Requiem III: The Search for The Truth
by Bonnie Eagan & Alisa Joaquin
Part 21: Matthew's Bardo
Kwai Chang Caine assisted Lo Si in preparing the space so he could enter Matthew's Bardo. He moved a second pallet over near his father so he could rest beside him and maintain physical contact. Candles were lit and Lo Si prepared the herbs. As soon as Kwai Chang was ready, Lo Si placed a small handful of herbs into his mouth and in the mouth of Matthew.
"Remember Kwai Chang, to help your father, you must not only help him as a priest, you, must help him as a father and as his son."
Kwai Chang gave the Ancient an understanding nod and laid back. He placed his hand over his father's heart to make certain there was contact between them. As he focused on his father, he felt the sudden rush of inter-dimensional and metaphysical travel and he found himself on a desolate plane. This Bardo was going to be unlike any other he and Peter have faced. Both of their Bardos, oddly enough, had taken place within a bar. When Caine thought about it, it made perfect sense. The bar was often a place where friends and acquaintances would meet. A bar was also a place where one would try to drown one's own sorrows by consuming large amounts of alcohol, poison to a Shaolin because of the harm it did to one's mind, body, and spirit. Caine, though, was at a loss as to why his father's Bardo would not be the same. This was going to be harder than he realized.
As Caine wandered through this desolate wilderness, he could not help feeling that it was familiar in some way. Had he been to this place before? What did it all mean? He came upon a sand dune and slowly walked up its slope. As he reached the top, all he could see was more desert. The feelings of isolation and aloneness threatened to overwhelm his own being when realization hit him. This was not only his father's Bardo, but he had truly been in this place as well. He had been here when he had thought he had lost Peter. He had crossed this desert many times, searching for a soul that had never been lost. It would happen every time he would come across a family with their children, especially a father with his son. The ache in his own heart would threaten to tear him in two, leaving him feeling dried up and desolate. Was that what his own father was feeling, alone, isolated, desolate as this desert landscape? He had not thought along those lines before. From the perspective of a father, he could understand. From the perspective of a son, he understood more how Peter felt, but the child in him still needed to understand why his parent would abandon him.
As Caine searched out Matthew, the desert proved not to be so isolated as Caine thought. From along the horizon, he saw other souls heading in different directions, some of them traveling along the same line. As he grew close, he heard a wail begin to rise. It was the sound of grief. Voices could be heard and yet they did not speak to anyone. Caine listened and realized that these voices were also the sounds of past regrets. Then one figure caught his attention. It was familiar and Caine raced to keep up with the retreating back.
"Father!" he called. "Please, wait for me."
Matthew Caine was bent, and in this world, he appeared older than in real life. His frame was sunken, and the once proud features were drawn and pale, ghostly white, as if he had been bleached by the very sun of this world.
"Please, father, let me help you."
Matthew Caine did not answer, but mumbled words of deep despair, "My son, I have lost him. I am not worthy to be his father. He hates me for what I have not done. I have lost what inner peace that was mine. All that is left is oblivion."
"That is not true," Caine argued, this time standing in front of his father, blocking his path.
Matthew's eyes rose to meet the one who barred his passage. "What do you know of loss? Go back, you do not belong here. Leave me to my misery."
'You are wrong, father, I too have suffered such loss," Caine stated. "May I walk with you?"
"You may do as you wish. It will do little good."
Caine fell in step with his father, not hindering Matthew's path but in some way trying to redirect him away from wherever the road was leading him toward. "I understand more than you know. I have been in this very place. I, too, wandered it for 15 years."
"But you found your son. I have not found mine."
"I am here, father, if you will allow me to be."
"Liar," Matthew stated. "You abandoned me as surely as I had abandoned you. I failed you, as a father and as a Shaolin. And you will not let me forget it. Leave here. You care little for my life."
"That is a . . ."
"A lie? In your own Bardo you declared me a liar, you struck out at me. What was your aim, to kill me? Well, here is your chance. Walk away. Leave me."
Matthew's words struck like a thunderclap, sudden and harsh. Had Caine abandoned his father? How? Then Caine realized how it would be interpreted as such. Every time he turned his back on his father's teachings and even far more recently than that, the very day that he came home and saw his father sitting in the Ancient's home, reaching out to him. His heart had hardened, hardened far more than Peter's ever did. His father had been right. He had struck out at him to kill him, but he had been filled with rage. And rage that remained in his soul.
"If you cared for me, you would not do this!" Kwai Chang raged. "It was you who left me to die in my Bardo! And now you continue to abandon me still! You never came back! I said I was sorry, but you never came back!"
As Caine's emotions roared, the desert wind began to blow, the sand whipping up in a fury. Its abrasiveness threatened to strip the flesh off of his very bones. It obscured his vision, blinding him to his father's presence. Was this his doing, was his own rage causing this storm that divided them?
"Father!" Kwai Chang Caine cried out, hot tears streaming down. "Please, do not leave me, again!"
"Let it go," a voice called out. "Just as you told Peter, let it go."
"Let the anger go, my friend."
"Let it go, my son."
"Father," Kwai Chang wept. "Forgive me. I do not wish to lose you, again. It has been too long. I lost Peter once. I will not lose you, too. Please, father. I understand." Caine continued to call through the raging sandstorm. As his anger waned, the storm also slowed, losing its power and strength. Caine was no longer standing, but kneeling, sitting back on his heels with his head bent to his chest. Tears continued to fall. "I know how it feels, the guilt, the shame, wishing you could have done more to stop it all from happening. The feeling of isolation and aloneness. No peace within one's soul because all that you loved is gone. I understand father. And I am sorry."
Kwai Chang Caine could no longer contain the sorrow that he felt, and he cried out his anguish, collapsing to the dessert floor. If his father truly wished to leave him, he would do nothing to stop him. If anything, he would stay, only just long enough to see that his father did not suffer. And yet, he was frozen to that very spot, alone and isolated as his father felt. Perhaps he, too, did not deserve to live for his own transgressions. To lose his father in this way was more than Kwai Chang could bare.
"No, father." Kwai Chang came back to the world of the living and yet, his heart remained within that desert world. He had failed as surely as his father had felt he had done. At that realization, he turned on his side and wept bitter tears. "I have failed."
"No, Kwai Chang Caine. You have not failed. Your father still lives. Whatever you have done, he is back with us. Now he can heal."
Kwai Chang Caine turned over to see the beloved face of his father. Matthew's fever had broken, the poison no longer a threat to his system. His father's breathing was even, his chi growing stronger and more balanced by the second. There was also a peacefulness in his features that had not been there before. Matthew Caine lived. As Kwai Chang watched his father in sweet repose another's consciousness suddenly blanked out.
"Peter! Lo Si, something has happened to, my son. I must go to him." As Caine tried to leave the platform, his legs collapsed.
"You have fought a great battle Kwai Chang Caine. You must rest. We will return to Peter as soon as possible. Your father will also be needed, but you must rest. You know what will happen if you do not."
"Yes, Master." Kwai Chang Caine settled back down next to his father. He only hoped that whatever happened to Peter, they would not be too late to stop it.
Continues With Part 22