Sometimes, when conventional treatments seem not to be working, there remains no alternative but to seek more esoteric advice. Well, I’ve been ingesting high-dosage chemicals for three weeks now, and yet it feels like every night a storm comes and throws another beachload of shingles at the side of my head. So the time came last night. I got picked up from my bedside by Easyyak, our local budget mountain transportation service, and, still clutching my face with both feet, my hands being otherwise occupied scratching the insufferable itching all over the rest of me, I set off for my latest consultation with the Master.
On reaching his alpine abode, situated so far east in the world it is almost back in the west again, or, truth be told, in the same bed I departed from, I ventured to ask him a question of considerable importance to me. After the customary formalities, of course – the mutual and repeated bowing, the purifying of the hands in the waters of an icy mountain stream, the burning of incense and the sharing of a green tea from a double-spouted feeding cup. Naturally, I was growing in impatience throughout this tedious preamble, but past experience told me that without it I would not receive a favourable response, but would be unceremoniously evicted from the cave by a tattooed biker whom the Master had befriended many years earlier in a time of great need, I suspect for them both. So I waited patiently until the Master at last fell into a state of grace of trance-like appearance. ‘Master,’ I said tentatively, as he began to hum audibly (those goats have a very strong perfume). ‘Master, I am at the end of a tether to which is attached the last straw. Western wisdom and the National Health Service have failed me, and I appear to have developed a lifelong pain in the face.’ Undaunted by the beginnings of a smirk traversing his countenance, I continued, ‘So I wondered if you had somewhere in your vast repertoire a cure for shingles. By any chance?’ Now, at these sub-zero temperatures, pondering is a long-winded and strenuous process, so I had to wait a full three minutes while he sweated unnaturally and the veins stood out on his head, before even the beginnings of a reply were forthcoming. And initially that only took the form of his lips opening and shutting silently for a further minute and a half. Eventually however, I was rewarded, and the words that issued from him, in his cracked, ancient voice, were as follows: ‘Gosling, you ask that I share secrets that your world has long since rejected, and that I am loath to do, for the favoured time is not yet with us again. However, should you successfully work out the answer through your own studies, then you will have gone a long way towards initiating the changes that will in the indefinite future be required. And herein can be found the answer, if you apply yourself with dedication to the quest – “when the unanswerable remains unanswered, and only the open question lingers, then first you must seek the right question. Because even the wise do not know all things.” ‘
That was enough for me. I reached for the codeine.
Now some might suggest that I spilt the glass of water, others might give a less charitable explanation for the wet sheets. Anyway, my wife was taking no chances and spent the rest of the night in the spare room with the uninvited guests. But the fact is, I’ll swear that the corner of my eye caught a glimpse of that yak lifting its leg on the bed before heading home to the hills.
And my head still hurts too much to search for the right question.
nicolsonbrooks 