flash friday 1-24-14 zen, nano, shuffle, touch in Flash Friday

zen, nano, shuffle, touch (I refuse to be lead to a creative labs mp3 player flash, though, bang for buck the zen stone is the best little mp3 player ever)

“So, yeah, the guy told me some story that, I think, was supposed to be Zen,” he shuffled on his bar stool, I pushed the peanuts towards him “it went something like this ---“ He pushed the peanut bowl back. I made a mental note, it’s a test of personal space, classically done with condiments and usually sober.

“These two American buddies are trying to get to Lhasa ---“ he paused, I pushed the peanuts closer and turn his coaster about 15 degrees. “--- maybe not Lhasa, but they’re going to some holy place and they have to cross the Himalayas …” he shuffled on his stool, righted the coaster, though his beer was on the wood bar top, pushed the peanuts back “And it’s like the last day the Sherpa guides can take them before the weather changes. They’re at base camp and there are a few other groups of Europeans with their own sherpas and whatnot.”

This blonde at one of the tables laughs sharply at something and flips her hair. It’s a signal, ‘Dude you can get some if you shut the fuck up and try to get some’. I want to push peanuts at her. My friend waits until he has my attention again.

“So they get an early start and they’re almost at the summit where the trail is that’s going to close down for the season and they see this guy, a --- monk? No that’s not right. Some crazy sort of zealot, common name, I can’t think of it, but dude is half naked, unconscious and bruised against a rock down this steep incline off trail.”

I twist his coaster around, he pushes my hand still.

“So they send a couple sherpas down to haul the guy up, give him a blanket, some hot cocoa or some such shit, and the one guy, let’s call him Charlie is all like ‘Just enough daylight to make it, or else we go home and I don’t know if we’ll ever come back’ and the other guy let’s call him Frank he’s all like ‘This man needs medical attention, we should take him back to base camp’ and they sort of talk it out, send the holy guy down with a couple spare guys to the Swiss camp, they had this guy who busted a leg and weren’t going to make the journey anyway. Frank relents with reservations.”

The blonde and her friend leave the two guys at the table and go to the bathroom together. I can tell by the way she’s walking that dude, whichever one, had missed his window; no switch and twitch, more of a march.

“So they’re setting in some holy Tibetan city sipping yak tea or whatever and Charlie is all blissed out because they made it and the trip had been some lifelong bucket list shit or other. Frank he gets all pissy …”

He just stopped. I was watching the blonde and her friend coming back from the can, her face changing from frustrated seething to a stewardess paint by numbers smile as she rounded the corner. My friend was waiting for my attention.

“And?” I asked.

“I don’t remember the exact wording of the punch line or moral or lesson, but Frank was basically like ‘we fucked up’ and Charlie was ‘no, we helped a guy in need as best we could’ and Frank, and this is where it gets fuzzy, is all ‘No, not as best we could. A man is wounded, half frozen, fucked up and we gave him a blanket and passed him down so we could go on with our shit. We passed the buck, we did marginally adequate, we didn’t even pass the buck ourselves, we sent our guys to do it. I mean this holy city is cool and shit, and this is the best yak spit I’ve ever drunk, but shit, that was a man’s life, we doled out the least possible amount of compassion, just shy of just leaving him there, because his timing for a mortal crisis was inconvenient for us.”

I stared at him, pulled the peanuts closer to me. He shuffled on his stool again. He touched my hand and held it to the peanut bowl.

“I might not have told it right. Did that make sense?”

The blonde noticed me. Her smile was not unkind.

“yes.”

Prompt

Spent the revolution in the madhouse