Sami looked around in desperation. What was the best test for knowing if you were dreaming or awake? Asking another person was the best test he could think of, so he asked the man lying in his arms, smiling, staring up at him, dead. “Guru Baba, am I dreaming?”
The smile seemed to broaden, or was he imagining that?
All around him, people stood open-mouthed. There were hundreds of people, maybe thousands. He realized where he was. He was in Lucerne’s Transparent Temple at Guru Baba’s darshan – holy viewing. He recalled the holy man saying he was going to “change into somebody else”. Had he been talking about Sami or himself?
Guru Baba lay in Sami’s arms with his eyes wide open, as if seeing everything, but Sami knew he wasn’t. A minute ago he had kissed Sami on the lips, and said, “It is you,” before falling away.
Sami heard people chattering. He didn’t look up at them, just stared at their shoes.
“He is not dead. He is resting immaterially.”
“The Guru will never die; he lives forever in our hearts.”
“Did he appoint a successor?”
“We must find his reincarnation. What are the signs?”
Sami’s mind could not acknowledge the situation. It was too strange, too much to handle. Guru Baba had said to him, “It is you.”
He thought back to when they had first met, on the New City bus to Lucerne. He had noticed a strange brown man, with long black beard, orange robes and ASICS trainers, and smiled at him, prompting the man to leave his seat and sit next to Sami.
Their sudden intimacy was surprising. The strange brown man had talked non-stop for three hours, and Sami had developed a headache, mainly from laughing. The guy’s main topic was sports shoes.
“I thought that modern life is all running around. I am an Indian holy man, yes, but I am also a modern citizen, so I must also run around. I did research. I tried sneakers in many sports shops. They said to run in them to test them, so I ran twenty-six miles to see if they were suitable for marathons. I tried Reebok, Puma, Fila, New Balance, and ASICS. ASICS were the best ones. I tried Nike too, but they have a bad reputation among spiritual people, you know, since the Heaven’s Gate people wore them and killed themselves. They also name shoes after Irish terrorist groups. They really make killer shoes! And Adidas, with the rubber shackles, made a joke of slavery. I know, all sneakers are made in sweat shops, but what can we do?”
Sami was stunned. How did a seventy year old Indian holy man know so much about sneaker culture?
Guru Baba said, “There are many kinds of sneakers – high tops, low tops, mid cut, sneaker boots, trail shoes, running shoes, basketball shoes, but they all share one quality. They are humble. They cover the lowest part of the body, touching the ground. They take daily pounding, and don’t mind getting dirty as long as they save the feet.”
At the end of the bus journey, when they separated, Baba kissed Sami on the lips. He had had found it creepy and pulled back, but then had a change of heart.
He realized that this kiss, all true kisses, were far deeper and more lasting than any erotic connotation. They showed loyalty, affection, gratitude, compassion, sympathy, joy and sadness, and held the redeeming power to cast off spells. Princesses were changed back from dragons, and Beauty’s Beast into a prince. People kissed the Pope’s ring, the Torah, The Kaaba’s black stone, Krishna’s feet and Buddha’s bones. A reciprocal kiss was a greeting and farewell, and a blown kiss went straight from your heart to heaven.
His meeting Guru Baba was as surprising as his parting. Both sneaked up on him unexpectedly.
He removed the old man’s robe to reveal Road Runner boxer shorts, draped the robe around himself, and called forward the next person to kiss.
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