Ken Trimble #47 The Hope trilogy part three

Hope loved to dream. Every night of his life he woke from dreaming. Sometimes he dreamt of a monk holding his hand by his bedside or kneeling at the foot of the guru. He dreamt of strange games of golf in strange houses with strange rooms and even stranger corridors. He dreamt of trains coming and going , he was always early or too late. He dreamt of flying into outer space and seeing the earth like that photo from Apollo. He dreamt of serpents and altars and lots of dark water.  He dreamt of being told to read the transmigration of the soul. Hope's whole life had become one long Dali painting.  He felt different from others.

Hope never felt Australian , he had a nowhere identity. Hope wanted to burn the flag. Sometimes he felt invisible and in some strange way he was making the world just by the power of his own will. People didn't exist until he thought them up. In Australia he felt like a prisoner  and that's why he travelled. He wanted to lose himself to find himself. His anonymity  gave him freedom.

He chose India to lose himself because of its madness and eccentricity. There you could be anyone. Hope had the gift of hurt for it allowed a certain sensitivity to see and touch the world. Just breathing, breathing, breathing in the stark reality of death woke him up from his privileged existence back home. Death was life.  He went to find the other half of his soul..

Hope had just broken his foot. He left the ashram to follow a woman to Kolkata. That's how it goes I guess. The first night he screamed the hostel down with profanities. He discovered new words for fuck. In the  morning he sat around in agony resting his foot on a chair surrounded by a bevy of beautiful Bengali women. That didn't do it for him. An American saw him and wanted to pray over him. He said sure , go right ahead. After the hospital and after Ashoka he found himself in a small hotel getting drunk. It had been six weeks since the plaster. Time to take that fucker off. He took out his penknife and cut and swore till the shell fell onto the floor. It hadn't healed.  Hope screamed in agony placing his foot in a wash bowl. He tried Indian porn to get his mind off the pain but that didn't work either so he drank some more.  He decided to come home. Hope was beaten. At the airport he was wheeled out to the plane waiting for him on the tarmac. He looked up at the steps they seemed like Everest. The guy said , can you make it up there. Are you kidding. Just then four burly Indians  lifted him still in the wheelchair and carried him high above their heads and onto the plane. Hope left India like he was the King of the world!