After Life
Buddha suddenly woke up one day when the rest of the town was fast asleep. He could feel the stiffness in his body. As he loosened his crossed legs, he heard his bones creak and groan like rusted metal parts of an abandoned chariot. How long had he been like this? How long had he been asleep? —he couldn't tell. He looked around but he couldn't make any sense of his surroundings. It was too dark and silent. A gentle blow of the air ruffling the leaves made him realize, he was seated under a tree. This sensation felt oddly familiar— like something he had already done, in another lifetime perhaps. What was not familiar was the bone-chilling cold the air carried with it. Intuition told him the gentle wind was supposed to be soothing. Something was not quite right. He stepped down the stairs and came outside the shade of the peepal tree and turned his gaze to the only source of light, the sky. In the island among the clouds, he saw some stars. With nothing else to...