{A.N.
Sorry for no release last week everyone. I was struggling with this and the next chapter and thought about holding it for a week to rewrite it when I was contacted for an in-person job interview in Glenpool, OK. Long story short, the interview took longer than expected and I wasn't in the mind frame to write much. Just found out yesterday that despite everything, I did not get the job so at least I'm not here telling you all about a planned move. So, my job search continues, hope my current job lasts long enough to find my next. Without further crying on my part, enjoy today's chapter.}
Wearily placing one foot in front of the other, I continued climbing what I thought might possibly, maybe be a trail...kind of. Well, it looked a little more worn down than the rest of the damn mountain. For the hundredth time, my mind flashed over the last few days.
26 hours of flight time, counting the plane switches, followed by a 9-hour bus ride. Those 9 hours were spent on a bus that was at full capacity with 30 people, and I stopped counting after the 60th person squeezed in after Rohan and I got our seats.
It was easy to count them as they got on the bus, because everyone stopped as their eyes were drawn to me by my size and skin coloration. The language of the land was Hindi and a multitude of other local dialects. But I still got the gist of how to say, "He is huge/A monster!" in most all the local languages now.
I couldn't really blame them, as apparently the average height for a male in Nepal was 5ft 4in, putting Rohan just at the norm. I however, was at 6ft 8in now and hoped it was where I would stay. Add to that, my last weigh-in was 310 pounds. I definitely stood out here. Maybe that's what helped keep me calm in the crowd. No reason to panic when you looked like the PE teacher in Elementary school, taking the kids outside for recess.
All the staring and muttering was a bit embarrassing, and I hoped that after a couple of hours, they would get over it and stop treating me like some stick of dynamite waiting to go off. They didn't, the looks and whispers lasted the entire 9 hours, and still followed as me and Rohan got off the bus.
As my mind wandered, my right hand reflexively moved to my chest. Since Edythe had given me my mother's necklace, after she discovered that it had been made and was in the memorial for the Denver Mall shooting victims. I had formed the habit of running my thumb over the face of it. However, this time my hand stopped in the middle of the movement.
The necklace wasn't there any longer. With my constant fear of shifting and losing or damaging it, I found the perfect place to leave it. I had taken it to a jeweler in Port Angeles and had the back engraved with a new message. It read "With you, Edythe. I leave a piece of my heart. Thomas", and then I had made it my birthday gift for Edythe.
Leaving a part of myself with her helped ease my guilt about leaving her for the summer. Something else I realized when I was at the Jeweler's was that Edythe's birthstone was the same as my mother's. A poster on the wall provided customers with the stones that represented their birthday, both traditional stones and newer versions.
Thinking of Edythe, my mind ran over my decision to leave Charlie's house before going on my trip to Nepal. The feeling of freedom was all I had hoped for, but it did present a bit of a problem between Edythe and myself. The night before her birthday, she had her mind set that we would consummate our relationship. I won't pretend to know everything that was going through her mind, but despite her actions, I could feel that she was pushing it because of the upcoming separation.
It had taken all my willpower and pulling in a bit of fire to keep her from pushing things too far. But in the end, I knew she was happy I convinced her to wait. I would never admit to just how close I had come to letting it happen. In the end, it was the fact that I wanted our relationship to last that pushed me to stop her.
The trail I was following led me around a bend and straight to a flat spot where a group of men were sitting. It looked like they were resting after walking the trail or waiting for something. Or someone I thought darkly. Rohan had left me this morning, saying the last part of the trip I had to take on my own. Finding Jiva's Home for the first time at my age had to be done alone.
The way they were spread out on the clearing meant I had to weave between them to pass. It irritated me a bit, but as I was new to the area, I let it go and kept moving.
(All dialogue will be in Hindi from here on.)
"Well, that was rude, Gora!"
Wow, someone was named Gora in that group? I thought that was a word for white in a derogatory sense. Well, the speaker was right, they were rude for blocking the trail that way. I shook my head and continued on. Until I felt a small rock hit me in the back.
"Can you not speak Nepali, Gora?"
I paused and looked over my shoulder at the men. One was now standing and had a golf ball sized rock bouncing in his hand, and the others were smiling in an irritating way. It took me back to when I was in Phoenix and surrounded by a group of punks whose leader wanted to prove he could beat up someone so much bigger than himself.
"When you said something about being rude, I assumed you were talking to one of your group for blocking the trail. As I have clearly not been rude to a bunch of mannerless vagabonds that have no hiking etiquette, I am sure you can understand my confusion."
The group turned red at my words. Trail etiquette here in Nepal was very important, according to Rohan. One of the men sitting said, "You sure have a big mouth on you, Outsider."
I smiled, "Well, I am a big man, little one. So, it's no surprise."
The man jumped up from his seated position, with the other two following his action. "You were the rude one for not speaking to us as you passed. Foreigner."
I turned to completely face them and walked back to the clearing. This was clearly a setup, the question was, why?
I looked at the four men and focused on the one who had the rock in his hand, ignoring the one I had traded insults with. "You are obviously here for a reason. Should I assume you were waiting for me?"
His black eyes showed surprise. "What makes you think that?"
I made a show of looking around them, "Well, you have nothing with you, so you aren't headed to town, no packs at all, so you most likely don't plan to be here during the night. And most of all, you are obviously trying to pick a fight with me. A stranger who is only here to learn of his family history. So... Shall we get started? I still have to find the village."
My directness seemed to surprise them, and the one I had traded insults with seemed to have the shortest temper. He was the first to charge at me, fists raised. Relying on only my base strength and speed, I waited until he entered my reach and swung a backhand that seemed to catch him by surprise. I wasn't sure what he was thinking when my blow landed, but he didn't think it for long as he collapsed to the ground, out cold.
The rock thrower decided he wanted to be my next target as he threw the rock in his hand directly at my face. I quickly dodged it and moved into striking range. His throwing the rock irritated me, so when I had an opening, I grabbed him by the neck with my left hand and delivered an overhand right to his face, and then another one. When I let him go, he too crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.
The remaining two were looking at each other, and I couldn't tell if they were asking what the hell happened or checking if the other guy was going first. Choosing one at random, jumped forward and delivered a Superman punch that left my standing opponents to just one man, who was backing away with his hands up and held open.
It had been so long since I fought against someone normal that I may have gone a little overboard. But I was feeling anxious being in a new land and was carrying a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Otherwise, I may have tried to talk them down a little more, instead of pushing the fight. Oh Well.
I dismissed the last man, turned my back to the group, and continued walking. Rohan said I should reach the village around sundown, and it was only noon.