where the kids played on piles of rubble and bricks, was a small storefront. An old woman sat on a stool, barely visible amid the stitched bags and prayer bowls.
“Namaste,” Abe said, and she answered by putting her palms together. “Moksha?” he asked.
She looked at him, her eyes silver between the lids. For a long time she said nothing, and Abe was about to give up when she asked, “How long you stay in Nepal?”
“Three weeks.” That was as long as he’d given himself to find enlightenment.
“Why you
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