The Fisherman and the Koi Fish Woman - by Daniel Grant Newton

Helloooo friend of mine, and friend of creativity and FUN!

Today I'd like to share with you a new drawing I have completed, and the story that inspired it.  

Warning! I have not had any time to edit or refine the story, but I wanted to share it with you anyway, so it might be a little "raw".

First the Story I had leaping from my head...

Once there was a Koi Fish who wanted more than anything to know and explore the world beyond the ripples.  In her youth she had been the pet of a little emperor, living in the palace pond, and the faces that looked down upon her fascinated her.

After a wild storm she had been swept out to sea far from the palace walls, but this fascination with the world of the land dwellers had only grown.

One day this fish swam to a distant coral reef where wishes were said to be granted to those worthy.

There she met a giant jellyfish that shone like a star, so much so that the little fish could not look directly at it.  

The jellyfish saw the dream in the Koi Fish's heart, and said:

"Answer me this question and I will grant you your great desire: which is the greater adventure, the known or the unknown?"

The Koi Fish somersaulted with excitement, and answered, "the unknown of course."

"Koi Fish," said the Jellyfish, "I will give you one cycle of the moon to explore the world above the ripples, and then you will return."

The Koi Fish fell into a restful slumber unlike any fish usually experiences, and woke up to the water lapping against her, lying on the beach.  She was surprised to find she was no longer a fish but in the form of a human woman. 

However, this caused her trouble.  Having never had arms or legs before, she could not move, and even breathing was a strange feeling.

Luckily a fisherman came upon her and brought her to his grandmother's home.  Each day he would visit the beautiful woman that was once a fish, feeding and caring for her, teaching her to walk and move, and even to talk and read.

Together they would explore the land and he would do his best to answer her many questions.  

The fisherman thought the young lady must've fallen overboard and hit her head, because whenever he asked about her past, she told him she could not remember any of it.  And in the end she really did forget her past, and even pondered the validity of the story the fisherman made up to explain her memory loss.

The two grew to love one another, and many cycles of the moon later, the fisherman and the lady confessed this love for each other, and decided to wed.  However, leading up to their wedding, the woman's memory slowly returned until she remembered every last detail of her life before she was human.

The jellyfish's words echoed in her mind all day, and each full moon her skin became more and more scaly.  It was as if with her fish memories her fish body was coming back too.  That is until the sun rose and she could return to her human appearance.  For at this time, the fishy effects were still temporary.

To hide her scales from her fiancé, she would venture out into the woods each new moon.  And each time she did, she would become more and more like a fish woman.

Soon there were sightings of a scaly monster from the deep blue haunting the fisherman's village, and stories were invented to describe how horrid this monster was.  Of course none of these stories were true.  People are afraid of the unknown and fearful people make up terrible stories that become embellished with each retelling.

One example of such a story came from a local trader who said the monster had set a village over the mountains alight, and dragged the bodies into its underwater lair to devour.  That was why, he declared, the wares he had were more valuable, because it was that village that was the main supplier of the items he traded.  This story came from his fear that he would not be able to make ends meet and fulfil his potential as a tradesman.

This fabricated story grew and grew thanks to fearful people until many were saying that there was an army of these fish-like monsters marching across the land and devouring every man, woman and child in sight.  And furthermore, so the stories went, these creatures now had the ability to manipulate the elements: fire, water, earth and air.

Another tall story came from a farmer's wife swore that she heard the monster scratching at their door and moaning it wanted to be let in.  Some skeptical villagers pointed out however that this was likely the farmer who had gone out drinking that very night.

This story however mutated into a story about how the creature had been able to walk through the door as if it were not there, before eating the woman and her children.  And people who never heard the original story were now saying that under this home the creature had made a nest full of one hundred eggs.

The fisherman was not sure what was true and what was not, but he grew afraid for his fiancé's safety, who was known by all to take night walks by the water.  After one night where he could not sleep because the fear had possessed him, he decided to kill the monster.  At the breakfast table the next morning he revealed his plan to his partner.

His fiancé, fearful he may find her in her monstrous form or that she may turn into a fish once and for all, decided in that moment that the next new moon she would attempt to swim to the magical coral reef to see the jellyfish and ask to be made human permanently.

The night finally arrived and she crept through the village and into the water.  Her scales began tightening around her body as they had done before, but as if her body sensed the water, she grew gills and could no longer breath the thick air.

Gasping for breath, she turned to find her fiancé standing behind her, sword poised to strike.  In front of him he saw the scaly monster, but looking into her eyes he saw something he recognised.  He saw his love's eyes, more scared of what he might think than the sword he held.

He lowered his sword and turned his back, confused but coming to realisation.

And with that moment of recognition, she transformed back into a Koi Fish and dove down into the deep ocean, not wanting to look back as she was ashamed of the secret she had kept from him.

To know the ending to this fairytale I conjured in the theatre of my mind, continue to read on, but first...

How that little story landed onto the page...

First I sketched the scene depicting the ultimate dramatic moment of realisation and decision.  The moment the fisherman finds the monster, and realises it is his wife-to-be.

- Then I coloured it in with pencils to highlight what I wanted the eyes to be drawn to and to convey additional meaning through the colour;
- As well as coffee stained the paper to give it an aged look and add to the murky concoction of emotions being stirred in both our protagonists;
- And added in (with photoshop) Japanese characters to give it a storybook/ancient scroll feel.

See below for the before and after shots.

BEFORE
Pre-Coffee and Colour Image of Fisherman and
Koi Fish Woman by Daniel Grant Newton.

AFTER
Post-Coffee and Colour Image of Fisherman and
Koi Fish Woman by Daniel Grant Newton.

So what happened?

Caption: This is a little bit of photoshop I did after for fun.
It gives a very different feel and darker feel to it.
Something that perhaps reflects where this story is
leading us through.

The fisherman returned to the water's edge every night for five years, hoping to find the fish that got away, but each morning he would return disappointed.  

He then travelled the land for two years, searching far and wide for mystics who could tell him something about his fiancée's whereabouts, or bring her back. 

But these efforts were fruitless.

This left him distraught, and he slowly became the village crazy man, no longer eating or washing himself.  Just sitting on the rocks by the water all day looking out at the ocean.

This made him now the source of rumours and tall tales... tales almost as tall as the fish monster woman and this very one you are reading right now.

Meanwhile, the instant his woman turned back into a koi fish, her memories drifted away in the current.  

Although she was typically happy in the following years, on the times when she yearned to explore the unknown as she had once yearned for before, she would feel empty.  It was as if the fish's heart still kept the memory of her lover and other life while her brain did not.

One day the fisherman looked into the water as it and he sat still.  Instead of searching the deep blue for a little koi fish, this time he saw the water reflecting back at him what he had become: a matted beard that tumbled down a hollow chest.

This picture haunted him, and so he staggered down the rocks and to his little boat - a boat that had not seen use for some time.  He launched the boat off the shore and jumped in.

Some days later the boat ran aground into a coral reef, and due to exhaustion, dehydration and starvation, the fisherman fell into the water and sunk to the bottom.

When he woke up he thought he was dead.  It was very dark on the ocean floor, but above him he could see a bright light approaching him.

The light spoke: "Answer me this question and I will grant you your great desire: which is the greater adventure, the known or the unknown?"

The man could not speak.  And in fact, without air to breath, he should have been dead.  But he wasn't, and his mind could only think of one thing: "My love, the known."

Lights like little fireflies descended upon him, seemingly coming from the light above him.  He shut his eyes, finally feeling a peace that he had not felt since his fiancée had swum away.

When he awoke he was a koi fish, and those eyes he had last seen on that fateful day gazed back.  He was home. 

***If you would like to read more stories like this, or see more art like this, put your email in the subscription bar at the top of this blog, and enjoy!  Hope to see you next article :-) 

Top Secret Tape Discovered ... on my YouTube channel?!? ... Or perhaps just a trailer for everyone's favourite novel

King Odin’s Revelations - Chapter Three of The Last King of Shambhala - Sample of Book

Click here for Prologue

Click here for Chapter One

Click here for Chapter Two


CHAPTER THREE: King Odin's Revelations

10,000 years ago.

For many moons, Odin, King of the Gods, woke from a nightmare sweating and panting. All he could remember from the dreams was the haunting face of a scarecrow and its hollow voice.

Odin believed that dreams were windows of insight, incomprehensible in the light of day. So when the scarecrow returned to him night after night, he was compelled to visit the forgotten world of Vanaheimr to seek meaning.

Vanaheimr is an ancient land destroyed by a warlock ruler called Mimir. It is said he uncovered a magic key that was too powerful for him to control … and the sea became poison, the air became fire, and the land fell into the sea.

However, Mimir could not let go of his kingdom – even after death. And so he became trapped in between the worlds of the living and the dead. It is said that from this unique vantage point, he gained great prophetic vision.

Odin sat silent in his longboat, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.

Mist slowly danced around his boat, the moonlight glinted off the steady ripples below, and a rasping hiss slithered across the water's surface. Odin’s eyes snapped open.

“All right, Mimir, you there? The King of the Gods, a.k.a. King Odin, vis-a-vis ruler of the physical known universe, is waiting here to see you, and you keep him waiting. What do you have to say about that?” called Odin over the pitter-patter of the rain. “So don’t make him wait. Are you so sure he’s got the patience for that sort of dramatic entrance? Does he? Does he? No, I don’t think so. Otherwise, how would he get things done when he’s got a million things to do as ultimate king?”

He paused, and heard no reply. His eyes drifted over the ghostly shapes created by the low-hanging mist. His voice boomed into the wind: “Come now. Show yourself to your God. Try to put your reasonable and justifiable fear of such a powerful god aside so you can have the honour of a discourse with the great Odin.”

His words once again fell on a deathly silence.

He could hear the drumming of his heart against his chest. He could hear his hairy, heaving chest trying to suck in the dusty, ancient air. And he could hear the steady beat of the water lapping up against his long boat. But nothing more.

“I’ve got a metaphorical scrolls here for you, addressed to the half-dead warlock Mimir, from, yes, from the King of the Gods, vis-a-vis me, and it says the King of the Gods doesn’t wait for anyone, so...” Odin let his bellowing voice trail off into the thin air. His words echoed in the distance, as if hitting the edges of this world and bouncing back at him. “Come now, I know you can hear me, let’s talk one ruler to another.” Odin added under his breath, “Even though one ruler doesn't have anything to rule anymore, so technically, is no longer a ruler … but we’ll look past that.”

The bow of Odin's longboat creaked, the boat rocked, and shadows moved below the surface of the water.

“And why do you think I will help you? What’s in it for me?” crooned a soft voice in the wind.

Odin paused pensively. He kept his head perfectly still, but his eyes wandered around his surroundings.

“What's in it for you? Apart from getting to talk directly to a god? That in itself is enough for anyone of right mind.” Odin paused. “You have nothing I can’t take, so...” Odin growled. “I could just take it. But I’m an Asgard, and we have a refined etiquette developed over countless millennia to adhere to so, I’m asking before I bash your non-physical head on the bow of my ship and just make you tell me. Simple.” Odin paused to look through the mist caressing the water. “You don’t really have a choice. Subsequently, do yourself a favour and make it easy. Otherwise…”

Odin pounded a fist into the open palm of his other hand.

Again there was silence.

“You do realise, I am the King of Gods. Not a king, but the king. The only king. Just one crown and it is on my head, so…” He paused. “I’m a pretty dangerous fellow, really. That’s just about as powerful as you can get without being on the other side of life’s curtain...” Odin said as his fists clenched by his side. “Give me a reason, and I will destroy the rest of your world without a heartbeat of hesitation. Your kingdom will be gone forever. Well, what's left of it. Empty real estate right now, isn’t it? But I’m sure it means a lot to you... so...”

“Believe me, there is nothing you could do to me. Your power is limited at the very best,” came the voice, followed by a low mechanical-sounding chuckle.

“Sounds like you need a warning from the gods,” Odin said. “That,” he continued, smiling and looking about him, “is when an incredibly powerful god will come down and use the elements to pre-warn you of what could happen if you don’t bow your head and accept his commandments.”

“I can’t wait for a god to challenge me. Where’s the god?” responded the voice, laughing more than before.

“What do you mean where’s the god? I am the god, aren’t I?”

“You’re not a god. You’re a giant who has found the apples of eternal life and dabbled in a bit of magic, and very primary magic at that. You may rule over the Jotun and Asgard, but you don't rule over a warlock as powerful as me.”

“If I weren’t a god, then would they call it a ‘warning of the gods’? No, they wouldn't call it that. They’d call it something else. ‘Warning of the mortal’ or something, which, granted, wouldn’t be as concerning. But know that I am a god, your god, the King of the Gods in fact, and so the statement does apply. And doubly so, I might add, seeing as I am King of the Gods.”

Mimir's voice seemed to echo from every direction. “So you call yourself the King of Gods, do you? Yet you are not truly a god, and not truly immortal. Without the magic of Idun’s apples, you’re as mortal as those you look down upon. You of the Asgard forget that the Jotun, all the giants, are your brothers. You are no king, and you are no god.”

“Yes, I am the King of the Gods, so, embarrassment… yours,” Odin screwed his nose up at the water. “Essentially, I wear the big gold crown and sit on the throne and make really important decisions. You, on the other hand, are talking water, which is nothing, essentially. Talking water, what can we do with that, except drink it, and listen to it cry ‘don’t drink me, don’t drink me … and don’t use me to wash your genitals whatever you do, and don’t…’ and more. Stupid, yeah?”

“I am as your people call me, ‘the Well of Wisdom’, I know all, and I know you are no god, and not much of a self-appointed king.”

Odin forced a soft chuckle between mashed teeth. “Yeah, I was told Mimir was the ‘Well of Wisdom’, but instead of wisdom, I draw laughter, so... misinformation. I was misinformed. This has been a waste, hasn’t it? You know nothing of what I want to know, do you?”

“You are mistaken. You may draw laughter now, but... in the end, only I will be laughing.” Mimir’s voice drifted into the distance.

Odin smiled wryly.

“I may not have any eyes,” thundered Mimir, “but I see further than you. I have seen your universe’s end. And that is why you are here. You’ve come here to see your universe’s end for yourself.”

As Mimir spoke, a violent wave crashed down on Odin’s boat, nearly knocking the ‘King of Gods’ into the water.

Odin shook his head so wildly his long soot-coloured hair and beard escaped their braids. “Not entertained by your magic tricks and tall stories. Thought the mist on the water was pretty dramatic, but seriously, let's get on with it now,” said Odin, brushing strands of seaweed off his shoulder. “Choice, okay? If you do not talk straight, I will destroy you for good. If you tell me what I want to know, there'll be no need. Simple, isn’t it? I know what I would choose. ‘Yeah? What’s that?’ I would choose to live and not be destroyed and left a black hole for eternity.” He paused a beat. “And one more thing, I came to find out about a dream, not the end of the universe, so the egg landed squarely on your face there, water man, or whatever you are.”

“And how do you plan on destroying me?”

The earth shook as if it were sniggering at the king.

“The end is nigh for you and the worlds in your universe, oh mighty Odin.”

“Not frightening me, Mimir. We’ve started with twisted mind games, good, bit of fun, not the best of starts, but forgiveness granted. But there’s a time to say, ‘oh, that’s enough my God, sorry and all that, let’s get on with your questions’, yeah? Time to play fair, or I will show you the might of my army, which let me tell you now, you don’t want. Okay? Good.”

“Tell me, what makes you think I can help you anyway? You are wise enough to know you cannot avoid the destiny of the universe. Even if you think yourself a god, surely you see that?”

“A scarecrow in my sleep. He talks to me. Don’t know what it’s about though, and keeps me up.”

Odin paused, deep in thought, before continuing: “Did I at any point lead you to think this was about anything else? Because it’s not. Just a silly dream. Nothing more - nothing less. Not worried about it, just, a little uncomfortable, okay? Alright. Good. Sorted. Done. Bravo. Excellent. Splendid, even.” Odin’s forehead creased and his body stiffened. “The stories in my world tell of something like this happening to you, before, so that’s the only reason I came down to your level to talk...”

Odin could imagine a prickly grin in the frosty wind that bit his cheeks.

“Before when? Before I destroyed this world,” taunted Mimir. “You could say the scarecrow came to me at the end of my days. And he has come to you, in another way.”

“Works for you… but can’t happen to me. We’d gone through this, yeah? I am immortal, so...” Odin craned his head back as a bitter cold wind whirled about him. “Last time I checked, immortal means cannot die. Lives forever. A la an immortal god, so...”

“It is not only true for you,” sniped Mimir, “but for every living thing in every world in your universe. Everything will start to die, and the universe will wilt away to nothingness. You, however, will not live long enough to experience it, but...” Mimir paused. “It will be so.”

“I don’t think you are getting this whole cannot-die-cause-I-am-an-immortal-god thing,” Odin yelled. “With Idun’s apples, the gods, a.k.a. the Asgard, cannot die.”

“Have you not heard of Ragnarok? It is what those on the other side call the death of a universe. Every universe in this glorious multiverse has a pre-determined Ragnarok. And yours is upon you. The little light you call your universe will flicker out in just 10,000 more years.”

Odin’s eyes narrowed and his forehead crinkled, as if he were looking straight into the sun. “Question. Ragnarok may make you feel better about destroying your world, but how can that possibly be the meaning behind my dream since I am, as aforementioned, immortal?”

“Surely through your search for wisdom you have heard of Ragnarok? You must know nothing is eternal. Even a moron of a giant eating life-prolonging apples cannot survive Ragnarok when it takes place.”

“Okay, starting to spook me, but still not buying it.” Odin arched his shoulders back. “Since Idun discovered the apples, yeah, not one Asgard has even felt sickness, let alone died. Doesn’t sound like wilting flowers but blossoms forever blooming to me.”

“You do not need to believe me – you will die anyway. You will know soon enough that my words were true. You cannot change Ragnarok once it has begun. It is the end of the story. Of course I find pleasure in your fear and pain, the energy makes me feel alive. I feed on it, but I have no real desire or motive to lie to you. I only tell you what I have seen.”

“Okay. Line, hook, you’ve caught me. Show me what you’ve seen. Show me what’s going to happen so I can…” Odin paused and straightened his back, “so that someone, let’s just call them the greatest king of all time, can stop it.”

“You think too much of yourself, King Odin. You cannot stop it,” Mimir’s voice mocked. “I can show you. But don’t waste your last breaths trying to stop it. It is your universe’s destiny. You are powerless to deny destiny.”

“Show me now,” roared Odin. “I may look like I am a calm and collected king, but I can sting, sting like … something that really stings, and I do not have patience for you.”

“As you wish. But everything has a price. The price I ask is for one of your eyes. I want to see the fear in your eyes as you beg for your life. I want to see the King of the Gods on his knees. I want to be there as you struggle for your final breath.”

“You want one of my what?” Odin asked.

“One of your eyes,” hissed Mimir’s voice over the sound of the small waves thumping against Odin’s boat.

“Just to clarify, you did say one of my eyes, and not one of Asgard’s famous duck pies?”

“That is correct.”

“Because here’s something else that rhymes with eyes, compromise, yeah? I don’t know if you have a mouth, or tastebuds for that matter, but a duck pie from Asgard is heavenly, so… compromising, yeah?”

“I do not negotiate,” growled Mimir from the depths of the ocean. Odin’s boat began to rock.

“All right, all right. Which one do you want?” the king asked.

“Your right eye.”

“Does it have to be my right? I’ve kind of grown fond of that one.”

“Your left eye. It does not matter.”

Odin tossed his head from side to side. “That’s kind of the one I prefer to use at archery.”

“Unless you have another eye to bargain with, it must be one or the other.”

“Not really a fair swap though, is it? Swapping an eye for a vision?” Odin muttered as his heavy breath froze in front of his scarred lips. He swallowed. “We need blood to seal the trade anyway. Might as well be mine… as always.”

Odin unsheathed a royal silver fishing dagger from his belt, and made no hesitation. Blood spurt across the deck of the longboat.

Odin staggered to the edge of his boat, chuckling to himself like a madman, and hurled his eyeball into the sea.
There was no splash. It simply disappeared into the mist.

Suddenly, the ocean roared and the sky turned white with clapping lightning. Then the wind began to whistle like a boiling kettle.

Odin hung over the deck and peered into the water with his remaining eye. The water swirled faster and faster as his blood cascaded down into it.

Inside the swirling water were quick-moving pictures of a heavy snowstorm blasting through the universe and freezing entire worlds over.

Odin’s stone face fell and lost its colour. He saw fields of dead bodies from all the worlds he knew, including the Asgard, being covered in snow.

As quickly as the images had appeared, they disappeared, and Odin staggered back.

Odin sat in silence for a very long time.

“There is a way to stop Ragnarok,” said Mimir, interrupting the silence.

Odin raised his head.

“A child will be born with the power to halt the wheels of Ragnarok, once they have been set in motion” Mimir continued. “Or, if the child should prefer, he can bring about Ragnarok. A child like this is always born into a world facing its extinction.”

Odin shook his head, and answered Mimir’s echoing voice softly.

“It does seem strange for you to tell me this now. One, you are rather evil and foreboding, and helping me out doesn’t seem like a thing you would do. Two, if that was the case you could have saved me my eye and just mentioned that at the start.”

“You are right; I enjoy games. But I also don’t take risks. Your knowledge of your demise won’t prevent your death or the death of your universe. You will not be around to find the child.”

“Does Quan yin know of this child?”

“Quan yin is bound by higher laws created by the ‘Seven Keepers of the Multiverse’. She will not interfere in matters of the physical world.”

Odin was about to question what he meant by that, but instead kept quiet as he saw a light appear in the distance. It was very faint at first, hidden behind thick mist, but as it got closer and brighter Odin could see it was coming from a lantern in a boat. And in the boat was Heimdall, the lanky, hollow-cheeked, bronze-toothed god who kept watch over the kingdom of Asgard.

Mimir’s presence had faded into the background by the time Heimdall’s small boat clinked against Odin’s longboat.
Heimdall held the lantern against Odin’s face and inspected the bleeding eye socket.

Odin peered back at Heimdall with an unwavering eye. “You followed me. You can’t just follow me. There’s things a king needs to do that... why did you follow me?”

Heimdall was a close friend of Odin’s, but always reverted to formalities when he was nervous. “Highness, I will not ask what purpose you have in devilish lands, for I am a friend who trusts you. And Highness, I do not wish to question your reasons, for I am a loyal servant of the Crown. But as a friend and a loyal servant I beg you hear my reasons for being here.”

“Very well, Heimdall,” snapped Odin.

“First, let me say, I did not see her leave the walls of the castle,” said Heimdall. “No one did.”

Heimdall stepped back as he saw the king of gods begin to shake uncontrollably.

Odin’s fist flew into the carved dragon head at the head of his longboat, shattering it into shards and sawdust.

“Out with it,” seethed, breathing sharply between his teeth.

Heimdall swallowed.

“Um… Idun and her apples… Well… They’re… She’s gone.”

Click here to get the whole book ... The Last King of Shambhala.

Hidden Treasures are there to be found - Chapter Two of The Last King of Shambhala - Sample of my book

Prologue

Chapter One

CHAPTER TWO: Hidden Treasures are there to be found

This is a preview of my new book The Last King of Shambhala.

Petta Road State High School, Australia. Midgard, the land of the humans. Present day.

The school veranda was very quiet. There were the muted sounds of classes in session behind closed doors, kids in P.E. playing on the oval, and the soft chirping and buzzing of crickets and insects from the bushes and the trees outside ... but on the whole, very quiet.

Ebben peered through a window at his teacher asking his new class questions and writing on the board. Nobody noticed his presence.

He stood back from the window, careful not to leave his breath on the glass pane.

All of a sudden, as the glare hit the window, he caught sight of something behind him in the reflection. It was the face of a scarecrow with shiny black eyes. A deep chill rushed through Ebben’s body.

He softly gasped, spinning around and knocking over a rubbish bin. Clang.

Rubbish scattered across the hallway. The scarecrow was gone.

Ebben slowly let his breathing return to normal.

Carefully and quietly, he set the bin upright, and shooed off a pair of large crows inspecting the litter.
Nobody in the class heard him.

“Giving me more to clean up are ya, lad?” said an old groundskeeper hobbling down the veranda.
“Sorry,” Ebben muttered, looking up at the burly man. “Won’t happen again.”

“It’s fine,” the old man said with a twinkle in his eye – the one that wasn’t half-closed – and added, “Just tame ya wanderin' mind and get back to ya schoolin’. You’re late.”

Ebben swore at the groundskeeper under his breath as he sheepishly crept towards his locker.

In his head, he could hear a raspy voice calling his name over and over.

“Shut up,” he whispered. “Go away.” Ebben shook his head, trying to free himself of the voice. “Get lost.”

Ebben looked back at the old man. He didn’t notice – or pretended not to notice – Ebben’s mutterings.

Hurriedly, his nervous bony fingers worked the combination on his locker door.

“Please. Go away,” he pleaded under his breath to the raspy voice.

Suddenly, a cold hand squeezed his bicep.

Ebben, already on edge, clambered back into the lockers, dropping his bag and spilling its contents. An apple rolled down the hallway.

“Talking to yourself again, Ebben?” came a patronising voice.

Ebben’s eyes looked up to see Jayden, Matthew and Shane closing around him.

“I was talking to the groundskeeper,” Ebben lied. But the groundskeeper was now nowhere in sight. Ebben avoided eye contact. “I’m late for class.”

“But we were just going to welcome you to the school – formally initiate you,” came the voice again. It was Jayden.
Jayden drilled his foot into Ebben’s stomach. Ebben winced as he fell to the floor, but refused to retaliate.

The boys laughed.

“Didn’t they do this at your old school?” smirked Matthew, adding a kick to Ebben’s ribs.

“They did something similar,” muttered Ebben. “But they only made that mistake once.”

“Speak up, rat,” Jayden taunted.

“I got expelled from my last school. I promised my mum and aunt no more fighting.” Ebben held his hands up and displayed his open palms. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Hey,” Shane exclaimed, interrupting Jayden and Matthew’s ‘new boy interrogation’. “Check this out.”

Shane held up a rusty carved brass key with a blue stone on the end.

“It fell out of his bag,” said Shane.

“Give that to me,” said Ebben, scrambling to his feet.

“I don’t think so, chief,” said Shane, inspecting the key. “This will be worth a bit when we pawn it, I reckon.”
“It’d look good at my place,” laughed Matthew. “My little brother could play with it.”

“Give it to me,” Ebben said raising his voice. “My mum gave it to me, it’s very special and…”

“No, I think this is all we want actually, mate,” said Jayden.

Shane began swinging it about by the golden rope it was attached to.

“Give it to me.” Ebben moved to within an inch of Shane’s face.

“Or what?” Jayden hissed, pushing Ebben back. “Or what, mummy’s boy? You’ll tell your mummy on us?”

“Or you’ll be doing your school work from hospital for the next six weeks.”

“Big words for a...” began Jayden as he went to push Ebben once more.

But as he did, snap! Ebben grabbed Jayden’s wrist, pulled him in towards him, and rammed an elbow into his jaw with one fluid, lightning quick move.

Jayden slid down the lockers – unconscious before he hit the ground.

Matthew hurled his large frame at Ebben, as Shane hesitated for a split second. Thud! Whack!

Ebben side-stepped Matthew’s tackle, flung him into the lockers, and as Matthew turned his bleeding nose around, caught him square in the face with a side snap kick.

Matthew crashed down to the floor, not knowing which way was up.

Shane stared at the damage his friend’s head had made in the lockers.

Slowly he stretched out a shaky hand and offered the key back.

Ebben snatched the key. His eyes locked on Shane’s.

“Okay, now you know,” said Ebben, putting the key around his neck. “Now you know why I have to go from school to school. And why you shouldn’t touch things that aren’t yours. Is the lesson over, or do you want something to take home and reinforce what you’ve learnt?”

Shane turned on his heels and scampered down the slippery hallway.

Once the bully was out of view, Ebben wheezed, clasped his chest, hunched over, and squeezed his eyes shut. Almost immediately, a red rash spread from under his school shirt to around his neck.

He swore.

“Ebben Alexandrov,” came an authoritative voice. “I think I’m going to have to call your aunt in again.”

Ebben looked up with a pained expression to see the headmaster crouching on his haunches, inspecting the unconscious Jayden and Matthew.

“My office. Now.”

Click here for Chapter Three. This is a preview of my new book The Last King of Shambhala.

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The below is a preview of my new book 'The Last King of Shambhala', available on all good online book stores including Amazon Kindle.

“At the centre of your being, you have the answer. You know who you are, and you know what you want.”

- Lao Tzu

It’s a peculiar thing, having no memory.

Not knowing your name or who you are. Not knowing what you were doing mere minutes ago. Not even having one hazy, distant memory of a life before.

It’s as if you were born again, seeing the world for the very first time. At least, that’s how I felt when the two Nepalese herdsmen unearthed me.

I remember hearing spiked shoes cutting the ice, muffled voices, the shovels slicing through layers of snow, and finally my limp body being pulled through a hole a little wider than my head.

As far as I am concerned, that was my second birth.

They carried me down the mountain to their village, and looked for somewhere to accommodate me while I recovered. The herdsmen’s sister, Amisha, put me up in her home.

I was to stay for at least three weeks, insisted Amisha, using a calendar to communicate this to me. Three weeks turned into a few months, which turned into a year.

Amisha nursed me back to health and helped me get back on my feet – literally. And as she did, I became one of her family.

I learnt to communicate with Amisha’s family: charades at first, then single words, then stumbling sentences, and finally I could speak Nepalese fluently. (In fact, at the speed I picked it up, I wondered whether I had had a basic grasp of it in my ‘previous life’.)

I ate with them, cooked with them, worked in their shop, celebrated birthdays with them, and joined in their customs. I also helped Amisha as best as I could with the jobs her husband used to do before he passed away, five years ago.

Naturally I got a lot of attention from the local villagers when I went to the markets with Amisha. Each day I’d be accosted by another villager; what was I doing up in the mountains, who was I, where did I come from? The explanation became routine, and I learnt to recite an acceptable story without much thought.

“All I remember,” I would say, “was the feeling of finally letting go as the snowstorm tackled me to the ground and disabled my body. The last memory I had was staring blankly at the snow covering my body, and waiting for a tunnel with a bright light at the end to appear.”

At that moment, death didn’t frighten me. Not the way it does now. It was more a curiosity.

Will my life rush before my eyes? Will I understand life, the universe and creation in a jolt of enlightenment? Will I be greeted by an angel or a man with a white beard?

Or will dead family members or close friends greet me?

Will the people who greet me be people I like, people I don’t like, or merely a handful of random folk who crossed my path in life, who have some sort of cosmic obligation to give me the keys to the pearly gates?

And importantly, will I know that I am dead? That’s assuming, of course, that there is some kind of afterlife. If there wasn’t, I guess my wondering could have ceased forever more.

But death didn’t happen. Two quick-thinking herdsmen defied the Grim Reaper, though not before he took the part that made me who I am – or who I was. My past was wiped from my conscious recollection.

And although at first I enjoyed the freedom of a life without years of baggage, a part of me challenged my spirit’s gleeful, aimless meanderings. In the recesses of my mind, questions about my past began creeping in, until finally my dominant thought was: Who am I, and what am I doing here?

It was then that Amisha took me aside. We had been celebrating the New Year, and I’d estimate it was an hour or so after the midnight firecrackers had been dragged through the streets to every kid’s delight and every cautious mother’s fright.

We sat down at the square table squished in the corner of the dirt floor kitchen. She held my hands and smiled at me in the same way she smiled at her own children.

“Damon,” said Amisha, her eyebrows rising and her smile fading.

Damon was the name a villager had given me, in reference to an actor called Matt Damon who, I’m told, once portrayed a character found in the ocean with amnesia. Most of the villagers did not see movies often, but after it had been explained to them, this quickly became what I was affectionately known as.

“Damon,” she repeated, “there is something I want to reveal to you. Something none of the other villagers know. A secret kept within our family’s bloodline.”

I did not know what to say. It came as an honour, but also, a surprise. This very unassuming family did not look like they kept a secret, and it seemed curious they would reveal it to me, despite the close relationships I had fostered with Amisha, her two herdsmen brothers and her children.

“The secrecy keeps it alive and intact,” whispered Amisha, producing a tattered scroll. “It keeps it from getting into the wrong hands, so that when someone comes along with the right hands, they can hold it. In the wrong hands the secret would fall through their fingers like sand, and be gone forever.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, not quite understanding her vague right and wrong hand explanation.

“Because you are the one our family has been waiting for. Your hands are the right hands. I needed to be very sure you were indeed the one my family waited for before I made the decision to reveal this to you. So do not take my words lightly when I say you are the one, for it is the result of much mental deliberation.” Well, those weren’t her exact words. I’m translating and paraphrasing.

She then handed me the scroll. It was very brittle, so I opened it with care and flattened it out on the table. It read: Vibhishana. And below this word – which meant nothing to me – was a map.

“This is the real name of what people call the Yeti or Meh-Teh.” She paused for a beat to let me take in what she had just said. “A sacred name we have kept in the family but not spoken.

“If you trek to the ‘Temple of the Blessed’ hidden deep in the forest,” she said, pointing to a spot on the map, “and call his real name three times,” she held up three fingers, “he will come to you, and show you to the gates of Shambhala. You call him, and you wait.”

I sat in silence. After spending so much time with Amisha’s family I had learned quickly to just accept their superstitions and go along with them, but this wasn’t the usual crazy talk.

This was something more ‘out there’ than refraining from whistling in the home, or throwing three rocks ahead of you before making a journey, or celebrating when a crow builds a nest on your roof because you have now been blessed with good luck.

Actually, thinking about it now, I had learnt that last one – about the crow bringing good luck – the morning before Amisha revealed her secret to me. We had noticed the bristly nest built into the corner of her rooftop, with a pair of black eyes and a sharp beak turned towards us inquisitively. Amisha had thrown her hands up in joy, and explained the superstition to me. In hindsight, that might explain why she decided it was the right time to confide in me.

I had so many questions, but didn’t know which one to start with. “Why do I need to see this Vibhishana?” I murmured.

“Because he is going to take you to Shambhala. In Shambhala, you will be given the Akashic Records, and you will discover who you are. Who I already know you to be. Only then, may you return, should you wish to.”

Her left eye twitched. After spending much time by her side, I knew this meant she was hiding her emotions. What emotions, I do not know.

(I had also learnt from one of Amisha’s equally superstitious brothers that when a woman’s left eye twitched, you could expect good luck. I found myself getting a lot of good luck from Amisha these days.)

After all Amisha had done for me, and because of the loving bond that had grown between us, I found it impossible to refuse her. I knew that, though heartbreaking, it would be less difficult to say farewell to her and her kin – the only family I had ever known – than to refuse such an earnest request.

I packed a satchel, and left three days later. To avoid questioning, I left before sunrise and told no one outside my adopted family of my departure.

It took two days, sleeping on trains and buses, before I arrived at a remote village on the edge of the forest. Then, another two days crossing wild rivers, trekking through endless stretches of waist-high grass, and up and down mountainous ranges, before I arrived at the temple.

At one point, towards the end of the second day, I found myself lost in thick forest. Two crows flew overhead and I imagined Amisha’s voice in my head:

The great Garuda, King of the Birds, and Yama, Lord of the Afterlife, have sent them to guide you through the jungle thicket to the temple.

After spending so much time with Amisha and her children, it was strange how these beliefs and superstitions infiltrated my mind, even at a subconscious level. I do not remember hearing about Garuda or Yama, and perhaps they were the result of a highly active imagination, but I decided to follow the birds anyway. It was as good as any other direction, I justified to my sceptical self.

After following the birds for perhaps half an hour, I caught a glimpse of the temple. It was hidden by an overgrowth of vines, practically invisible if you did not know what you were looking for. I entered the temple through a hole in the side, negotiating spider webs and clouds of dust that rolled like ocean waves at my feet.

Inside, the walls were covered in a magnificent crumbling mosaic that seemed to depict many stories.

The temple was silent, but in my head I swore I could hear monks chanting a deep mantra accompanied by windpipes, chimes and the whistle of bronze cylindrical tubes twirling. I was soon to discover that the temple was bustling with monks, albeit on a different vibrational dimension. So, though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I heard so clearly in my head was not my whimsical imagination, rather, a result of extra-sensory perception.

I emptied the contents of my satchel on to the cracked marble floor, and my quivering hands flattened out the scroll. I unconsciously began picking at the bristles on my chin.

“Vibhishana,” I called. My voice bounced off the walls. I called his name twice more, as Amisha had instructed. And then I waited, sitting cross-legged, for it seemed the most appropriate thing to do in a temple.

Time moved slowly. And by that, I am not meaning my perception of time, but actual time. It appeared that inside the temple I was in a curious time dilation field that ran at a much slower rate than the outside world. There was no rational explanation for this phenomenon, and so I had no choice but to accept something mystical might be taking place.

I first noticed this when I looked out the window in search of the approaching Yeti. The trees did not sway lazily with the wind, but rather pulsed at the rate of my heart. And comparatively, movements inside the temple appeared to float like movements in a dream.

I decided to calculate the time difference while waiting for the Yeti. I estimated that as two hours passed on the fob watch Amisha had given me for my ‘birthday’ (the anniversary of when I was found in the snow), the mid-morning sun had crossed the sky, set, and made way for the rising moon.

And so, although it felt like only four hours had passed before the Yeti… Vibhishana… arrived, I surmised that it had taken him a little under a day of travelling to get to the temple.

Vibhishana, the figure from all the Yeti stories and sightings, arrived just as my head began nodding off to sleep. I had heard footsteps in the temple and my eyes snapped open. I instantly became very alert.

A cool breeze whistled through the temple, disturbing the dust clinging to the walls. I sat silently.

A tall figure approached me, and the closer he got, the clearer his features became. Finally, he sat down, cross-legged, before me.

He was humanoid, though clearly not human. He had hairy cream skin stretched across a thickset, muscle-bound body. The hair on his head and square jaw was particularly long and thick. He had a snout like a cat, and eyes that projected wisdom, peace and contentment.

Despite his animalistic appearance, his mannerisms were very human-like, and he was adorned with gold jewellery and dressed in garments of intricately patterned silk.

The being began making noises. A measured sequence of grunts, whistles, whimpers and clicks, that seemed to have an order to it that suggested a language, alas, one that I could not understand.

“Namaste,” I said, placing the palms of my hands together and bowing my head.

The being mimicked my gesture and continued his attempt to communicate.

As I focused on these sounds however, they began to form words I could understand. “So you have finally returned,” I eventually heard him say, much to my amazement.

Continue reading?  Click here for part two. (The above is a preview of my new book 'The Last King of Shambhala', available on all good online book stores including Amazon Kindle.)