英文時空穿越小說 Adventure of … ( 28 )

 

Chapter 29

 

After this event, the whole tribe was firmer in believing that Linda was a goddess. And Linda was afraid that people would come to beg her for all sorts of things and so made up her mind that she would receive no one. She figured that if people were not able to see her, they could not make any requests. She also felt that this was a nice safe place to hide from the search of the government for her. The only annoying thing was that people here mistook her for a goddess and would bother her with their troubles, which was entirely out of her power to help them.

As she had no television to watch, no books to read, no music to listen to, nothing she could do, she began to meditate, which she had learned from Green Phoenix because a kungfu person should do it every night before going to sleep.

Linda did the meditation in the daytime and told Danba not to disturb her under whatever circumstances. She sat on her bed cross-legged like in a yoga position and closed her eyes. She put her hands with palms down on her knees and kept her breath slow and deep as if down to the lower abdomen. She relaxed every muscle on her body.

Danba, if nothing else to do, would always kneel before or beside Linda. Now she sat back with her butts on her heels, watching Linda sit there cross-legged with eyes shut. She did not know what the goddess was doing. Her curiosity was sharp, but she knew that she should not disturb the goddess by asking any questions right at present. She could wait. She waited patiently.

When Linda opened her eyes and smiled at her, she could no longer restrain herself. “What my Goddess doing?”

“I’m meditating.” Linda explained.

“What’s ‘meditating’?” It was the first time that the girl saw someone meditating.

“That’s a kind of exercise.” Linda told her. Danba could not understand it. In her opinion, any exercise should be accompanied by moves of some part of the body. How could it be an exercise when one only sat there quiet and motionless. Linda saw skepticism on her face.

“That’s a special kind of exercise. You just sit there with a blank mind and exercise your breath within. You breathe slow and deep into your lower abdomen. When you do it long, you will feel warmth in your body.”

“Pray, my Goddess, can I meditate?”

“Sure. Why not? Everyone can do it. Only you must keep a correct posture, or you can’t get the warmth. Let me teach you.” Then Linda explained in details to her how to do the exercise.

“Must I also sit cross-legged?”

“It’s the general post we take when meditating though I was told that we could do it when we are standing or lying on our backs. The most important point is to fully relax your muscles.”

“But my Goddess, the chieftain told me that I must be on my knees before my Goddess.”

“I permit you to sit cross-legged when you are meditating.”

Danba began to meditate, or what else could she do when the goddess was meditating?

Once while they were meditating someone was shouting something outside the house. Danba had to stop meditating and go to warn the someone not to make loud noise. When she opened the door, she saw an old woman kneeling there and saying that she must beg the goddess to help her.

“Goddess is meditating and can’t be disturbed. You must wait here till Goddess finish.” She shut the door and returned to the inner room. She resumed her meditation. She knew that the woman would wait outside quietly on her knees.

After a good while Danba knew that the goddess finished her meditation because she heard the creaking of the bed. She opened her eyes and met the eyes of the goddess, smiling at her. At once she changed her sitting pose into that of kneeling and reported that an old woman waited at the door in need of help. Linda frowned, but she could not say NO. She remembered that she had said NO to some of her girl friends, or even her boyfriend if their requests had not been reasonable. But how could she say NO to these people when their requests were always about some problems that they had no power to solve themselves. When they thought that she had that power to deliver them from any disaster while in reality she did not have it. The problem with her was that people here would not take the fact that she was not a goddess. Therefore, she had to avoid meeting people best as she could. But when people came to the door begging for her help, she could not hide any more. Sometimes she thought that she must leave the place. However, where else could she go now?

“Go to ask her what’s her problem.” Linda told Danba, who made her way to the door and opened it again. “What’s your problem?” She asked the woman.

“I have a boat tied to a tree trunk on the stream bank, but it’s gone now. Can my Goddess tell me where I can go to find it?” The girl conveyed the message to Linda.

“Tell her to go downstream.” Linda said after she thought for a while. Then Danba conveyed the instruction to the woman, who kowtowed three times, got on her feet and left. She sent some boys downstream and they found the boar for her. It was stranded there. It was because the rope had been broken through wear and tear.

After that event the people here had more confidence in Linda and believed in her omniscience. Actually Linda had only used her common knowledge that a loose boat would go with the current downstream. Fortunately for Linda, not many accidents happened here.