Near 500 words: Pilgrimage

Sona was an American girl who went off to India, then ended up in Nepal. She loved the Hindu festivals, especially Holi. She met Guy in Kathmandu, fell in love and wanted to get married. Guy was having none of it. He was there on his father’s dime and he knew he wouldn’t approve of Sona. She wasn’t his dad’s kind of girl. But he just couldn’t tell Sona. So he took the coward’s way out and left in the middle of the night.

The next morning she woke up. Guy wasn’t anywhere near her. She waited a week, then decided he wasn’t coming back. “Son of a bitch,” she said.

Her guru told her that Guy was her karma. In a previous life, she had done the same to the several men in her life. It wasn’t punishment. It was the universe setting things to right. It still hurt. But Sona smiled and moved on.

That was when she met Wu. Wu left Shanghai and came on pilgrimage to the Ganges. He was tall and Chinese. Everything about him was Chinese. He even ate with chopsticks. Sona learned to eat with chopsticks. It only seemed the right thing to do.

Sona’s guru told her that Wu would leave her as well. So she up and left him. Better to be the leaver than the leftee.

Somehow Sona found her way to the Dalai Lama. He wasn’t quite what she expected. He was just as human as she was. The Dalai Lama was a busy man, but he managed to tell her about the Buddha. Sona being Sona gave up her guru and began a sitting practice. She sat in front of a mandala and meditated. Some days she did this for hours, some days for only a few minutes.

One night she walked through the streets of the city she happened to be in. They were streets that had once been built by the British. Down the street, she saw the man who was to be with her for the rest of her days. It was Guy.

“You left me,” she said to tall, dark and handsome.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the short, blonde haired girl. “I needed to think. I went home and talked to my dad. He had a woman all picked out for me. I met her. The night before the wedding I had a dream. You were in that dream. I realized I was not going to be happy with anyone other than you.”

The two kissed under a giant moon. They turned to it and realized that the Buddha had given them this moon. That night they made love. The next day the Dalai Lama with that Dalai Lama smile of his married Sona and Guy. He was happy that they had found each other. And he knew something neither knew. Sona was carrying the next Dalai Lama.