"I was wondering when you were going to ask me that," he said softly, & at once she felt at ease with his mind, in that rarest of moments when people are fortunate enough to meet others of true wisdom. "Why do you think we called you here?"
"I don't know. Nothing makes sense to me."
"So you do know."
"What?"
"Nothing makes sense to anyone really, & from that nothing everything comes. The salmon isn't all wrong, for all the shite he talks!" he laughed as he turned to wink at the fish, still bubbling in laps of the aquarium.
Mama Bear sat swaying from side to side, as herself, Baby Bear, the ferret & three of the huskies sang a passing rendition of 'Om Mani Padme Hum' in a harmony few would have expected from the sextet starting out. Even the toad was puffing out his cheeks to the rhythm as he stared at the temple that had shared his suffering earlier in the day. He tried to sing himself but discovered that his mouth was glued shut by a build-up of mucus that had been let go for too long.
"Everything doesn't come," Goldilocks said when they finished.
"Yes, it does. You just have to be open to the uni..."
"She's right in a way," the salmon interrupted, popping his head back out of the tank.
"How?" Papa Bear & Goldilocks both said as they turned to face him.
"Everything doesn't come. It's already here. Already everywhere."
"That's not what I..." she tried to say before the salmon raised his voice above hers & told her to stop putting herself down.
"Look, if we were only ever to say what we mean, we'd either be mutes or the Dalai Lama!" The toad tried to laugh but couldn't because his mouth was glued shut, so he shot snot out his nostrils that landed at his feet in an oozing pile of green goo that looked similar to what the toad might use as a backpack were he ever to pack his things together & head off on his travels to somewhere exotic.
"That's disgusting!" Mama Bear squealed, her eyes taken by the bubbling glop at his feet, but the toad just shrugged & went back to staring at Shiva.
"I didn't say I was the Dalai Lama!" Goldilocks said as she grimaced at the toad.
"I shouldn't think so," the salmon replied. "For a start, you're very woman to be him. I'm not sure how focused the monks would be if you were leading them in prayer!"
"They'd be focused alright," Papa Bear chuckled, "But possibly not the way Gotama had in mind!"
"Stop it!" Mama Bear said, jumping to her defence as the others were having a laugh at her expense.
"I knew a llama once," Baby Bear said casually, looking up from a notebook where he'd been busily writing a list of the house rules for the ferret. "But she was the least Buddhist creature I've ever met!"
"Not that sort of llama!" Goldilocks said haughtily, getting visibly defensive as the apparent abuse continued.
"There's other kinds?!"
"The Holy kind."
"Shit, like a llama riddled with bullets?"
"NO!" She shouted loud enough to make the toad sneeze again & the bubble to grow. Papa Bear put his hand on her knee to settle her. "I know what you mean," he said reassuringly as her blood pressure calmed.
"I've been wondering for the last five minutes where Dalai is. It sounds like a much more spiritual llama colony than the one I've been to but maybe that was partly my own fault.." Baby Bear continued, blissfully unaware of his ignorance.
"Dalai isn't a place, well it might be but not to the best of my knowledge," the salmon said, attempting to straighten things out. "Anyway, the llama you're thinking of kind of looks like a cross between a camel & a good big hairy lump of a deer," he continued, looking at Baby Bear, "& the Lama you're talking about.." he turned, "is the recent, & still spiritual, head of state of the Tibetan people.
"Ahh!" Baby Bear said, his eyes returning to the notebook. "You should be more specific next time."
"Nobody's asking you to be the Dalai Lama, a mute, or a llama," Papa Bear said fondly. "I only ever asked why we called you here."
"I haven't been here in sixteen years & yet you know where I live? That's what doesn't make sense to me! Any of it."
"We've been looking after you." He fixed his eyes on her as he spoke. Goldilocks found herself starting to laugh in spite of herself at the absurdity of it all.
"I see that alright, & a grand job ye've been making of it!"
"To be the animal you must first live the life. To gain you must always know what it is to lose, so the fear of that failure keeps you clinging to the mountain. What you experience is what creates you. All animals exist in environment." He reached over with a tissue to the coffee table, where an army of ants had arranged themselves in squadrons around the snot, radioing back to the colony on tiny walkie-talkies to check if they could find any viable use for the unidentifiable substance that was jelly like to the touch. Within seconds they were filing out around it, hauling it up onto their backs from all corners as they began to carry it off, chanting "Mortar!" as they went.
The snot quickly disappeared off the table, but the toad was oblivious to the whole episode, as he was generally oblivious to most aspects of existence if truth be told. Papa Bear still held the tissue in his hand so he shrugged & decided to blow his nose instead. They all had the sniffles. It was that time of year.
