Book 28: The Eden Conference

December 3, 2017

Rose Compound, Unknown, Unknown

A twelve-year-old Monika Rose wore a plain black dress, her curly dark hair uncomfortably tied into a bun. An older woman wearing a black kimono, her grandmother, held her hand as they walked slowly towards an open courtyard.

“Slowly, child. Gracefully.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but turned a brisk walk into a painfully sedated stroll.

“Even during Mom’s funeral…she’s worried about grace.”

For as long as Monika could remember, the woman was a stolid figure, lurking about as though waiting for something to go wrong so she could correct it. The two finally egressed from the beach-shaded hallways, and into the courtyard lined with crimson roses and cream-colored pillars. Warm air agitated the sea of guests adorned with black suits, dresses, and kimonos. Monika couldn’t help but notice the face that wasn’t present: her father's.

A soft breeze carried the smoke of burning incense, stinging the girl’s eyes and granting her an acceptable reason to tear up. Not that it would have mattered. The family members who had bothered to come were hardly concerned with the proceedings; tapping away at smartphones, gleefully gossiping, and sighing in boredom. Yasu Rose led her slowly stewing granddaughter to the front row of white wooden seats.

The girl was forced to finally lay eyes on the funeral arrangement before her. In true Rose fashion, it had been ordered that nigh every flower in creation bow in sorrow to the white-framed portrait standing proudly among them. Monika had to avert her gaze from her mother's dark brown eyes, sharp jawline, and cocky smirk, lest she make known that her heart still felt.

A priest, decorated by waterfalls of fine burgundy and saffron silk waited patiently for the Elder Rose to settle in. She gave him a solemn nod, nudging him to begin the sutra, as was customary. Monika prepared herself to space out, anticipating line after line of scripture that she wouldn’t get, in a language she didn’t understand. To her surprise, however, her grandmother squeezed her hand gently, and began translating from Japanese, in a soft, unfamiliar tone.

“Wholeheartedly, day and night, a disciple of the Buddha should recite and meditate on the eight realizations discovered by the mahasattvas, the great beings.”

Each phrase came after the priest’s, carefully worded so that the young girl might understand.

“The First realization is the awareness that the world is impermanent.”

“All political regimes are subject to fall; all things composed of the four elements are empty and contain the seeds of suffering.”

“Human beings are composed of five skandhas, aggregates, and are without a separate self.”

“They are always in the process of change—constantly being born and constantly dying.”

“They are empty of self, without sovereignty.”

“The mind is the source of all confusion, and the body is the forest of all impure actions.”

“If we meditate on these facts, we can gradually be released from samsara, the round of birth and death.”

Despite Yasu’s efforts, Monika’s mind soon wandered away from the torturous recital. She instead held tightly onto the memories she had of her mother. She was kind, oh, so kind, giving away much of their wealth, and not from an ivory tower, either. She was carefree, often picking her daughter up from her private lessons, when she herself should have been in one meeting or the other. She was the joy bringer of the entire Rose Family. She was…dead. Monika felt warmth stream down her cheeks, and shuddered. Tapping and clicking at phone screens suddenly sounded louder, competing with the priest just a few feet away from her.

“Mom wasn’t even into this stuff…”

Yasu continued to whisper, almost blending in with the persistent whispers behind them.

“The fifth realization is the awareness that ignorance is the cause of the endless round of birth and death. Therefore, bodhisattvas always remember to listen and learn in order to develop their understanding and eloquence. This enables them to educate living beings and bring them to the realm of great joy.”

Monika could feel strings of her atma ruffling.

“The sixth realization is the awareness that poverty creates more hatred and anger, which in turn creates more evil. When practicing generosity, bodhisattvas consider everyone, friends, and enemies alike, as equal. They do not condemn anyone's past wrongdoings, nor do they hate even those who are presently doing evil.”

The girl shook herself free of her grandmother’s viper-like grip and shot up. She turned around to a sea of bowed heads, faces illuminated by phone screens, and apathetic grins, excited by simmering rumors. Angrily, she gathered her atma, and let loose an explosion, jarring the inattentive crowd, and cutting short the priest’s chant.

“How dare you!?” she yelled. Yasu motioned to grab the girl but she rushed to the center of the aisle dividing the funeral in two, her mother’s casket directly behind her.

“My mother was a better person than all of you,” her voice shook, “Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you have some respect? Why can’t you even pretend to care!” Monika’s rage boiled over, as she pointed her thumb at her chest.

“I’m going to be the head of the family! And I’m going to strip you of everything! Day after day, my mother worked hard to provide for those that had none, and to provide for you all. She was a light! And I refuse to let you take that away. You’re all nothings! And I’m going to tear everything away until the outside matches the inside!” The girl roared, finally prompting Yasu to seize her amidst offended gasps and amused chuckles.

~

July 1, 2022 - 6:06 am

Miguel’s Farm, Unknown, Nigeria

Monika awoke with a start, tears cooling her off from the room’s heat. Dreams involving her mother always ended with the funeral. And the funeral always ended with her outburst. Though the dream dissipated, her anger continued to smolder as she got ready for the day.

It was only when she entered the kitchen in her usual marigold sweatsuit that she remembered what had happened. Kuro and Soji jumped into the pit. Miguel was somewhere in some storage room, looking for a way to bypass the atma-cursed mechanism that made it impossible to stage rescue. From what Money explained, the more force applied to the door, the stronger it got. They’d made a decision that was truly irreversible, and had no choice but to wait for either Tamara to return, or for the timer to run out. Ten days— nine now..

The boys were barely even novices. The thought of their mangled bodies being dredged up from that hole made her stomach turn.

“Maybe it should stay empty”, she almost said out loud to the vacant kitchen.

“You’re awake,” Money soundlessly appeared at the kitchen’s doorway clutching an apple, “but you’re not training…”

“How can I? Kuro and Soji are…”

“They’re fine. And don’t forget you helped lead the charge. We both helped them. We have to stand by and own up to that decision, regardless of what comes after.”

“How do you know? That they’re fine.” She wanted to poke him about how he could be so casual about the situation, but held her tongue. Tamara had once told her that part of being an adult was pretending everything was fine. Especially for maestros.

“Their introduction into this world involved man-made blooms and at least six maestros trying to kill them,” Money chortled, “the pit is only twice as bad as that. And they adapt fairly well.” Monika frowned.

“Aren’t you supposed to try and make me feel better?”

“And aren’t you supposed to be moving buckets?”

“Enough with the buckets! I don’t even get what that has to do with anything!” The girl snapped. Before she could backtrack and apologize for the tone, Money snorted.

“Come with me, Usurper.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed.

Usurper. It was more than just a word. It was a taunting brand impressed onto her when she defied her grandmother in front of the entire family. She could hardly be surprised that the gangly farmer boy knew that name; every maestro knew of the arrogant princess who declared her bid for the throne at her own mother’s funeral. And, of the ensuing humiliation from failing the required trials.

“Don’t call me that.” She scowled as she followed the boy out of the kitchen and into the surrounding forest of tall grass outside the house.

The sound of a falling leaf would’ve made a bigger impact on the farmer than Monika’s words.

“You know, I always wondered how the child prodigy, touted as ‘the next Tamara Cain’, who learned advanced atma control before her thirteenth birthday, wouldn’t even make it past the first stage of her succession trials,” Money mused.

“I was set up…” She muttered. Monika couldn’t understand the source of his sudden prodding. Surely it couldn’t be because of what happened last night, after all, he had helped them with their little escapade. Perhaps, she thought, he was trying to get her worked up to train?

“But then,” he continued, “I saw you hesitate last night. You could just have easily made it into the pit. But you didn’t. Could it be…”

“No!” She tried to shut him down.

“Could it be that Monika Rose is scared of blooms?” The words left his lips and convulsed into enormous, black salamander-like creatures clamping down on her limbs. Her atma instinctively flared, dancing along with her rushed breathing.

“Bingo,” Money snapped his fingers as they entered a clearing in the grass, “you’re ashamed of your failures, fearful of the creatures that brought about that shame, and idolizing the woman that saved you from it?” He asked himself out loud, forgetting that he wanted the girl to make these discoveries herself. As though reading his mind, she shot back.

“Do you think I don’t know these things about myself?” Her voice wavered. Though whether it was out of anger or the possibility of tears, she could not tell.

“I don’t doubt that you do,” Money replied, “but confession is not absolution. You realize that how you feel about yourself has a serious effect on how you use your atma, but have you made any efforts to unpack these realizations? To improve?” The girl shook her head no.

“Hence the bucket,” the boy continued as Monika walked ahead of him into the clearing of soft soil, a large makeshift arena with the stalks of grass acting as its walls. Her mind swirled tumultuously with these aspects of herself.

After her outburst all those years ago, she’d been immediately thrown into her family’s succession trials, a competition to determine the next matriarch. It was a race deep into the Garden to bring back a fruit that grew on the Devil’s Spine. The caliber of the blooms in that hellscape, and the intensity of Yasu’s anger competing against her, haunted even those who only heard about it.

The moment the race began, she didn’t even have time to register Yasu’s clawed fingers digging into her shoulders before receiving an atma-reinforced slap. The Elder yelled at her in Japanese, spittle flying as she beat the girl ruthlessly. Monika could barely call up her reinforcement as the woman dragged her deeper into the Garden, and eventually left her there as she continued towards the Spine. The ghoulish blooms that lurked in those lands weren’t shy, immediately crowding her for a taste.

The result, as bloody as it already was, would have been significantly worse without Tamara. As Monika remembered that brilliant white cloak, silvery-blue hair, and golden tiara, she finally understood.

“I get it,” she broke the brief silence. And truly she did. Money had chosen a roundabout, and frankly, crass method to get her to understand, but it worked. Sort of.

“When I use atma, I just draw out a bunch and throw it at whatever task I have for it. I end up wasting quite a bit,” Monika explained to herself, “I picked up that habit trying to match Tamara’s output…”

“Can’t blame you,” Money shrugged, “she saved you exactly when you needed to be saved. That’s enough to make anybody idolize her.” Her modus operandi.

The quiet returned as the girl retreated further into her mind. After a moment, she resurfaced with another realization.

“So then the water in the bucket represents atma…if I draw out the right amount at the right pace, and I carefully transport it to the ‘destination’…”

“Hoooome ruuuuun!” The farmer yelled into the morning sky, playfully cupping his mouth with both hands to form a faux megaphone.

“Don’t celebrate just yet, we haven’t exactly solved five years of trauma in one go. Or fixed my atma problem”

“Maybe not, but now we can start the real training.”

“Why are you so chipper today? You usually just sulk and play your stupid GameBoy. It’s 2022, at least get a Nintendo Switch or something.”

“Ignoring that outrageous GameBoy comment, we’re getting paid soon. The Institute doesn’t just buy bloom bits from us, but some of our normal harvest for their campuses.” Monika froze.

“There are maestros coming here?”

“It’s okay, the boys are hidden away,” Money waved her concern away.

“But if my grandmother finds out I’m here…”

“Just stay hidden, you’ll be fine. It’s not for another couple days anyway.”

“Right.” Doubt welled in her stomach. Her senses screamed at her that that would not go the way he was expecting it to go. Even so, she put her trust in the farmer.

“So…shall we begin?”

~

July 2, 2022 - 7:53am

Unknown, Pretoria, South Africa

Underneath the naked night sky, a deep purple and black canvas, freckled by white stars, dunes of black sand shifted into one another. A pale, naked boy wandered through this desert, struggling to stabilize himself on the waves of breathing black sand. He had no idea where he was, but could feel the stars pricking his skin, the sand grating the soles of his feet. It was strangely familiar. He looked up to see that the moon had been replaced by an eye unlike one he had ever seen; bright pink with its own shifting seas around the iris.

Indiscernible figures, two, danced downwards from the gorgeous skies, with flower petals heralding their descent.

“Lotus?” He had no idea how he knew that, and yet it seemed obvious, like they were a part of him. The figures in the sky finally materialized into creatures with the bodies of vultures and the heads of women. Harpies, with wicked claws and ragged, stringy hair. An awful sound, like two great stones grating against one another, held him in place as talons and teeth tore into his flesh. He should have been terrified, yelled out in pain.

Instead, Kees Beenhouwer opened his eyes. As he emerged from this dream, he exhaled, for the first time in his life, with atma flowing through his body.