The Monastery

Chapter 25: The Tigress and Her Cubs

Susant's eyes were half-closed as he sat over his breakfast. He thought back to when he had awakened in the forest, without food, and what it had felt like to not eat for so many days. The smell of his meal was mouth-watering, and he never wanted to go without food again. He had decided that, from then on, he would be more grateful in his life. Susant looked up to find that Jampa had already finished his breakfast.

              "I still don't understand how you can eat so fast," said Susant, picking up his fork. "It's almost as if every time you eat, you had been starving beforehand."

              "If that were true, then I wouldn't eat like that, now would I?" Jampa laughed, and Susant remembered his aching stomach the first time he had eaten in the monastery.

              "I just really appreciate food," said Jampa, his tone sounding almost solemn. "I cherish it."

              Susant ate quietly, wondering what he could have said to bring the slight change in his friend's demeanor. Thinking back, he remembered that Jampa had told him that he would not have gone home, even if he had found a way. After finishing his meal, Susant looked up at him. 

              "Jampa, could I ask you a question? A personal question?"

              "Sure," said Jampa, looking up from his book.

              "You said that you wouldn't leave this place . . . even if you could? Why?"

              Jampa placed his book down on the table. "Well, it's simple really. My life back home wasn't that great. My life here is better. I have food, somewhere to sleep, and even though it's only a few, I have friends."

              "Do you mean to say that back home you didn't have a bed or food?"

              "Well, I had a bed, depending on what you might consider a bed. I slept on a bed of grass outside the gates of my hometown." Jampa sighed, and Susant wasn't sure if he was overstepping his boundaries.

              Jampa continued. "Back home, I didn't have much, and that was all right. My family was very poor. My father worked as hard as he could in the mines to make money for everyone, but it was more often than not that he didn't make enough for everyone to eat."

              Susant clenched his jaw, thinking about how good his life had been in Kingdom.

              "Then one day, my father just didn't come home from the mines. There had been a collapse. They never found his body." Jampa let out a breath of air. "My mother . . . she didn't take it well. It wasn't long before she became ill. Only a couple months after my father passed, my mother followed."

              Jampa reached beneath his robes and pulled out a few dark brown seeds, the size of small marbles. He rolled them around in his palms for a moment before continuing.

              "And like I said, I come from a poor family. I was nine years old. I had no profession, nowhere to go. I didn't understand what was happening when people came in and told me to leave my own house, as if they had just found it on the side of the road and decided it was not to be mine anymore."

              "That's terrible," said Susant. "They just kicked you out?"

              "Yeah, simply put. What was I to do? I was young. I didn't know what to do."

              A moment passed in silence between the two friends.

              "Afterward, I needed to find a way to stay alive. I washed dishes where they would let me, most of the time just for a little bit of water and bread. I spent my free time under a tree where my father and I used to sit together. That was where I built my bed of grass. The tree sheltered me from the rain as best it could, and I never had bad dreams there, not even once."