Despite the cold wind creeping it’s way around the streets of the city in the clouds, the noise refused to relent. As Ai pushed through the throng of villagers, he was assailed by the clatter of carts, the chatter of old hens with bent backs and as much facial hair as any of Ai’s four older brothers, and laughter.
Always laughter.
The rough laughter of men, trailed by the giggles of women hiding behind fans and blushing at the men. None of it made sense to the boy, none of it ever had. People wasted so much time and effort, worrying about pleasure and pain. For what? For that moment, day, week or year. No, the concept failed to appeal to Ai, his mind set on his path to wisdom. Why chase women, predictable and fickle, when he could chase knowledge. Pleasure and pain are fleeting.
Truth is resolute.
Truth and wisdom were what Ai pursued as he moved further from the town center. As the hustle and bustle of a city in a midday rush fell behind him, new noises rushed in to replace them. Down an alley the crack of bottle shattering, a woman theatrically moaning from behind a nearby door, and always dirty coins changing even dirtier hands. Pulling his brown cloak tighter around his bony shoulders, the absent minded student turned down a random, narrow alley. wondered what he was hoping to find here? The answer to poverty? To the class difference so often overlooked by his privileged peers? Perhaps why nobody ‘down’ in this region did anything about their situation, or how they got there?
He had observed more the a few men smoking out of pipes, drinking from bottles and pulling dirty, ugly women behind ramshackle doors, and it dawned on him that the answer could be just as simple as the scenes around him. Addiction, not to the hash in their pipes or the fire in their bottles, but to pleasure.
‘But what drives a man into pleasure’s comatose embrace?’
Once again on the dirty street, Ai paused at the mouth of the alley, leaning in the shadow of the corner to ponder, his shaved head bowed in deep contemplation.
Always laughter.
The rough laughter of men, trailed by the giggles of women hiding behind fans and blushing at the men. None of it made sense to the boy, none of it ever had. People wasted so much time and effort, worrying about pleasure and pain. For what? For that moment, day, week or year. No, the concept failed to appeal to Ai, his mind set on his path to wisdom. Why chase women, predictable and fickle, when he could chase knowledge. Pleasure and pain are fleeting.
Truth is resolute.
Truth and wisdom were what Ai pursued as he moved further from the town center. As the hustle and bustle of a city in a midday rush fell behind him, new noises rushed in to replace them. Down an alley the crack of bottle shattering, a woman theatrically moaning from behind a nearby door, and always dirty coins changing even dirtier hands. Pulling his brown cloak tighter around his bony shoulders, the absent minded student turned down a random, narrow alley. wondered what he was hoping to find here? The answer to poverty? To the class difference so often overlooked by his privileged peers? Perhaps why nobody ‘down’ in this region did anything about their situation, or how they got there?
He had observed more the a few men smoking out of pipes, drinking from bottles and pulling dirty, ugly women behind ramshackle doors, and it dawned on him that the answer could be just as simple as the scenes around him. Addiction, not to the hash in their pipes or the fire in their bottles, but to pleasure.
‘But what drives a man into pleasure’s comatose embrace?’
Once again on the dirty street, Ai paused at the mouth of the alley, leaning in the shadow of the corner to ponder, his shaved head bowed in deep contemplation.
[Marked for training,]
[WC: 353]