Island of the Shadow Puppet

He had long blonde hair tied up into a bun on top of his head.

His arms were decorated with serpent tattoos, his neck and wrists were wrapped with multicolored beads, and he wore a blue tank top and parachute pants.

Past the kneecaps, his right leg was bruised. A pair of worn-out sandals covered his black toes.

"Transcend it," he mumbled from within a buzzing ball of flies. "Inhale; be one with nature."

He wandered up to a coconut tree and wrapped his arms around it. The stubble of his chin rubbed against the trunk.

A soft shower of white flower petals drifted earthward. He pretended to chase one. Even though it was within his reach, he said. "Try to touch it; you can't. It's like time; all you can do is open your mind to it."

I guessed he was being friendly and that he was trying to give me some insight into his world.

He gazed up through the shafts of light that penetrated the coconut trees. "You're like a flower floating on the wind. Go with the flow, brother."

What he lacked in self-restraint he made up for in bold self-confidence.

One artery pulsated on his temple and a single bead of sweat cut a path along his brow and to the tip of his nose.

There was no pain in his face; a thirst. He stood among his trees.

He could smell time and he could hear it through the rustling palm leaves. His left eye went white. His right eye was wild; pleading. He shrugged and waved at the trees. "This is my place," he waved.

He handed me his business card: 52 Goodfingers—Life Coach and Ubud Community magazine editor.

He pointed to a kampung across the road, indicating that he was my neighbor.

"More cosmic vibes flow through this area than anywhere else on the island," he continued.

"Take a deep breath. Taste nature's amusement park. It's a holy taste, brother. I don't know about you, but it makes me want to join a drum chant."

He invited me into his Dharma shack.

It consisted of a single room located inside a traditional Balinese family kampung. It was not uncommon for the locals to rent out a room in their kampungs.

These rooms were the cheapest accommodations found anywhere on the island.

His modest living space was given with little more than a raggedy mattress. Along a wall was a small camping refrigerator at least a decade old and a rusty gas cooker.

He shared a bathroom with three other families. A basic bathroom consists of a tub of cold water and a ceramic urinal dug into the ground. You pour water on your body with a bucket to bathe, and squat to relieve yourself.

We sat down on the dirty concrete.

His room was cluttered with moldy newspapers, piles of empty bottles, soda cans, chunks of plaster, blankets, and three pairs of soiled couch cushions.

There were also a few paintbrushes and a blank canvas.

His place was crawling with ants and covered with a heavy layer of dust to complete the effect.

The filth of his Dharma crash pad made my nose wrinkle and the hair on the back of my neck curled up into tight coils.

I had seen no one live in such unsanitary conditions since my hippie days.

52 lit up a cigarette; there were swirls of blue in the smoke that left his lungs in long, slow exhales.

His body was nothing more than a shrinking skeleton draped with skin. His gaze betrayed a life complicated by many troubles.

The whites of his sunken eyes surrounded oily pupils. Set in a viscous liquid that replaced once-clear pools of crystal blue.

For whatever trials he had faced, his spirit did not seem dampened. He maintained a happy-go-lucky smile.

His smile lit up his face, undeterred by yellow teeth, stained from years of smoking.

It didn't seem to bother him that his clothes no longer fit. Nor did he seem disturbed by the fetid aroma that formed a visible aura around him.

He reached into his worn backpack and pulled out an unmarked bottle. It was filled with a lemon-colored liquid. With shaking hands, he poured two glasses and handed one.

In one gulp he emptied his glass.

The brew smelled like a cross between gasoline and turpentine. There was no way I would drink it.

It turned out to be a local variety of Balinese moonshine called arak. It's pure alcohol made from coconut palm sap.

When the primary ingredient is not available, old tires fill in the fermentation process. It is addictive and many people die from drinking it.

"Is this our last dance as warriors?" he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He picked up a paintbrush and stared at his easel.

I asked how long he'd been here.

He related how he and his wife first arrived in Bali. They were from Holland and it was over 25 years ago. They had been among the first foreign shop owners on Monkey Forest Road.

He described the Ubud of long ago as a quaint little village.

"Hold still; stop fidgeting," 52 said.

Then he stuck another paintbrush in his mouth and smudged the canvas with his right thumb.

I held my pose, right hand on my knee. Left hand draped to the side, upright, head cocked a slight shit-ass grin.

"How long do you plan to stay here?" he asked.

I stared at a spot above his head, avoiding eye contact.

I couldn't look into his eyes dead-on without feeling like I was falling into a well.

What had happened to this man?

I found it hard to talk to him, so I didn't dare question him about it.

I'd been in his situation before living from day to day.

But I never dreamed I would live a vagabond lifestyle again and especially at this point in my life, and in a foreign land.

52 studied the canvas like it was alive.

His second brush stroke turned into an awkward dance made up of head jerks, backbends, and ailing arms.

It looked like a mismatched fight. He took another drink and exhaled across his knuckles to loosen his stiff hand.

Up and down, back and forth, I listened to the soothing, rhythmic sound made by the stiff bristles of the brush as they scratched against the old canvas.

While he painted, the late afternoon sun broke through the gray mass of clouds.

Filling the room with narrow, dust-filled fingers of light, it felt like at that moment we touched the Gods.

I wanted him to go on, never finish, and keep this moment frozen in time.

As he continued painting, my curiosity grew.

I was dying to see what vision had inspired the artist.

Did he know my secrets?

I had to see the image that my new companion had been so compelled to create.

"What's with the big furry feet?" I inquired.

"A traveler needs to be nimble. Well-protected feet that can move like a panther in the jungle," he replied.

Without waiting for an answer, he added a touch of gray to the eyebrows in the portrait.

He painted a fat, square, and hairless face with the innocent countenance of a child.

Peeking through a mop of shaggy reddish curls and sporting a traveling jacket, the eyes sparkled like a prism when struck by a sunbeam.

It had ears that resembled wings. Backpack, and a long, carved walking stick as if prepared for a long journey.

Like it stirred something deep inside of me a vision long forgotten. Rediscovering my purpose, recalling an act of courage I thought I'd long since lost. I felt empowered and a sense of imminent victory replaced that of impending doom.

My face gave way to a smile. "I like it," I told him.

The muscles in his face tightened and a tear gathered in the corner of his eye.

He was searching as if to recover something he'd lost, some idea of himself.

His eyes scanned my body.

He inspected every detail, each wrinkle in my shirt, every subtle shadow on my face, and each visible fold of skin.

He nodded and shot me an understanding smile. I resumed my pose.

"Turn your head and face me," he said.

Then he talked about the image in the painting. As if there were no difference between the world of his dreams and visions.

"I'm sorry for not listening to you," he said to the image he had created. "Do you forgive me?"

He stopped painting for a moment and appeared to study something inside his mind. "Have you ever dreamed that you died?" he said, with one eye half-closed.

"I see a mirror when I look at you. A reflection filled with a myriad of colors, crafted by the winds, blowing across the great canvas of life, all mysterious and unknowing."

He made no further comment and continued painting.

Somehow I knew that he knew that he would die from drinking. I closed my eyes and thought about how too many of my other friends had ended their lives that way.

A bottle can kill you in paradise as anywhere else.

In a mid-brush stroke, he collapsed.

I put my ear to his chest and I heard a faint tom-tom drum beneath the ribs. I shook him until he opened his eyes. I lifted his head for a sip of water.

"Do you want to go to the hospital?" I asked.

"No, I don't have the money," he groaned.

"Help me up," he said, as his body shook. "I am not dead," he slurred, lighting a cigarette.

He took a coke bottle from his jacket. It was more arak.

"52, you should try to eat something?" I nudged.

"Did I tell you the shadow puppet story?"

"Go on."

“The shadow puppet dances behind a thin white cloth. It is painted in black.

A serpent was trying to swallow him.

The shadow puppet's ferocious claw-like hands flinging did not stop the beast. The battle ensued without either side claiming victory.

The puppeteer dimmed the oil lamp behind the screen until there was only darkness.”

52 dropped the arak.

His eyes and mouth froze open. I thought it was his way of expressing what a puppet looks like when its strings are cut.

"Wake up!" I shook him hard, again and again. There was no response.

52’s battle was over.

His remains were cremated and shipped to his sister in Holland.

I hung my portrait on the wall of my jungle pad and made a shrine out of his paintbrushes.

The shadow puppet's story was ageless and transcendent.

It is about the eternal dance between this world and the next.

Epilogue

Every seed has everything required to become whatever is to be.

Watered by the rain, warmed by the sun, nourished by the earth, and transformed into something more without ever losing its seedness.

Something so tiny and insignificant as a fragile drop of water changes the very structure and design of the Earth, likewise, something so insignificant as a seed has all the knowledge to become a rose, an oak, a worm, a cat, a man, like the seed that seems so insignificant.

Incapable of anything of consequence until exposed to water, sunlight, and nourishment.

In those moments of being, the eternal now--profound clarity, wherein the boundaries of consciousness stretched, that we may continue becoming something more, and grow into the potential of our design.