The Abbot

"Hello, Stacy," he said without looking up.

"Dai-Oshi," said Stacy.

"You are here because you want to know who you are," said the Abbot.

"No," said Stacy, frowning. "That's not quite right. I'm here because things aren't how they should be. It's hard to explain but it's as if the world is just ever so slightly wrong. Actually no. Maybe the world's fine and it's me. I'm not how I should be."

The Abbot looked up and raised an eyebrow. "That's different. You've never said that before."

"Before?"

"Yes," said the Abbot. "When you have come to me before, and you have lost your memory and you want to know who you are."

"I've lost my memory before? Astra never said..."

"Astra doesn't know everything," said the Abbot. He shook his head and went back to feeding the fish. "Maybe it's nothing. Maybe you have said that before and I just forgot."

"Astra seemed to understand but she couldn't explain. She said you would be able to help."

"These fish live swim around this pond. They can go this way or that way. They can go up and down but to them, the pond is the whole world." The Abbot dropped another grain of food into the pond. "When I drop these grains in the water they eat them but do they know where they came from? Would it even be possible for them to understand when the answer would be so far beyond anything they had experienced."

"Is this about the Gateway? Isn't that a way to break out of our pond?"

"Partly, yes," said the Abbot. "But the Gateway is merely like moving from one pond to another. There is so much more that we cannot see. That no matter which way we swim we will never reach. That is the question that we are all trying to answer but in our own ways. Here in the temple by action of the mind. Astra, in her usual style, by action of the body. But you Stacy. You actually did it. But your mind was not ready for universal truth and rejected it."

"And that is why I lost my memory," said Stacy. "But what about the people who are trying to kills us? What do they want?"

"What do men always want?" asked the Abbot. "Money and power. They do not understand."

"It wasn't a man that attacked us," said Stacy. "It was a machine."

"But there is always a man behind the machine. But these questions, these are Astra's questions. Do not let them distract you from your path."

"My path?" said Stacy. "I don't know what my path is. What must I do?"

"When you are ready," said the Abbot. "When you are ready, you will know what to do."

1. Astra wants to visit her friend Machiko
2. Astra and Stacy head back to the Gateway

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