enthusiastically.
“…You will live a long and prosperous life.”
I laughed ironically.
“What’s so funny?” she said, alarmed.
“What do you consider a long life?”
“Well, a few hundred years ago they thought thirty-five was a
long life, and some day maybe it will be two hundred. It all depends
on your point of view, really. I guess a long life just means a full
measure of existence that you can look back on with no regrets.”
Hmm. Pretty insightful girl, I thought. I guessed that was the
secret of fortune telling—anything could be true depending on the
way you looked at it. As we talked for a while I mentioned to her in
an offhand way that she was very pretty, and invited her to sit in on
my next class. She accepted, and we proceeded arm-in-arm to the “I-
Ching-Sing-a-Long.”
Inside a large, silent, white room were assembled a group of
about fifty people in white robes and a small group of musicians in
black robes. No one was making a sound. It looked to me like a scene
from a 1970’s version of the future, Star Wars meets EST. I started to
hum the movie theme to myself but was told to be quiet, that they
were “tuning,” and that I was being disruptive. I apologized. After a
few more moments, a single bass note pierced the silence and the
musicians began to sing:
Everybody dance and sing along
Let’s all be happy ‘cause we all belong
Inside this paradise
Where everybody’s nice
And Omniraja’s love makes us strong
The white robes began to sing along with the musicians, and started
to dance around in two opposing, concentric circles, so that everyone
would stop and sing this song while holding hands and looking into
the eyes of someone passing the other way. It was obligatory that you
act out the words to the song to add emphasis, and what emerged to
the uninitiated eye was a chorus line of spastic adult monkeys singing
a nursery rhyme. Needless to say, it was hysterically funny, and I did
my best to keep from laughing since everyone else seemed to be
taking it so seriously.
I had no problem holding hands and singing a love song while
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
176
 |
 |
 |
 |