The Medora Wars by Wick Welker

Author:Wick Welker
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781735537443
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2015-05-21T13:42:52.402499+00:00

16

Merida, Mexico

Malik sat at a small coffee table and took a lid off a jar that puffed with white powder as he tipped it into a bottle. He lifted the bottle up and inspected the level of powder within, filled the rest up with water, and stirred it with a spoon.

Carter, a young man in Army fatigues and buzzed hair, stared at him from across the room as a streak of sunlight shone over his face. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“It is of no concern to you.” Malik did not look up from the table.

“It worries me that you seem overly concerned about… petty things,” Carter said.

“This is none of your business—please go back to… whatever it was that you were doing.” Malik rummaged in the front pocket of his shirt for a nipple top and twisted it on top of the bottle. He got up from the table and went into an adjacent bedroom that was empty save for a single cardboard box in the corner. He knelt beside the box and opened a cardboard flap where a baby was bundled in loose newspapers. He lifted the baby out of the box and into his arms. He brought the bottle to the baby’s lips, making him slightly open his mouth to receive it. The baby sucked on the nipple for a moment, and then pushed it back out of his mouth.

“Malik,” a voice from behind said. “Come with me, please.” It was Atash.

Malik turned and saw Atash standing in the doorway. “Yes, yes, okay,” he sheepishly said, laying the silent baby back down into the box.

“Follow me out to the patio,” Atash said and walked out of the room.

Malik left the bottle at the side of the box and followed Atash, who walked by Carter, and moved out onto a concrete patio that overlooked the city. Malik rested his back against a cinderblock wall and looked out, concentrating on his breath. He imagined an empty, square room deep in the back of his mind that held no objects or emotions, and completely void of consequence or meaning.

“Tell me your thoughts, brother.” He heard Atash say from his side.

Malik opened his eyes and saw Atash smiling at him. “I have no thoughts.”

“That, my brother, is a beautiful thing.”

“Yes.”

“And why is it beautiful?”

“Because, when there is a vacuum in my mind and in my heart, I am free of preoccupation. It is impossible for me not only to have feelings of… regret or sadness if there are no thoughts to provoke those emotions.”

Atash spoke, “That concept is so easy to talk about but so very difficult to obtain. I believe I am finally seeing it within you. I’ve seen you grow in the fact that you recognize that growth is not necessary at all. Personal development is an illusion of the ego. There is no difference between your being and that wall behind you. As soon as you discover that, you will know that it doesn’t matter what happens to you.

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