“So you’re transphobic?”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying. Just that, like the straw, if we can figure out how to create more understanding, compassion, and inclusion for transgender, then we’ll be one step closer to understanding how to overcome racism.”

  “So transgender are straws? Is that what you’re saying? What, because you suck them both? Sounds pretty transphobic to me.”

  “They’re symbols,” said Isaac, feeling himself neck-deep in tar. “The easy battle. But a victory in either one means a greater chance in winning the war on greed and intolerance.”

  Alice took a sip of her cocktail.

  “I suppose,” she said. “Still….vaccines.”

  His heart sank, as did he, beneath the bubbling tar.

  “I know that correlation doesn’t equal causation; I’m not stupid, I am scientifically minded. But you look at how common autism has become in modern society since the rapid spread of vaccinations and you don’t need to be a scientist to see that one relates to the other. If you ask me,” she said; which he needn’t for she would say anyway. “Governments, fascist bankers, and capitalist bourgeoisie pigs are making autism the norm so that people are less connected and more connected to their devices and technology to dismantle humanism and the social paradigm, so as to have the proletariat enslave themselves to machines and the internet and robot sex dolls, and…”

  “Would Madame like another drink?” said The Waiter, rushing in like a cool afternoon breeze.

  Alice swallowed the rest of her cocktail.

  “Bring me two,” she said. “Oh, and a straw. It gets you more drunk.”

  “And sir?”

  “Whiskey,” said Isaac. “As much as possible.”

  “Contrary to what anyone else might have told you,” said Alice, halfway through chewing this and that. “We’re not having sex tonight.”

  Then she went into great detail about how long it had taken her to make the pillow, which then led to ten minutes of her talking in-depth about her passion for ketamine and rave culture, and her disgust for patriarchy and most men in general, but particularly her father. “So,” she said at the end of her diatribe. “What do you think?”

  He’d drunk enough now to not be brash with what he truly felt.

  “I agree,” he said, being too drunk to remember a word of what she has said.

  “Not about that, about me. What do you think about me?”

  She posed playfully and exaggerating.

  “You’re great,” he said. “I’m having a great time.”

  “I like you,” she said. “You’re not so bad for a man.”

  “Thank you?”

  “The world is a mirror, you know?”

  “Is it?”

  Isaac stared at his glass of whiskey. He had reached that point where, deep inside he knew that, if he drank another drop, he’d spent the rest of the night with his head hanging into a toilet bowl offering reparations to a god he in which did not believe. And in spite of all that, he took one more sip.

  “A mirror,” said Alice again, this time in dramatic overtone. “The world is a mirror. That’s all we’re ever really looking for is ourselves. We ask questions like, ‘Do you like so and so’ because we like that thing and if you answer yes to all of them we love you – why? – because we love ourselves. I’m looking for me in you and you’re looking for you in me. We’re looking for ourselves in everyone and everything; for proof that we exist – proof for our ego. Wow,” she said, looking down through the hole in her straw. “These cocktails are really tingly. I’m still not gonna have sex, though. So don’t try to nudge me; not even a little. Ok a little,” she said, laughing. “I was speaking to one of my girlfriends the other day. She was saying how her boyfriend is just being a lazy bum and not making anything of his life, just lazing about playing games and making little effort towards reaching his potential; at least in her books, you know? Thing is, she has been on this personal quest for the last couple of months – started exercising more, manifesting positive sentiments, and I’m pretty sure she went vegan too. So I told her she wasn’t angry with her boyfriend, she was angry at herself. He’s a mirror, you see? So, when she looked at him, she saw herself how she used to be a month or two earlier. So it’s not really about him playing games all day, it’s about her not fully appreciating who she is and loving, not just the woman she is, but accepting and appreciating the woman she left behind. I’m a Libra, by the way. But I guess you could tell. Are you sure you’re not a Gemini? I swear,” she said, ordering another drink. “These cocktails make me so horny.”

  Track 16 (Yellow)

  “Pain does not exist,” shouted The Master as Graham struggled under the weight of not only his body but of his mind too. His thoughts were heavy, and of them, there were many; and all of them hinged upon a litany of his failures.

  “Pain is just a thought,” he continued. “And thoughts are but clouds in the mind. Your breath, though, is the wind that blows those worrying clouds away. So breathe,” he screamed. “Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. You are only breathing, nothing more. Your body is carrying itself. There is no weight. There is no strain. There is no pain. There is nothing but the very next breath.”

  Graham heaved air in and out of his body. He fought as hard a she could to push the clouds away but the more they swirled about, the more monstrous they became until he could lift his body no more and he collapsed into a sweaty decrepit heap; shaking and moaning and gasping like a punctured tyre.

  “I’m impressed,” said The Master, feeding Graham the confidence he craved. “Do not be disheartened by failure. The point of our practice is to fail, each and every time. We push our mind and our body past the point of exhaustion and giving up; for the former is a thought and the latter a choice. We push the body and the mind to failure for there we find and we redefine the limit. If you are not failing, you are sitting still; you are content and you are not evolving. Here in our dojo, we practice the art of failure so that when you go out there in the real world, you climb every mountain, you put out every fire, and you catch every bullet with your teeth.”

  The constant pain was almost too much to bear. Graham moaned, as did the rest of the class, only his sounded as if he had swallowed a baby seal that was crying out for its mother.

  “You are not here to feel good about yourself. This is not an exercise in pleasure. Let me make this patently clear, you are here to suffer; and inside this dojo, you will suffer.”

  “Yes, Master,” shouted the class amidst expedited breaths. “Thank you, Master.”

  They sounded more grateful than submissive.

  “You must choose your own suffering,” said The Master, slowly walking between the circle of wrecked bodies. “Lest someone choose for you.”

  “Yes, Master,” they chanted, pushing their bodies into unfortunate positions, the kind that toddlers and invertebrates found no challenge in whatsoever - past the point of fear, pain, and exhaustion.

  “Life is suffering. We all must suffer. It is part of our growth. A tiny flower hidden neath a canopy of shadows must crane its neck to meet the sun. You will suffer in life; that is a guarantee. But how, where, and with whom you suffer is entirely a condition of your choosing.”

  One by one the students collapsed on the floor, their crippled arms incapable of lifting a grain of sand, let alone their preposterously heavy bodies. One by one they fell, and one by one The Master screamed in their ears, reminding them that they had all chosen to be here and so, not only should they get back up, but that they should smile too.

  “If you don’t choose your suffering,” he repeated, for the fiftieth time. “A lesser suffering will be chosen for you. What is then,” he said, “a noble suffering?”

  His questions were not meant to be answered. Whereas each of his light kicks to his students’ abdominals was a reminder to align their posture and exert more concentrated force, each question was much the same – a slight rattle of the senses or a kick to their beleaguering thoughts so as to be mindful, calculated, and astute in the midst of suffering.

  “A noble suffering is the suffering of your choosing that does you well. Most of the suffering I see about, and maybe the reason you came here in the first place, is lesser suffering and most of it born out of pleasure, the kind derived from scintillating your mouths. A baby will discover its world by testing everything in its mouth. It will derive pleasure, interest, and disgust by its mouth alone. And it will grow to only be interested in pleasure, stuffing its face with burgers, cakes, soda, and kisses until the suffering that is chosen for them is obesity, depression, and bad relationships. If you only seek pleasure, your suffering will be sweeter than any cake and more perverse than any kiss. You suffer here so that you suffer nowhere else,” he said. “You chose this suffering and because of it, every other one of your choices will be embossed in nobility – from the food you eat to the company you keep. Each choice will bring you closer to the light.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  His words ended right as an alarm sounded and the whole class collapsed on the floor; some of them laughing and some of them cursing, but all of them better in some way, from what they had endured.

  “Choose a noble suffering,” said The Master. “Lest a lesser one be chosen for you.”

  Then he clapped his hands once and the entire class was on their feet bowing and in no time at all, shaking each other’s hands, and hobbling out the door. Still delirious and shaking from the training, Graham collapsed back onto the floor and huffed and puffed like a dirty old steam train.

  “Let’s do some stretches,” said The Master.

  Then he sat down beside Graham and twisted his legs in unfathomable positions for a man of his size and stature. Graham tried to follow suit but he had all the elasticity of a floorboard. He tried, though, to twist his body until he felt it about to snap and then he let go, certain that it would. His face was shaped like everything he had ever given up on in his life. He looked helpless, incapable, and on the verge of tears.

  “One does not overcome their fears, Graham. A true warrior is courageous in light of them. I have spent a lifetime fighting and even to this day, before every fight or spar, I walk into the ring with fear in my belly. And you can see how much fear can fit in this belly,” he said laughing as he shook his massive stomach like a bag of milk and lard. “In light of that, I fill my heart with love; and that love makes me more than courageous, it makes me something to fear. Real heroes,” he said, “aren’t the ones who are born stoic; they’re the ones who are forced to figure out a way to be. What would life be without death? It’s the knowing of death that makes a man choose to live. Without death, he would merely exist. And that’s why a robot could never write a symphony; not one that mattered anyway. It’s the same for heroes. A hero is a hero not for having saved a life, but for having chosen to do so – only at that moment is he embossed in heroism. Without fear none of that would be possible.”

  “I’m scared of everything at the moment,” said Graham.

  It was just the two of them in the dojo. It was late and it was raining again. The tin roof made it sound like there was a hurricane beating down on them and that at any second, the roof would be ripped right off. For the first time in a long time, though, it felt completely natural talking about the things that terrified him most.

  Were they kids, those things might have been tarantulas, werewolves, and thunderstorms; now that he was middle-aged, overweight, and balding, werewolves were still an issue, but in place of tarantulas and thunderstorms were tsunamis and parasitic worms – he couldn’t watch anything on a nature channel without imagining his kids being mauled, drowned, or turned into mindless zombies by single-celled organisms.

  “What do you do?” asked The Master.

  “I’m a scientist; and all things considered, not a very good one.”

  “We can be terrible judges of ourselves especially if we have never once seen ourselves accomplish a single thing – even when we have, in fact, amassed a lifetime of accomplishment. We are always looking out at the mountain – inch by inch, problem by problem - we are climbing and yet not once do we ever actually see ourselves on that mountain. All we see is the way we should have gone whereas the rest of the world sees the path we took. It’s not your place to judge whether you are good or a bad scientist. Your job is merely to do science. Let those watching below from the foot of the mountain judge you. It’s their right. And they’re probably better at it than you are – more fair at least. They are the ones watching after all.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  The Master stared off into the distance as if he had caught a glimpse of a ghost. Were this a film he would be clearly overacting, aiming his expression for an audience a thousand yards away, but this was real life and nothing was ever that obvious.

  “I haven’t had an easy life,” he said. “I’ve battled for everything that I have. I can say, though, that I’ve lived an honest life where others might have chosen a far easier path to success. Everything I have I’ve built and crafted myself. Everything I have is here in this dojo. It’s the only family I have. I made that choice a long time ago – dedicating my life to my art. I sacrificed and forsake the idea of having a family so that I could father the light of Wu-Shun Karate for the next generation as my master did before me. And one day I will find the right student who, when I die, will make that same promise and carry that light.”

  “You ever wonder if maybe you’re doing it all wrong?”

  “Never,” said The Master as if he were refusing a cookie or a second helping of cheese. “Do you?”

  And it seemed as if both were waiting for the other to make the first move.

  “Nah,” said Graham. “Of course not.”

  “Yeah, nah, me neither,” said The Master.

  They both sounded as if what they needed more than anything was a hug.

  “I admire you,” said The Master. “Maybe even a little envious in a way,”

  “Me? Why?”

  “You bare all the markings of a hero.”

  “I do?”

  “Trust me; I’ve seen my fair share.”

  His words reeked of shell-shocked bravado; the type etched in stone as epitaphs for fallen heroes. Whether or not they were true was not as important.

  “Have you ever been in a fight?” asked Graham.

  The Master stared at the rain. His silence said more than words ever could.

  “Look at these knuckles,” he said, holding his little fist right at Graham’s face.

  They looked smooth, like a fresh tub of butter.

  “You be the judge,” he said.

  Graham didn’t know any better; just seeing a fist up that close was enough to make him panic. He didn’t show it, though. He acted like he’d been face to face with fists his whole life.

  “Your day will come,” said The Master. “You’re different from my other students. I knew from the second you walked in. I told myself, ‘There’s something remarkable about this one here. Prepare to be stunned’. And I was right.”

  “Really?”

  Were this a movie; right about now was where he would have been presented with an ancient scroll, a colourful sash, and a blessed dagger.

  “There is someone I want you to meet,” said The Master.

  He made it sound covert and clandestine.

  “The Empath; a quantum healer with far-reaching powers,” he said. “A capacity, not just to heal, but in cases like yours, to unlock deep-seated life forces. I will say no more.”

  Then he rested his hands on Graham’s shoulders as if he was knighting him.

  “Now,” he said. “It’s time for you to be heroic.”

  Track 17 (Yellow)

  Graham was led out into the night where, with the wind and rain conspiring against them, they – the master and his apprentice - walked as if their bodies were carved of granite, impervious to Mother Nature’s cold wintry wrath.

  “We are here,” said The Master.

  They stopped at the shop next door, a small chemist for homeopathic medicine where both men stood in reverent awe. Its windows were painted as black as the night sky with trillions of bright little stars and constellations scattered about.

  “After you,” said Wu-Shin. “Left foot first.”

  The sense of mystery and how seriously it was spoken as if the right foot first might cause some rancid infection, had Graham totally absorbed. As he pressed his left foot down, his whole body seemed to electrify as if an ancient part of his self – something that had existed since long before mankind was even a single cell - had been awakened and unstuck from its broken seal.

  “Do not be frightened,” said a voice, a woman’s voice.

  If he wasn’t frightened then, he was now.

  “Step beneath the cleansing crystals,” she said. “And do not possess a mere thought.”

  The Master pressed a firm hand on Graham’s shoulder. It told him all he needed to know. So, in spite of his fear, he amassed enough bravery in his mind and his heart to step into the sparkling blue light.

  “He is the one that you mentioned?” she said.

  Her voice sounded like waves breaking on the shore.

  “He is,” said The Master, his words enamoured in fear and respect.

  “Come through,” she said. “And please, wipe the past from your feet.”

  As if he had passed through some celestial portal, Graham felt himself becoming the very person he imagined that The Master believed that he was. He stepped through the blue light and into a dimly lit room where the orange hue from burning incense guided him to the table covered in Jasmine and Thyme.

  “You can lie down if you so choose.”

  Graham stared at the table unsure really what he was supposed to do next. He looked around for The Master but it was just the two of them now, barely lit by the flicker of incense. Awkwardly, Graham picked at the first button on his shirt for what seemed like forever.