Jimbo and his girlfriend Yo Ping are snuggled up on the overnight luxury bus to Taitung, in the south of Taiwan, riding smoothly down the highway. The engine’s purr is muffled and removed from the well-heated cabin. Other passengers – all Chinese – are either sleeping or pacifying themselves on plastic bags of snacks – shrimp paste chips and dried squid and M&M’s. Above the driver, bolted to the ceiling, a twenty-one-inch television is showing its third movie: “When Harry Met Sally,” dubbed into Mandarin Chinese.
Yo Ping speaks. “Now I choose one, okay?”
“All right. Is it an animal, mineral, or vegetable?” says Jimbo.
Within six guesses, Jimbo is ready to ask, ‘is it New York City?’ and be done with it (the movie’s setting tipped him off), but he holds fire. He knows how much Yo Ping enjoys having a chance to sit in the driver seat of the conversation, to have an answer for every question, so he prolongs the suspense.
“Is it an old city?” “Could I get Chinese food there?” “Is it south of Canada?”
Once the game loses steam, they sit for a while without talking. Jimbo offers her a few ëcool ranch’ nacho chips from his bag. “Bu yao, xie xie,” she says – no thanks. Hao ah,” he replies. Yo Ping has taught him most of the Chinese he knows; he likes to use it on her, to make her smile. She once told him his American accent is exotic.
They sit in silence and get comfortable under a blanket. Cold mountains loom in darkness on their right, while on their left the South China Sea churns and sprays and crashes onto a rocky coastline. Jimbo thinks forward to what Taitung will be like. Stories are told about its still-thriving pagan traditions, not yet stamped out by modernization. This interests Jimbo. He is hoping their one-week vacation together will bring a break from rigid logic and schedules, time to light some incense, photograph a hillside pagan altar, and discover something a little national geographic.
Without announcement, Yo Ping falls asleep on Jimbo’s shoulder, which makes him smile. He tries to enjoy the movie; its plot is familiar, but Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal’s new Chinese voices are shrill; their witty, flirty dialog sounds instead like dialog from a kung-fu flic. Jimbo munches – quietly – on some more chips.
His name has only been ‘Jimbo’ for two years; before that, he was called ‘Jim.’ Jim grew up in Washington State, born into a small community of Pentecostal Christians. He went to a parochial high school, graduated in a class of thirty-six students, and attended the same Christian college as his long-time girlfriend, Larissa.
After college, Jim found work as a counselor at a Christian youth camp, Larissa as a counselor at an adoption agency. The young couple had a good thing going: love, mutual and self-respect, and God’s approval of everything they did, especially their commitment to remain virgins until marriage. Wanting to share their happiness with others and the world, their next natural step was to serve as missionaries. In college, Larissa had minored in Chinese, so they moved to China.
Missionaries weren’t allowed in China; they risked deportation, imprisonment, and even torture. Jim and Larissa took jobs teaching English, as cover.
Initially, things went well for Jim and Larissa. The textbooks showed many pictures of English speakers living clean lives. Different aspects of English grammar -the past tense, for example – were examined and exercised, then followed by a brief story from the Bible, to illustrate: “And then God said unto thee!” Jim sang those words like the Mighty One Himself; he could animate any fable, turn any lesson into a game. Larissa maintained a sense of organization. The classes were free. Soon, six of their students began coming over after class for dinner, a little Bible reading, and a fierce game of monopoly or charades. The young American missionaries witnessed the gradual morphing of their Chinese flock, acquiring Christian beliefs, Christian speech mannerisms, and a set of very Christian facial expressions. It was, at times, eerie. The evenings always ended with dessert, one of Jim’s own creations. Shortbread cakes dripping with chocolate syrup stuck into scoops of ice cream, framed by a virtuous ring of Cool Whip. Jim loved his Cool Whip.
Jim also loved coaching his flock, offering advice and urging them to feel, live, and savor their soul’s journey through life. He gave pep talks and hugs and the occasional vocabulary lesson. He was doing what he did best. But Larissa, meanwhile, was not. She missed her old life. By their second year in China, she was growing restless and impatient, and this hurt her relation ship with Jim. “Why do we always have to make everything perfect?” she asked, to which he had no reply. Her bursts of anger – “stop helping me!” – hurt him and were becoming more frequent than before. Jim had always healed the wounds in their relationship, but Larissa, it seemed, was becoming resistant to his medicines.
Their relationship slowed, tried to heal, slowed more, then one day stopped. Drowning in her own sobs, she said she was moving back to the States. “I just need to get some space. I want to be selfish for a change. I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
Larissa left, taking a big part of Jim with her. Since high school, when he’d fallen in love with her and decided to marry her, Jim had always known what his future would look like. But as he watched her plane take off, he had no idea what the future would bring.
In a cloud of hurt, Jim continued to teach, alone. But the pictures in those textbooks – happy people shaking hands on their front lawns – mocked him. The grinning faces were all in on some kind of joke that he no longer found funny. Jim had no more energy to sing God’s words with authority. At home, he was lonely, playing solitaire. The weeks wore on and he grew tired and restless; he encouraged his flock of budding Christians to meet in their own homes. Jim knew he needed a new direction to go in, just to go somewhere. Since he was only thinking for one, he asked himself what he needed.
At home on a Saturday, he wrote a list of his best qualities: “caring, curious, casual, give my love freely, good sense of rhythm, I can juggle.” He finished by drawing a picture of himself, smiling, but with sad eyes. He went to the kitchen to make a snack (clouds of Cool Whip balanced atop chocolate chip cookies), and returned to review the list. The words scrawled in his own hand had seemingly come alive and were showing him a new truth, a new way to live. You already know how to live a good life, the words said. Now it’s time to do some exploring.
And with that, Jim took up the challenge.
He’d learned much from Christianity. He’d learned to do the right thing, to help others, and let his spirit breathe and stretch. He’d felt the warm calm that flows from faith in something. He’d read the Book, read its rules; they’d become his own rules. Now he was ready to take his show on the road, solo if he had to, and test the edge, to see by trial and error what was right.
A fellow teacher had once talked about Taiwan, a wild, free bastion of consumerism and export-oriented capitalism, also populated by Chinese, an island the Communists had never controlled. Jim moved there and found it an easy place to live: apartment, job, friends; all easy. It was like China, but with no government bent on limiting the thoughts of its people. Jim’s life slid into alignment, naturally. He worked again as an English teacher, for much more money than before, and without an ulterior motive.
Jim was then twenty-five. He’d never drank, smoked, sworn, or had sex. Taiwan was the place to begin. Its upbeat residents were beginning too, beginning to experiment with the wealth and civil liberties they’d recently earned from selling plastic products to America. Discos and bars were opening; young singles were exploring a new, modern society outside the rules of traditional culture, their first taste of a tempting life.
One night, on a cocktail napkin stained with Khalua, Jim wrote his personal manifesto for the moment: “There never is, has been, or ever will be anything other than the present continuous.” English grammar, like everything else, was a cog in the cosmically amazing machine of life. That same drunken night, a friend called him ëJimbo.’ The name stuck. It was funkier. It fit his new lifestyle. Jimbo felt ready to try anything, even a Chinese girlfriend.
Her full name was Yo An Ping. Chinese names are usually three words, and meaning something: rising-sun-energy, yellow-force-connection, forest-lion-justice. ëYo An Ping’ translated to swimming peace duckweed, but removing the ëAn’ left ëYo Ping,’ the Chinese word for oil can. The name stuck. She soon became Jimbo’s oil can.
They met in the midst of a disco inferno; their eyes locked on each other as their bodies boogied and were bumped by other dancers. A paisley scarf was wrapped around his head like a pirate. She looked back at him with a smile on lips painted burning-red and tucked her hair behind one ear. They’d already been in each other’s dancing space for several songs when she asked, “What’s your name?” “Jimbo,” he replied with a big, affirmative nod. “Is that your real name?” “Yep. It is now.”
Soon, Yo Ping and Jimbo were together whenever her work as a flight attendant allowed. This schedule – intense when they were together, calm and recuperating when they were apart – struck a balance like a surfer on a wave. They went dancing a lot, an activity Jim’s old life hadn’t allowed. They drank sweet mixed drinks on the couch and giggled at episodes of Ren and Stimpy. Jimbo added Khalua and Brandy and Malibu to his dessert-maker’s chemistry lab.
Jimbo liberated Yo Ping from her natural tendency to worry. He tricked her into enjoying the present. In exchange, she taught him how to make boiled dumplings, taught him to speak Chinese (like a girl), and always beat him at monopoly. On his encouragement, she started to draw again (her parents had strongly discouraged such a waste of time). With funny, fluid lines in a soft hand, she sketched him reclining about his apartment in a towel, or munching on cereal, or deep in a nap.
Finally, with Yo Ping, Jimbo lost his virginity. Larissa and he had discovered and decoded all the preparatory moves. But not until Yo Ping did his education bear fruit. Her only previous sex had been efficient, a medical procedure, under the anxious breath of a Chinese boyfriend. Yo Ping and Jimbo together explored sex like a landscape: apple blossoms and lilly pad ponds and blue waterfalls. As formal language between them was often incomplete, naked in bed was where they built feelings for each other and established trust. Their most honest intimacy was usually in the morning, a flower opening to the sun, making them late for work.
Onboard the bus, Yo Ping is snoring softly. The movie has almost reached the scene where Sally will fake an orgasm. As much as Jimbo wants to see that translated into Chinese, he is sleepy. His eyes shut. He sleeps for the rest of the trip.
The freshly woken couple wanders out from the Taitung bus station. Over one shoulder, Jimbo hefts a green nylon duffle bag. Yo Ping pulls a Gucci suitcase on wheels. Taxicabs are prowling the empty streets, but their hotel is only four blocks away. They decide to walk.
The city is of a manageable size. Its buildings are square, brutally practical cement constructions, with little concern for windows or individuality. The ground floor is almost always put to some commercial use, as a noodle stand or a 7-11, or a motorcycle repair shop, or a real estate agency, or a barbershop. Few buildings rise above three stories. Dogs wander about; some are limping or missing a leg.
Taitung looks like any other city in Taiwan. One thing, however, is strange. After just five minutes of walking, Jimbo and Yo Ping have passed over a dozen people dressed in all white. This tweaks their curiosity. They stop at a shop and ask the owner about the white clothes.
The plump, round-faced woman grins and replies, “Tamen dou che ching tsai. Yee ge li bai, bu che ro.” Jimbo’s weak command of Chinese processes this. He understands that people aren’t eating meat, but not why. The shopkeeper talks fast, and he loses sense of what she’s saying. As his girlfriend gets the details, he withdraws into mental self-entertainment. His eyes appreciate Yo Ping’s delicious figure. She is really hot. Only the shopkeeper’s presence keeps him from giving her a small squeeze and big, leering grin. Back in the States a girl so pretty would be out of his league, but in Taiwan, it is he who is the catch. Money is not an issue. Indeed, Yo Ping’s family is rich and does not want their daughter to fall in love with a poor foreigner. But Jimbo is fun; the love he gives her is not attached to demands. Without him, she would be fending off serious, career-minded Chinese men, courting her for a marriage commitment.
The women’s treble voices arrive at a pause; they look at Jimbo to confirm that he is following everything. No, he is following nothing.
“I’m okay. Just continue and I’ll get it from you later.” He says this to Yo Ping, as the shopkeeper surely speaks no English.
Jimbo sizes up the shopkeeper. He tries, but can find nothing sexy about her. She is dressed in mismatching colors: sturdy, comfortable clothes; ready for work. The gray in her hair has been died black. Age has made her Asian face look tired. A leather money belt hangs low on her waist, below a gut. He asks himself if Yo Ping will one day look like that. The shopkeeper is probably mother to at least two children who study very hard in school. Her husband works long days, whatever he does. For fun, the family eats take-out, watches TV, and sleeps. The shopkeeper’s voice is loud and not at all self-conscious, almost a shout.
Their squawking Chinese reaches an end. Yo Ping uses her careful English to give Jimbo the translation and the shopkeeper uses the moment to size him up.
“These people are doing the vegetarian festival. For one week they don’t eat meat or have sex or drink alcohol. Today is the first day. This way, they can make their heart more pure. Later, at the end of the week, they will walk over some very hot wood. How do you say like, have some fire on the wood?”
“Hot coals. They’re going to walk over hot coals?”
“Yes. Hot coals.” Yo Ping learns a new vocabulary word.
Jimbo looks at the shopkeeper. “How do they do that without burning their feet?”
Yo Ping translates his question, then translates the shopkeeper’s reply.
“She says you must meditate for one week. And if you have any meat or alcohol or sex for one week it won’t work. But I don’t think you can do this.” As Yo Ping speaks the shopkeeper flashes Jimbo a wry, insinuating smile.
“When did this vegetarian festival start?”
“I told you. Today is the first day.” Yo Ping pauses for a second’s consideration. “You don’t want to do this, do you?”
“Ask her how I should meditate.”
“Aye oh! I knew it!” Yo Ping makes sure to sound exasperated, but she is also entertained. She claims to like surprises; she is getting one.
To meditate, Jimbo has to chant “liang se tsau” to himself for several hours a day, like a mantra. In English, it means ëcool wet grass.’ This aims to trick his mind into feeling only cool wet grass beneath his naked feet, even when stepping on burning hot coals. Abstaining from physical impurities – booze, meat, pleasures of the flesh – will give him the spiritual strength to achieve this.
“Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” Jimbo says the words to himself, low and monotone. Yo Ping eyes him skeptically.
They thank the shopkeeper by buying some Energizer batteries for Yo Ping’s CD player (which later turn out to be fakes that only last three hours).
Jimbo has made up his mind to purify himself, meditate regularly, and do the hot coals thing. This is an annual tradition in Taitung, a pagan remnant from the age before Buddhism’s arrival. Each year, many people do it without getting hurt. This year, he will be one of them. By noon, he is dressed in all white, announcing his participation. The clothes he buys are roomy cotton, very simple in design, with no pockets. Yo Ping thus has to keep hold of his wallet. For his feet, he finds a pair of white canvas sneakers.
The vacation unfolds, but certainly not as Yo Ping had planned.
After their first day of sightseeing, Jimbo navigates them back to their hotel room. “Let’s try chanting. This’ll be fun.” Yo Ping is a Buddhist but has never meditated; he shows her the lotus position, but it hurts, she says. After a few odd moments of body-readjustings and clearing of throats, they pronounce the mantra a first time, soberly, a man’s voice and a woman’s, in unison. “Cool wet grass.” The words sound silly. Yo Ping giggles, but Jimbo returns to the focus. “Come on. Let’s just try this.” They do, repeating the phrase, but Yo Ping’s voice gradually trails off and soon she is asleep. He continues on his own. He goes a full ninety minutes.
That night, they dine in Taitung’s best-known seafood restaurant. Jimbo orders plain rice and tofu (not fried with pork, please), some spinach (ditto) and tea. Yo Ping explains, “You can eat fish, you know. Chinese people don’t think about fish the same way as pigs and cows. It’s okay. Fish is more like a vegetable. I’m Chinese, and I give you permission.”
But no, Jimbo won’t risk it; he will obey the rules to the word, and then some.
It is nine-thirty the next morning. Jimbo is lying flat on his back, exhaling deeply, staring at the ceiling; Yo Ping, wearing a black nightie, is sitting up, legs folded under, looking worriedly down at him. “I didn’t think you would be able to resist? You certainly never could before?” she says.
“It’s the hot coals. I fear them.”
A frown wrinkles her forehead. “Do you still think I’m pretty?”
“Yes! Oh yeah! I do. You know I do. I just wanna see if this will work. I wanna give the best effort I can. After the hot coals, sweetheart. I promise. I’ll be really good to you after the hot coals.”
“We’ll see about that.” She leans forward over him. “Maybe I’ll find a reason to turn you away.”
And so Jimbo’s power is channeled into meditation, into preparation, looking forward to the trial by fire. Yo Ping channels her power into shopping. Local shops see a mini-boom in sales. She leads him from store to store as he quietly chants, “cool wet grass; cool wet grass,” sometimes inflecting the phrase with a hip-hop lean to the rhythm. “Cool wet grass, ca, ca-ca cool wet grayass.”
“Tell me one more time. Why are you doing this?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” are the first words he says, though a better answer will come soon. “How can I not do it? This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. If it works, just imagine. It will be proof that there’s proof of something, at least. Even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be a great story.”
She is flipping through a rack of bras. “So, you do this so you will have a good story to tell your friends? Maybe you will one day write a book.” She lifts a purple lace thing up to her chest. “How do you like this?”
Before Jimbo can answer, a Chinese man dressed in all white walks up and gives him a friendly touch on the shoulder. Though they’ve never met, they exchange happy greetings, a handshake, smiles, and jokes about the upcoming firewalking ritual. Jimbo employs his bad, broken Chinese, slaughtering five thousand years of grammar without a second thought. He wins a new friend. Yo Ping stands to the side with one hand placed on her waist, the bra hanging unappreciated.
Finally, the morning of the hot coals ritual arrives.
Waking up before sunrise is not how Yo Ping wanted to start the last day of her vacation. She stumbles around the hotel room in a bleary-eyed daze. She starts to get dressed, then forgets what she is doing, then starts again. Jimbo rises out of bed, stands, and paces. He needs only a half-minute to put on his whites, a fresh set he’s saved for this day, never before worn, to ensure maximum purity.
“Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” He pulls out a small camera from his bag and hands it to her. “Make sure to get a picture of me as I’m over the coals.” He plants a quick, non-sexual kiss on her cheek. Jimbo’s high school reunion is coming up. Faces from his past, former classmates still part of the church community, will be showing off their children and spouses and careers, but none will have a photo like his.
Dawn is streaking across the morning sky as they stand in the cool quiet, by the curb. A bus arrives. Onboard, almost all the passengers are in white, chanting in Chinese, fingering prayer beads. Mumbled mantras from thirty voices fall into a wavering rhythm, like locusts. At another stop more faithful board, then the vehicle leaves Taitung and climbs a hill. The diesel engine chugs with each downshift as they round switchbacks. Outside, hidden within the solid green of dense tropical vegetation, insects are chanting as well, like a crowd cheering for a parade.
The road levels off and the temple comes into view. The bus stops. With unusual orderliness, the mumbling passengers stand and exit, to join others already on the scene, a reunion of every all-white outfit in Taitung. The temple – red and gold, dashed with poems in Chinese writing and ornamented by hanging lanterns – is planted on the ground like a lion, lording over the morning. Within a flat, grassy clearing, a line has already formed. Animated naked feet support compact bodies dressed in white, waiting behind a strip of burning hot coals, like fighter planes ready to fly off an aircraft carrier.
Jimbo is the only foreigner.
In one corner of the grassy clearing is a pile of discarded white shoes. Jimbo walks to it and takes off his sneakers. On the pile are several other pairs just like his; their soles are worn down. His soles are still almost new.
He gets in line. Twenty feet away, Yo Ping stands watching, looking stunned by the scene and the early hour. She holds his camera in her hands, is waiting to do her job. Jimbo tries not to think about her. He chants to himself. He glances towards the temple and sees three monks – shaved heads, red robes – sitting on its steps. They are watching with satisfied interest, like group therapy counselors.
Jimbo looks forward, becomes himself part of the line of people in the trance of the cool wet grass. He needs to entrance himself. He begins. “Cool wet grass; cool wet grass.” Nervously, he smells the rich air flowing from the forest, hears the birds and the insects and the people chanting. His arms brush against the cotton fabric of his shirt. His legs feel nimble and weightless, his hands a little tingly. The naked soles of his feet can almost count the blades of cool wet grass beneath them.
The group’s mantra is alive and constant like the buzz from the insects in the forest around them. Considering what he will soon do, he feels calm. The people ahead of him chant in Chinese. “ Liang se tsau. Liang se tsau.” A rhythm of voices again emerges; Jimbo joins them with his English translation. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” He sees a white body walk from the front of the line forward, straight across the coals. It seems to go well, he thinks: no shrieks of pain or paramedics running to the rescue.
Seven people are in front of him in line. “Cool wet grass.” He glances very quickly at Yo Ping, lets his eyes rest on her for a scattered second, and tells himself he won’t glance at her again. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” The weight of his body shifts from foot to foot, giving the exposed skin on the bottoms of his feet fresh occasion to feel the cool wet grass. He pronounces the mantra with rising urgency; the words sound strange inside his head; the repetition is a little maddening. He is afraid of what will happen if he stops. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” The words are all he hears. Cool. Wet. Grass. His voice has a life of its own, its own will, telling him what to think.
The furious mantra treadmill distracts him until he is startled to see only three people left between him and the hot coals. His turn will soon arrive. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” Two people are in front of him. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” A rogue thought invades his head: how thick is the skin on the soles of his feet? Immediately, the question is driven away by the all-powerful brain bodyguard mantra. “Cool wet grass! Cool wet grass!” One person remains ahead in line. “Cool wet grass.”
Jimbo is first in line.
His body moves forward of its own accord, ready for anything. But, unexpectedly, an arm extends in front of him to prevent his advancing.
A red-robed monk who has been regulating the flow of faithful across the coals wants him to wait. A few words of loud Chinese are spoken and two more monks appear, each holding a large flap of cardboard. To Jimbo’s utter horror, they swing the cardboard up and down like the wings of a giant bird, to fan the coals. The coals have cooled considerably from the kicking feet and the cool morning dew; they’ve turned a dull gray; but just a few strong puffs of air and the runway returns to a glowing red bed of searing heat.
Jimbo is not prepared for this. He was too occupied by his trance to notice that the monks had restoked the fire once before. His quivering heart spins around six times, does the splits, and screams like a horror movie.
The monk’s arm withdraws, clearing the way for him to advance.
Jimbo gathers himself. He chants several times, only now, strangely, it feels like he’s testifying in church. “Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.” The words are a battle cry, a flag raised at the charge. He steps forward.
Jimbo’s left foot ventures forth first. It touches the coals and feels their texture, but does not feel pain. He puts his weight onto it. Some small observer inside him begins to believe that mind-over-body is going to work. His right foot lifts off the ground and swings forward. It is just about to touch down onto the hot coals when he has the strangest sensation …
During the weeks and months after this incredible morning in Taitung, Jimbo will have many occasions to calculate how much time elapses between his left foot stepping onto the hot coals and his right. One-and-a-half seconds, he will figure. Surprising. Who would guess it could take so long for that message to travel up his leg, through his spine, and reach his brain to loudly announce that he is receiving a bolt of pain sharper than any he has ever felt? “Shit!!! Burning hot coals! That is NOT cool wet grass! I gotta get the hell outta here!” Jimbo’s body takes charge, shoves the mantra out of the way. He speeds up, takes quick, urgent steps across the runway. His eyes scan forward and see, at the end of the searing path of red fire, a patch of cool wet grass. Time slows down. The cool wet grass takes the shape of a loving Jesus, smartly dressed in a loud polyester disco shirt, arms opened to him. Come here, Jimbo, you silly boy. What were you thinking? Walking on hot coals? That’s not for you. Your naked feet belong here, with me.
Jimbo completes the walk across the hot coals, staggers off to one side, and sits down. Dew penetrates the cotton of his white pants, leaving a green grass stain. The bottoms of his feet are alive with millions of nerves, each one firing pain signals up to the central processing center. Yo Ping is already at his side.
It is almost evening. Jimbo and Yo Ping are on a bus traveling north, leaving Taitung and its pagan rituals, returning to their home in the secular big city. Codeine is making Jimbo’s life bearable, keeping the pain at bay. Ointment and bandages have been applied to the burns on the soles of his feet.
Yo Ping produces the stack of photos she’s had developed during the afternoon. Together, they examine each image, a chronological record of their strange week together. Jimbo is always wearing white, the holy man. Many shots were taken inside stores. In several, Yo Ping is holding up negligee. In others, Jimbo has his arm around a stranger also dressed in white. Flipping through the stack one at a time, they draw close to the most important photograph in the roll, the one taken during the ritual of hot coals. Suddenly, it is there, at the top of the stack, looking at them, proof that what Jimbo did was real.
But not really.
Yo Ping gasps and raises her hand to her mouth. She took the photograph in landscape – wide, rather than tall. As a result, Jimbo’s body is cut off from the waist down, showing nothing of the hot coals he walked across.
“I’m sorry.” Yo Ping’s voice is faint.
Jimbo looks at the photo for twenty seconds. Then he stretches his arm around her shoulder and kisses her on the forehead. If that isn’t enough, he wraps his other arm around her and gives her a hug. He feels her tenderness, smells the shampoo in her hair, feels her hands on his back, feels like hugging her some more when they get home. “I still love you. It’s okay. This is good, actually.”
She smiles at him, a smile of appreciation.
He looks back down at the photograph and chuckles. There he is, up at the crack of dawn to prove his mind’s victory over his body. He is wearing white, the spiritual color. His face is twisted in pain, eyes forward. The image stops right at his waist, as if the burning hot coals weren’t even there.
“This picture.” He holds it up. ”...is perfect. It’s the perfect end to this story.”