There Are Times When We Must Walk Toward the Darkest Dark

Because of the light from a television in the corner, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. The sound on the TV is off, but through the blizzard of staticky snow I can make out four western women sitting with shiny triangular glasses in their hands, the women sipping daintily. Then I see her. Down on her haunches in front of the stove. A little girl, probably no more than ten, the girl throwing dried dung in the fire, the flames brightening. When she sees my opponent, the girl jumps up and wraps her arms around his waist. For the briefest of moments, his aura wavers. The way the moon sometimes dons a halo, its skin as if smudged with light. He licks his fingers and wipes a dark smudge from the child’s face.

You’re off to Ulaanbaatar, the little girl says as my opponent carefully props the pool sticks in the corner by the altar. In the honored place next to a shot glass and an empty bottle of vodka, a young woman poses unsmiling in her best jacket, the Eiffel Tower in the background, though the cityscape is just a photographer’s backdrop.

It takes me a moment to realize the child is talking to me. I wonder how she knows my destination. Perhaps earlier today someone in the post office tells my opponent who somehow whispers it to her just now. I wonder if the girl knows what lies ahead of me. If I am up to the task. If I have anything to offer.

Yes, Littlest Sister, I say.

Tonight, she says.

Yes, Littlest Sister, I repeat.

Okay, she says. First let’s eat.

There is something about this girl. I know that to travel on the same path as this child and her guardian places me on a road toward darkness. I envision a ruin atop a hill, a circle of stones gleaming in the moonlight, and within this ruin, I know there is a place waiting for me. All the same I must continue on. Despite the vows I swear of highest integrity, there are times when we must walk toward the darkest dark, not because we believe in the dawn to follow, but because the darkest dark is simply the world as it is in that instant. This is what we must take refuge in. The truth of every moment, the way things are and not as we wish them to be. I am not to act in a manner that may bring shame on my brotherhood. I am simply to witness and be present to whatever is.

My opponent lays the burlap sack down on the floor. A clattering of bones, then the eight ball rolls out, a sudden hole in the darkness. The girl stuffs it back in with her foot.