And speaking of trembling, here’s Viggo, still standing in the chapel basement in 1998, trembling beside the orange bucket. Dear Viggo. Do you know what we wish for you? For you to learn kung fu. For you to be able to kick and fly magically around. That would sort everything out for you, Viggo. You could impress people with your flying and sword skills. Oh, dear readers, how we wish that Viggo could be sitting on a plane bound for China right now, leaning his head against the window and thinking about his life, which has been like this and this and this, but now will be this, this, and this. Mentally preparing to turn his life around, that’s what he would be doing. We would like him to be picked up at the airport in Beijing and driven to some steps deep in the forest, a long flight of steps he’ll have to ascend to meet the kung fu master who will train him with steely discipline. Viggo would have to go up and down this long flight of steps several times a day to get water from the forest, but he’ll understand that it’s all part of his training, and so pick up the bucket and start his descent.
* * *
It would be hard, and the metal handle on the bucket would cut into the palm of his hand, and his feet would start to bleed, but the light in the Chinese valley would be so beautiful that it would fill him with hope, and the thought that this is all part of the purification process, this will make me stronger. And each time he would descend into the shadows with the bucket, there would be less and less light at the top of the steps as evening fell, and he would think: so this is what purification is like. You have to go down and down into the shadows. Your palm hurts more and more. But when the little evening light that was left hit the orange bucket, the water in it would sparkle like a lump of amber, and he would think: I am free.
* * *
And so the days would pass. He would learn one trick after another with dogged patience: to punch his hand through a brick wall; to lift himself up from the ground on one finger, stretching his body up from this single fingertip; to fly between soft green trees. He would become a completely different person, with a completely different life.
* * *
Oh, how we wish you could have all this, Viggo! But, instead, here he is, standing in the chapel basement in 1998, trembling.