The Point

... a short story

Chapter 1

I put the oats and nuts back in their bags and tuck them carefully inside my pack. I couldn’t face breakfast this morning, a cup of tea was all I could stomach. My cooking gear and dirty socks were packed away under the fly. I zipped up the inner tent, then the fly and stood back to admire the scene. Especially my tent. I love that tent, the way it is pitched just right, the way I can carry it easily and sleep where I choose. I like the way it looks, sitting there proudly, a luminous green beetle, crouched against its backdrop of brown on brown on brown; sparse trees, dusty, rocky hills and the ever present backdrop of hulking, craggy mountains.

At first, I had come to Pakistan, partly because I knew it would terrify my mother and partly because it had always intrigued me. When I first arrived I had planned to spend a week at a backpackers in Lahore. After 3 nights I had had enough of the heat and chaos there, I began to travel north west towards the mountains. I really did not know why or where exactly, all I knew was that those mountains had a gravity of their own for me and it was just easier to go towards them than anywhere else. Who was I to argue with that? The weeks that followed were a blur of dust, heat, walking, mini buses, shrines, cups of tea, insistent hosts and patchy English. I gathered snippets of conversation that spoke of unfamiliar animals and beautiful places, of rough roads and sparse settlements. These tales were like nectar for me, every new piece of information was another drop of sweetness that both fed and lured me onwards.

There were also things that were not said. Topics so carefully avoided that they left holes in conversations so large that really ought to have hand rails to stop people falling in. Those holes were about as magnetic to me as the mountains were. Those certain select silences were impeccably kept, that is, until a particularly excited teenage boy with fantastic English accidentally dropped the word ‘Kahina’ into a conversation with me. His sister looked at him like he had just fumbled the family’s prize teapot to have it smash into a thousand pieces on the stone floor. I did not know if Kahina was a mythical animal, a God, a person, or some wonderful combination of the three. What I did know is that I would find out. I made careful enquiries with those I sensed would talk. Some did, some did not. It turns out that a Kahina is a wise woman, a seer, a healer and is definitely not from the Islamic tradition, hence the unmentionable status. Kahinas were rare and they were outliers, not exactly welcome and not completely spurned. I had kept asking and travelling and asking, until now, a full 3 months after leaving Lahore, I had found one. Apparently. I was about to head there now, her hut was just around the corner. I spotted it from a distance yesterday afternoon when I arrived. I pitched my tent here, by a rarely used road about a kilometer from the hut.

I tear my eyes from this idyllic scene, turn my back on the campsite and begin the short walk to the Kahina’s hut. The person that made all those holes in all those conversations for hundreds of kilometers around. I have not been procrastinating and I am definitely not scared. Not at all.

I am heading towards the door of the hut when I see an older woman sitting under an open sheltered area that is precariously attached to the main building. She looks up as I approach. Okay, now I am scared, undeniably terrified but I am here now and I either run away screaming or I speak… it is a close call, I choose to speak, “Hello? Are you… the arh…ah… the Kahina?” I say, finally getting the words out.

“Your timing is off. This will be familiar to you no doubt? I was ready for you 20 minutes ago. Now I have started something and will not be stopped. You will wait there.” Her creased, crooked finger indicated a comfortable looking, well worn wooden chair. The chair rested in the morning sun, just outside the lean to in which she sat mending a shawl. “I will finish my work, then we will talk.” She finished, definitive and brisk. She is not what I had expected, I thought she would be more, I don’t know… mystical?

“OK, thanks, I can wait” I say, weakly.

I sit, slightly offended and trying not to be. That’s fair enough though, I guess. I’m not big into chitchat either, but I admit that I like getting the chance to introduce myself before receiving directions. A part of me would love to tell her how long I have been walking and hitching rides, how many nights I have slept badly on cold, rocky ground. Show her my beaten feet and the various prize scars I have collected over my months scouring these hills looking for her. Mostly though, I am quietly grateful for the chance to acclimatise to her presence. So far she has been disconcerting. I have gotten used to the altitude and the dry air; hopefully I can get a bit used to her before she finishes her mending.

I wonder what it is like for her? It must be hard to get anything done with questers showing up all the time. Although, now I think about it, things seem pretty quiet here. I had imagined more bustle. How many people actually come here, I wonder? I start to get nervous. My belly twists and my throat goes tight. All of a sudden, I am not so sure any of those people I talked to had actually been here. Their directions were, without exception, terrible. Either they did not want me to find her or they had never been here themselves, both seem equally likely now. Without time and persistence in equal abundance I would never have found her at all. There is no other obvious human activity about this place. No one. Just me and her. This speaker of truth, seer and healer of the sick, this supposed living legend? Such a legend that no one else wants to be here?... It doesn’t stack up.

I decide that there is nothing special about her after all. I have been had. Tricked. They will be laughing at me behind my back for following their directions, believing their stories and coming all this way. I am an idiot, I am flushed with embarrassment already and now I think of it, I am hungry too. A hungry, red faced idiot. I decide to apologise for bothering her, find some breakfast, then get the hell out of these mountains and maybe find my way to a beach somewhere warm to work on my tan and drink beer like everyone else my age.

Surprisingly relieved by this decision, I am just about to make my move when she puts down her shawl, clears her throat purposefully and sets her gaze on me just as I glance her way. Our eyes lock and I freeze. I am utterly transparent to her. She searches me as we hold eye contact. Let me be clear, I do not hold eye contact because I want to, I cooperate in the same way a rabbit cooperates in the jaws of a wolf. I am helpless, while she methodically picks her way through my life; my parts, flaws and particularities. I am somehow certain that every vicious thought, every deceit is on show for her like books on library shelves. Am I a bad person? Not perfect for sure, but no worse than average I wouldn’t have thought. Although there were a few times when, depending on your perspective.... Mercifully, she seems to have found what she was looking for. Her eyes soften playfully and her head tilts a little as if to speak.

Now free of her intense gaze, my fear has evaporated and in its place comes readiness. My whole body is listening, waiting for what she has to say. Every cell is open, receptive. Then come the words. Succinct, clean, no preamble or explanation. No fluff or extras thrown in for any side purpose. She says, “The point is to find them and connect them.” I was overjoyed. She had spoken! Those words sang in me fresh and clear. I repeated them back to her, enchanted by their texture in my mouth and she spoke them again, boring the words deeper into my being. “The point is to find them and connect them.”

That is it, we are done. I am full with this. She knew it too and went back to her mending without another word, completely unruffled. I stood up slowly, more than a little stunned and walked away. As I walked, time also started to move again. Five minutes or five hours could have passed. All I know for sure is that it is over and I am leaivng.

I turned a corner beside a low, loose stone wall and sat down against it. Far enough. Her words still reverberated in me, but after walking in a daze for a while their effect had changed. Now I was angry - what does she mean!? Connect what? How do I find them? What or who even is them? How can this be the point? The point of what? Find them and connect them. Too simple, too many holes. I came here with real questions, complicated questions. Questions worth slogging around these mountains for and this is what I get!? What a croc! I should have known it. I should have known she would be a waste of time. And what happened in there anyway? Was I under some kind of spell? No wonder there was no one else around, I couldn’t wait to leave there and I sure as hell would never go back. It made so much sense when I was with her, I had no doubts then. It was all so profound and meaningful then. But now? The old hags’ cheap tricks have worn off, her words are useless and this whole trip has been a total waste of time.

Awash with self pity, I noticed a goat making her way methodically along the edge of the road towards me. She looked healthy enough, considering there is almost nothing here to eat. The landscape consists mostly of dust and rocks with only occasional patches of scrub and small trees. There were plenty of goats in these mountains and their ability to thrive here has been a persistent mystery to me. This one was of the domestic variety and it seemed friendlier than most. She was picking her way along very deliberately, sniffing and snuffling at the earth, nudging aside stones with her nose and nibbling at … something. My curiosity was up. Nibbling at what? I scuffed a few rocks around that seemed similar to the ones she was interested in. Nothing. Just damp ground. Surely this animal was not so desperate for moisture to be licking damp ground? I watch the goat closely, now only a few meters away and she is clearly licking the damp earth. I am struck by the value of water here and feel instantly overfed and overwatered.

Healthy, content and as sure about her footing as her purpose in life. I fix the goat with my most intense and searching look, telling her sternly, “The point, goat, is to find it and eat it!” She looks up, slot eyed, dignified and slightly affronted, delivers me a curt nod, then walks away purposefully in search of saner company.

Grateful for the shift in mood that the goat brought, I laugh at my own hilarity until the joke fades into a question - what if it really is that simple? The goat shapes a pleasant enough existence out of what could be expressed in a few simple instructions. How different are we really? What are the directives that guide my life? I am more complex than a goat for sure, though we are essentially made out of the same stuff and in a vaguely similar configuration. I am just capable of abstraction and she is not. That is all. She sits in the shade blissfully chewing her cud, while me and my kind set determinedly about bending the world to our will.

Chapter 2

The markhor is a native goat that also lives in these mountains. Since I have been exploring looking for the Kahina, I have also been learning everything I can about the wildlife here, in particular these amazing goats. At one point I let myself get distracted for a whole week, following a small herd of females with their young, just watching them. I have seen some big males too, mostly on their own with their huge, twisted horns. They eat the leaves of trees and bushes which keeps the meadows open. The meadows are habitat for a range of small mammals and other grazers like a native sheep (which I have not seen, they are rare now), not to mention the songbirds and the dung beetles. Dung beetles roll balls of dung into holes in the ground and in the process help seeds germinate, aerate the soil, moderate fly populations, break worm cycles and probably other things too. And then there are the raptors, with wing spans of over 2 meters! Eagles, falcons, vultures, sparrowhawks. Sometimes the golden eagles even take markhor kids if they are small and get isolated from the herd. These huge birds prey on rodents, other small mammals, lizards and snakes. They clean up larger carcasses killed by land based predators like wolves and leopards too. Mesmerizing to watch, they effortlessly ride the updrafts from the steep valley walls.

There is something about these sparsely vegetated mountains that amplifies the life that exists here; as if the sparseness makes the plants and animals more visible and their connectedness more important. My eyes fill with tears with the beauty of it as I scan the landscape in front of me and allow the tendrils of my imagination and memory to weave together all of the things I have seen and heard of the life here. For the first time I start to get a sniff of what is really going on. It really is complex, deadly, pumping with life, delicate, robust and beautiful all at once. Each being here is a thread and each thread is both the weaver and the woven. Each point of contact between beings is held in place by multiple necessities which in turn support multiple opportunities which together produce the vitality and exuberance of this place. The tears win, the beauty washes through me as I sit here in the late morning sun, legs stuck out in front, face wet and hands gripping the stones beneath me.

Realisations arrive as the tears dry and my grip on the stones softens. I relax again against the warm rock wall. No human could hope to design a system so intricate and perfect as the one these creatures have made by simply being. No frameworks, mind mapping, brainstorming, team building or anything else. Just shitting, eating, breeding and walking around naked, doing their thing. Imagine if I did that!? I get another pang of sadness - the simple elegance of one hundred percent being like this is not available to me. I can visit this place, but I can not live there.

I get a faint sense of familiarity, like I am re-discovering the template of an old fairy tale. This is troubling and I wonder if those tales might run a little closer to reality than I thought. There was always a deal made in those stories, like when the King wanted to touch the moon and he traded his sanity for the privilege. The deal here, it seems, is that we humans gave up living exclusively inside a specific niche like a goat does. We can access beingness for short periods but can not live there with the goats and the eagles because, unlike them, we are also becoming. A truly unprecedented prize. And the price? For every prize has its price. The price for having the dimension of becoming open to us is that beingness is no longer everything. For having the option of becoming our potential - we pay with discontent. In order for us to want the next thing, to become the next version of ourselves there needs to be discontent.

Abstract thought is part of this ‘one time only’ package deal, giving rise to language and awareness of time, self and other. The price of abstract thought is simple: to be separated. Because to see something, to be aware of it, you have to be outside of it, to be other than it. Separated. That it is even possible for the word nature to exist shows that we are capable of seeing nature, of being outside it. This also means if I can see myself and be aware of myself, then I must have the capacity to separate from myself too! And on an Earthly organism as interconnected as this one, the rest of the world’s inhabitants and life support systems are transforming along with us whether they like it or not. Our power has grown to such an extent that everything everywhere in some way or another dances to our tune. It seems to all boil down to the fact that we are simultaneously the greatest risk to and the ultimate guardians of Life and Beauty on Earth… Shit!

So we are separated, abstract, potential seeking and discontented. What a combo… I need to write this stuff down. Maybe I should sleep on it?... Worn out and warmed by the sun, I shuffle lower against the wall, comfortable and heavy. I close my eyes to rest them for a moment and sink slowly into a deep, still sleep.

Chapter 3

“Hey look over there, that guy doesn’t look so good. Drunk too much of the local hooch do you think?”

“Just because you drank too much of that crap last night doesn’t mean everyone else has. Look, he’s just sleeping. Leave him be”

I hear this and wait, unmoving as the banter of the women continues back and forth. Eyes closed and slumped awkwardly against the wall, I am in no rush to declare myself present and unaffected by the poison they mention. I consider staying like this until they go away. I don’t feel like talking to anyone. Although now as sleep fades, I realise how cramped and uncomfortable I am. Also, I start to think that it would be great to talk through this stuff that is crowding my head, if for no other reason than to not lose it. The twin motivators of easing my physical pain and finding potentially willing ears combine to outweigh my social laziness. I officially emerge from my snooze by sitting up, groaning, coughing up a satisfyingly large ball of goo and hoiking it over the wall behind me. Perhaps, if I cared more what people thought of me I would not have such consistently awkward conversations? Nah, give me awkwardly real over smooth and fake any day. I feel a lot better after that nap and I am curious about the two obviously western and not so obviously female cyclists in front of me. Their bikes are battered, with gear strapped to every available space. Their long, baggy shirts and pants are covered in dust and carefully mended. What catches me though is their eyes; less like tools for seeing and more like portals for concentrating the clarity of the alpine sky.

“Hello there, we couldn’t help noticing you as we went past... are you ok?” Their gazes wash over me and in that moment I decide not to hold back, “Hi. Yes, I am fine. Thank you. For asking that is. Ahh, my name is Jake and it is only fair to warn you that people sometimes consider me socially awkward. I am perfectly fine according to me, it is just that there is a diversity of opinion on the matter.” I pause briefly to check the effect of this unconventional opening, they appear stuck halfway between amusement and shock. I plough onward before they can reply and before my own doubts about this approach can get a toehold.

“I do not want to talk about where you are from, where you are going or any of the other slop that fellow westerners typically chit chat about when we meet in other countries - or anywhere, actually... In any case I would very much like to hear your opinion on some things that I have been thinking about before I fell asleep. Are you up for that?”

“hmm… what if I happen to like the usual slop?…” The taller one elbows the speaker in the ribs, “I want to hear what he’s got to say.”

“Really? Why?”

“Sometimes you’ve got to give people a chance Georgia, jeez you’re so embarrassing. Go on then Jake, if you have something more interesting than the usual slop - I for one want to hear it. She,” indicating Georgia with a tip of head. “Is not so sure. You’ve got 5 minutes to impress us before I let her knock you on the head and steal your stuff, we’ve found your tent already, it is very nice - then we leave you for the Eagles... or the Vultures if you are lucky - they would be bestowing a great honour upon your family by cleaning your bones. Better get on with it. The clock is ticking”

She says all of this without telling me her name and with only the faintest trace of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. I am fairly sure she is joking, but her challenge ups the tension and I am delighted as we seem to have avoided the script so far. They sit down amongst the rocks and dust in front of me. The interest of the taller one with yellow glasses is clearly piqued, while Georgia seems to be scanning the vicinity for something more interesting. We begin to talk. Well, mostly I talk and they ask questions. I ask them to save their opinions until the end. They do. After about 15 minutes of this Georgia pulls out some dried apricots and flatbreads to share, I take that as a peace offering and a change of heart from her. We pick at the food and I am grateful for it.

Isobel, the one with yellow glasses, asks,

“So it’s a bit like we are the zoo keeper, except we also live in the zoo - is that what you are saying?”

“Yeah, kind of, just that the whole world is the zoo, the zoo is self supporting and there is no away to put things and no from somewhere to get them. The only place that exists is variations of here.”

All traces of her reticence now gone, Georgia grabs another thread,

“Okay and if we imagine the evolution of humans as a fairytale, then ‘the deal’ as you put it is that we traded contented beingness for discontented potential seeking?”

“Yes, exactly” I continue, “and what this means is that we work on as well as in ecologies. It is easy for us to forget that ecological realities still bind us while we are busy getting drunk on potential.” I am surprised and delighted that this is making sense to someone other than me. “Although I wonder now if the discontent might actually be the real gift, the first thing. It is only when I feel the discontent that the possibility of something else opens up for me.”

Georgia looks a bit miffed, “Huh! - I had always thought that discontent was bad, like it was a problem - but now it seems more like our fundamental gift as humans? The place from which we can create?”

“Yeah basically, you are just a particularly grumpy and highly abstract ape.”

Georgia grunts at me, smiling as we get up to join Isobel who has started getting her gear together, she adds, “One thing I have noticed about fairy tales is that they don’t always end with happily ever after. Often the endings are dark and gruesome.”

“Yeah, so what are you getting at?”

“Nothing really, just that things might not end so well, we humans might fuck it right up, just like in the fairy stories.”

With that, Georgia and Isobel pick up their bikes and gear and we walk over to where my tent is. The day has worn into late afternoon and our conversation continues in short bursts as they pitch their tents and I get a small cooking fire started. We pool our resources to make a hearty dinner of beans, dried meat, sprouts and flatbreads and chat intermittently. We whittle the evening away with travel tales mixed in with discussions of the various practical challenges of getting around in a place like this and where we might find our next food supplies.

The morning dawns crisp and clear, Isobel and Georgia join me around the breakfast fire just as the first fingers of the morning sun stretch up the valley to touch our tents, sending misty wisps of moist air spiralling skyward. As I hand her a cup of steaming tea, Isobel looks reflective,

“You know, I have been thinking about what we talked about yesterday.... It was interesting.... but I feel like that’s just the beginning. Did you guys get that too?”

“Mmm.” Georgia and I mumble thoughtfully into our tea.

She keeps going, “Also - did you notice, Jake, that by talking with us, what you had grew and changed and took its next shape?”

“Mmm, Yes I did notice that. Where are you going with this, Isobel?

“Just pointing out the obvious really. Other people might be interested to hear this stuff and they might have contributions to make. Who knows where it might lead?”

“It might be useful.”

“It might change the world.”

“Might not.”

“Probably won’t.”

“Who cares if it changes the world?!” Interrupts Isobel, exasperated.

“Nothing that actually changed the world started off looking like it would and plenty of things that looked like they would change it for sure, evaporated without trace! Look, do you remember those sprouts we had with dinner last night? Did the sprout know what it would find when it began to germinate? No. It didn’t know if it would get to become a plant, or get eaten on day three. Did that stop it from doing the only thing that it could do? No chance. It is the same for us, we can’t possibly know how things will work out before we start. Can’t you see what a trap it is to only move when success is predicted by whatever fortune telling method you invent? Will your unfolding make a difference? That is a crap question! The real question is: are you going to sit there as you are, or are you going to germinate? AND we are not sprouts, we don’t just germinate once, we get the opportunity to keep doing it, opening to new possibilities, stepping on brand new ground from moment to moment. You will only know what the outcome was when it is done, finished and in the past and even then who the hell are you to judge the outcome of such a thing? You can not hope to be aware of even a fraction of the ripples you make let alone track their consequences”

I am staring at her, open mouthed.

“I am in. I don’t know what for, but sign me up anyway”

“I pledge to germinate in solidarity with the sprouts.” Says Georgia with mock solemnity.

Mostly I listen to their chatter as we pack up and make our way down the road. We have decided to travel together to the next town at least and see where we go from there. We move as a loose group, them pushing their bikes and riding occasionally, I on foot, in and out of earshot as they chat back and forth in the easy, spacious fashion of two women who have spent a lot of time together. Their easy, rambling conversation forms the backdrop to my wonderings. I gaze into the distance, recalling the Kahina’s words. It would seem that those simple words have gotten something started. There is something happening here, something that seems a lot like finding things: people, realisations, creatures... and connecting them in some way or another. I wonder what else I might find and how else they might connect and what other things those things might in turn find and connect and where that might lead and what it might be like along the way? For a moment it seems like I can reach out and touch the possibilities as they radiate out in all directions, like ten thousand interwoven strands of web made from rivers of light, glowing, flowing, fading, popping in and out of existence with every thought, word and deed. This is what life is really made of, not money, posessions, tax, countries, jobs and governments, but shifting radiant fields of possibility. I trip on the rough road and stumble, nearly falling. I am reminded then that yes, this great field of possibility includes a chance of landing on my face at any moment. I would not say that I am happy right now, what I would say is that I feel more human, more alive and more delightfully discontented than ever before.

I notice movement in the bushes near the roadside. It is the goat from yesterday, partly hidden there and she is looking at me intently. I smile back, content in the knowledge that she is goating the only way she knows how and I am humaning the only way I know.