Join My Cult - Original Falcon Press

passing through water. He caught her eyes behind her hair for a moment,
and felt his knees give way.
Flashing patterns in the goggles, the humming of the headset. The
vision was gone. I was lying in my dorm-room, curled in a ball, with the
“brain machine” throbbing and pulsing quietly beside me. I had received
this curious little box a month or so before from a tall, angular kid named
Nick who lived down the hall. We had been sitting up late in the main
lounge, and somehow our conversation had strayed onto the topic of
transferring energy, chakras—so called hippie-fruitcake-bullshit. I had of
course handed him a copy of my book, being the first to whore out material
to everyone and anyone who had a shred of interest in the subject
matter. The motivations behind this behavior probably aren’t what you
assume, but uprooting my motivations and intentions would be an arduous
task and I’m just trying to tell you about this strange flashing box
lying to my left.
So he says to me that he has been studying Theravada Buddhism, and
it really resonates with him. Like many of us, he had experienced some
form of existential crisis, maybe he was still going through it, and he
needed a place to put his faith and belief so he could get out of bed each
morning and feel like there was something to live for after all. I asked
him why he preferred Theravada to Mahayana—it’s like the difference
between joining the army and becoming a Ranger.
When we get to his room, he pulls out a 20 bag of coke and while
carefully cutting lines of it on his dresser drawer, he explains that he
feels trapped by his ego. And if you’re going to do something, you might
as well do it right. You won’t hear me argue with that. It’d be a rare person
who would claim that half-assed is the only way to go. Yet most of
us do just that—at best. So much for ideals.
“This is the end of it,” he says, finishing his line. “After this, I’m
going to the monastery.” His voice was even. I felt the reflex to laugh but
I could see a sort of frenetic seriousness in his piercing gaze. He wasn’t
joking. I didn’t ask what monastery, or how did he plan to get there, or
what will your parents think about it. Nor did I point out the powdery
frosting that was still coating his left nostril.
Sure enough an hour later he’s walking around the dorm knocking on
people’s doors, “Hey do you want my television?” “Do you want my
Gucci shirts?” I got his brain machine. A week later he was gone, off to
“the monastery.”
136