Wholeness
Eternal silence. Nothing but the shadows and the silence and the dark tang of the cigarette in his mouth. Another beer can in the shallow cobwebs beneath the bed. Sanzo tipped his head back onto the pillow and wondered if this was nirvana.
Not any of the doctrines he had been taught. Not what Koumyo had told him. Just…silence. And the universe would be whole and complete.
Not gripped by this permanent, clenching anger that seemed to define all that he was on some days. Sometimes it felt as though he had no control over himself. As though he was formed from emotion, shaped by it, held within it. No matter how calm and still he seemed, it was always there. Omnipresent. Eternal. Unvanquished. And only these tiny moments, with the silence and the taste of the cigarette burning in his mouth, stopped him from true incandescence.
Sanzo wondered if he was mad.