11. The ghost

 

HIRO pushed the doors of the temple and a little of the light of the outside tinted with gold the half-light. One instant the statues have radiated with another flame that the one of the oil lamps.

It was necessary to give light to this place and the one who was lying was going to bring it. Sure. With the flames as well!

HIRO approached the Master who seemed to doze near the lying body, leaning against the thigh of the wooden statue. He did not make more noise than the wing of the swallow cutting the silky air of the small hour. The door had revolved in silence on its lubricated hinges.

The old man seemed to sleep and HIRO settled down beside him, against the knee of the statue.

He saw with his eyes of healer what considerable work his old companion has achieved during this night. The belly of the young man was inflating under the smooth and muscular skin. This belly there accompanied the air and pushed it in the ribs which were also heaving, in the same slowed down movement.

There was no more suffering in the body. The flesh had blossomed again under the skin and blood circulated on the surface.

HIRO knew the extraordinary work that it was to bring back to the life this man who did not want anymore of this life that the men had to propose to him. He did not need explanation. He has dreamed it. He has dreamed an old man going to lie down in the snow on a dead body to bring it back to the life. He has seen an enormous stone at the top of them and this stone was as a roof which retained their heat and which made obstacle to the cold of the life which wanted to leave. He has also seen with his eyes the carriage which descended from the mountain. He knew then that it will be difficult because the color which went out of the covers gave the extent of the suffering of the man who has ceased with “these stupidities”. It is this word which came to him behind the forehead when he was at the top of the palisade. It was a word of his old companion, the Master. He said to have heard it during a voyage in the countries of the West, very far, where the men have a large nose and a white skin. He had liked the tonality of these words. He had brought them back with him in the mountains. Sometimes, he said them. Almost a play, just to hear the sonority, and they laughed at it both of them. They had fun to throw out these words in the air of the night when they were sitting close to the river in the evenings of great heat.

 

Now, he knows that “these stupidities” there are in front of him. In this body which is lying. He knows that it will be difficult.

But it is necessary that light enters again the temple which has been enlightened since a long time only by the oil lamps.

- I was waiting for you, my friend, says the old Master.

He had not raised the eyelids on his tired eyes. His lips were half-opened and the sounds which were necessary went out.

Because HIRO had hoped of all his forces that his old companion was going to wait for him to make again rise the day in the eyes of the one who was lying.

He had wanted it into his belly and his flesh. He did not see only the opening of these eyes there when he was close to the chimney to direct the meditation.

Then, it was necessary that he deals with everything, as usual.

He must not go too quickly with the girl. This one required to be supported because she did not know a lot of thing anymore, except that light had entered her eyes and radiated in her heart, but of this light there, she did not know what to make of it.

So, he had taken his time with her.

But he felt the day to progress over the night and he wanted that the day does not rise in the eyes of the one who was going to become the new Master without him.

- I knew, blew HIRO.

He does not say anything else. His waist was curved and the forehead gave three long sounds on the parquet.

 

-It is your turn, now, said the ROSHI.

The old man had pulled towards him a cape which was on the shoulder of the Force of Compassion and he placed it on his back. The edges came on the shoulders and he adjusted it with a meticulous care.

HIRO left him time to install himself like the tradition wanted it.

Then he has placed his hands on the belly of the young man in front of him. His knee rested against the ribs and he pressed at the same time than the hands.

He has redone the movement seven times, then he stopped. He took again a full breathing and spanned the body. On the other side he took again the same position. Then he pressed.

Now, the body was between the two men. The ROSHI observed with an extreme attention the skin of the face of the young man. This made him fold the eyebrows. He must say to HIRO the exact moment where the eyelids will be slightly contracted and the appearance of a vertical fold under the third eye. Just at this moment.

The ROSHI bent himself and attracted an oil lamp. He placed it close to the face of the one who was lying.

- My son, he said blowing in the right ear, you will become again now a man standing up.

HIRO waited that the Master, his old travelling companion, the one who had taught him so much, has put again his hands in his great sleeves of the dress. The old man had a reticence to cease caressing the face of that one lying and he noticed that HIRO smiled about it.

- You understand…. After, he will not be thus anymore because that one, this is not the softness which it will be necessary to show him to make him live.

- I had understood well, my friend, blew HIRO. Take your time. You know that now he is under the protection of the Gods and that his nourishment is not the one that I could give him as cook.

The tart laughter of the ROSHI tinkled in the half-light. He liked the expressions of his old travelling companion.

- Yes, you are right and you know it well. The nourishment which he will need will not come from your kitchens! Hey, are you not mortified by it, you who see so well to the rejuvenation of the flesh in this place?

- Yes, said HIRO while laughing gently. You cannot know how I am mortified by it!

The ROSHI stared at his belly and HIRO felt that his old companion tested the force that the age had again kept to him. He let himself make because he knew also that work in front of him would be enormous.

- It is not yet that he is hideous and that he will always not smell good with the skin that he has, he said while bending himself on the lying body, but there will be rumpus in the Family when they will discover who will be their next Master.

He spoke so that time passes. Only for the time. Because they know both of them what will be and they knew each other so much that the words did not need to be.

But there were again time in front of them. A time at them that they could make run at their suitability.

In a moment, it will not be so anymore. When they will have make open the eyes to the one lying.

- You did a good work, repeats HIRO by examining the supple breathing of the young man.

HE had placed his hands flat on the belly. His fingers had drawn aside the sides of the shirt, then the hands disappeared under the fabrics.

There again, the Master cook has drawn aside the lips to make go out the sounds in the half-light of the temple. Only to make run time and fill it with a movement of kindness. Because it was kindness the words and the gestures which came from them. They were only a little bit afraid of the moment where they will practice the secret method of reanimation of the almost dead. They are not afraid of it by itself. They know well. But the one who is lying will open the eyes and at the bottom of these deep orbits largely protected by very protruding arches of the eyebrows and shaggy eyebrows, there will be a flame. This is that one which frightens them. So, they talk to each other and play with their powerful energy to fill the place until the place says to them itself that Time is accomplished. It will then be necessary to implement what the former Masters taught them and what they have repeated themselves thousands of times in the shade of the secret room dug in the mountain in waiting for this moment.

- The old Master knew this moment, says the ROSHI

- Yes, blew HIRO by caressing the smooth and muscular belly of the young man…. He knew it.

- It is for that he had so much insisted to transmit this secret technique to us before dying and that on his almost death bed, it is what he made me promise: to maintain each day this technique for the crucial moment to come… He did not say anything else. The last breath had just moved his belly.

- Ah, this is that which he whispered to your ear in his last instants! … You have never spoken about it. You know that I had always wondered what you were hiding.

- I did not hide anything to you, my friend. I did not know then at the time the importance of this technique, nor his utility which was reducing with the years when I did not meet the one who would come behind me… Then, you see, my friend, I have continued to maintain and to improve this technique because I had promised and this promise carried me very far in knowledge. I realized the extreme importance of the gift really later. I did not know before. I was a young dog which believed to know everything.

- Like him, says HIRO.

He looked at the face of the young man. Under his palm there was blood which beat. That one had again the life in the veins.

- Yes, like him, blew the ROSHI. But him, he comes back from farther than me..... Me, I had moved away from the men in a hermitage. He, he has wanted to die. He will come back from far and his fury can be terrible.

- Yes, terrible said HIRO. The force which slips under my hands is that of a God who would have coupled himself with a demon howling with fury.

- With fury…. You are right my friend.

HIRO closed the eyes. The breath of the young man gained in intensity and carried now his fog in the fresh air of the temple.

- It is thus for that which you taught me the secret technique from reanimation of dead?

- Yes…. With the years which came, I did not see the one to whom I was going to be able to give the Transmission of the Seals….

- Then, you said yourselves that may be I would survive you and that me…

- May be. May be. You know, one can never know the power of a Master as long as one is not confronted to him. Then the one of That One who was before me, was as a warmth which pushed me to share with you the knowledge of this practice. I did not know for the future. You know, I have always hoped to be able one day to give again what was given to me and add to it even more kindness and patience so that the Man grows still and still…

- Of patience, it will be necessary that you have a good load of it with such an individual! It is hardly believable that the Gods have chosen this being!

- Yes, I believed…

 

The ROSHI was interrupted by the creak of the wood of the statue of the Compassion. A net creak like it does it when the summer comes to heat the roofs and that the temperature changes brutally between the night and the day. But it is the spring which starts to turn up. Not the summer.

The two men stretched the ear and left themselves carried by the sound which has vibrated lengthily in the room. It seemed to them that the statue was opening.

- It is Time, says the ROSHI while sitting up straight.

He carried all his weight on the folded knees and he pressed strongly on the parquet.

HIRO did not say anything. Now, him, he has to be silent. He placed his hands above the chest of the young man. He waited for the song of the Master to start.

 

The sounds came. Deep and heavy. One would have said that enormous stones rolled in the belly of the earth and that one heard them on the surface, where the life of the men is.

The sounds went up and the statues started to vibrate. It is the Force of the Compassion which started. Then the sound was spread around him, wrapped the two men and gained the other attentive Divinities. They seemed to wait for this agreement. They opened their belly and the sound was spread beyond what the Men can see in their most mad dreams.

The ROSHI and the master cook let the sound carry their gesture. It is the node of the Practice. The former master had insisted on this point, this passage between the Men and the Gods.

But now that the practice is done with the Force of the Gods, they are submerged by the Incredible which passes on their head. This Incredible has a blue color and a spiral shape and an enormous force and that turns around the body of the one who is lying.

This moving force caresses the face of the young man now, as if it wanted to recognize it. It is the movement of a mother who would seek the features of the face of her son in the black to be certain that it is really him.

The ROSHI knows now that he was always carried by a force larger than him, a force exceeding all his Supreme Perceptions. There was this material presence of the Gods and those there say their presence today because it is necessary to blow the life at the one who does not want anymore and who is their son at them.

- It is them which put him to the test, blew HIRO, It is them!

- Yes… It is them and I know it now. Thus all is well!

 

The color became clearer with a blue prevalence with gold. It took the shape of a thick fog which wrapped them. Then it gets narrower, as if it was concentrating and the two men felt its extraordinary power.

Then, it caressed the belly of the young man, it looked for the legs and the arms. Then it was prolonging on the chest and the neck.

The old Master continued to let the sounds going out of his throat, these sounds which came from the deepest of the earth and which he has needed thirty years to master. He looked at. He also could not make some other way that to look at, without concern of the tears which came in the eyes and which ran on the cheeks. The body said its emotion and nothing could prevent it from doing so: the fog of gold and blue lay down on the young man! Like him, the old Master, he had felt that it had to be done the night under the rock.

It lay down and it started to breathe on the body.

Then, the extraordinary came.

The fog started to disappear in the body. It entered inside. It entered inside! The old Master of the past had not said anything of this stage of the practice. He had not said anything of the fog and of its coloring. He had just spoken only of the sounds and of the movements of the hands to lavish on the body during the practice. Did he know, him?

The Force penetrated the body and the body absorbed it.

They could see then that other colors entered the flesh of the young man following the gold blue.

- By All the Gods. It enters the whole Universe there! Howls HIRO which was unable to control himself anymore.

His hands made the gestures learned thousand times on the body. He did them. But his flesh vibrated and it seemed to him that his brain burst on unknown spaces.

The ROSHI beckoned to him to be silent and then he began the other song … The one of the welcoming of a God among the Men.

The sounds reverberated less hard against the bones of their skull. The statues were closing. A funny smile was on their lips.

 

HIRO did the last gestures of the practice on the face of the one who was lying.

The ROSHI bent and approached the oil lamp.

The eyelids vibrated. Gently.

He knew that his son was going to open the eyes and a shiver undulated in his spine. He threw a glance at HIRO and he saw this one was at the same point as him.

He put his hand flat on the forehead of his son. HIRO did the gesture of raising the eyelids of the palm.

Then, the skin of the young man was contracting. It folded towards the eyebrows, without one blinking. A sphere was behind and the center was dark brown, almost black. At the bottom, there was a wall which rejected the light and this wall increased their shiver.

Then, it was now necessary to let him become aware of his body and of the presence of his body in the space of the Men.

They could not prevent themselves from following step by step the light which filled the deep and almost black orbits. The light which entered in there had of red and spangle of gold. The Adam’s apple ascended three times and saliva was born in the mouth.

The young man swallows. He did not move the head, or the body. Only his eyes undulated in the orbits as if from them he could see the World.

He made thus the turn of space then came back on the two attentive silhouettes beside him. He examined them.

There was reproach in his eyes!

 

Then, he closed the eyelids on the gleam which was born at the bottom of his orbits. His jaws were closing and the teeth squeaked.

 

 

 

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