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Dehen lit the candle, humming to herself as the sound of her footsteps and the match echoed throughout the empty Buddhist shrine. There were skeletons dancing on the walls, fangs of deities bared as multiple arms drew swords or calmed minds. Her favorite Bodhisattva, her Bodhisattva of compassion, had a large mural to her right, lilies and green sky sighing over the diety’s frame. The shrine was ancient, as could be told by the cobwebs in the far away corner and the cracks in the left of Compassion’s mural, yet the Tibetan liked to visit this place of solitude anyway, sandals still clicking on the floor as she approached the main shrine.
As she put her candle down and lit the incense, she breathed in the dust and forgotten prayers that had been left on the shrine floor and breathed out, getting to a meditation position on the ground. She made sure to keep her nun’s robes clean from a particularly nasty blotch of dirt to her left. This place had been almost forgotten by the nuns of her monastery, but she still came here to pray, though only the gods knew why. Perhaps she should sweep up the place sometime.
She closed her eyes, darkness enveloping the world. The shrine was not quiet, however, and the echoes of a thrown rock or the swooshes of wind that raked the stone structure kept her mind alert. Focusing on those trivial sounds, she decided to go into the past. Maybe she would find some answers to what troubled her today.
___
“Hey, Dehen!” Khulan called, grinning and dashing up the slope of stone when Dehen got to close. “Missed!”
“Yeah, I know!” Dehen concentrated, getting a ball of snow and trying to carefully analyze the pathway to Khulan's scrunched up nose and stuck out tongue.
“You can’t even through a snowball! I win!” the 7-year-old said haughtily.
“You do not WIN the bet just because I missed once, you Mongolian buffoon,” the Tibetan novice huffed. “Now stay still so I can throw this snowball at you.”
“I’m right, you know, you couldn’t win a snowball fight if it bit you in the foot!”
“How can a snowball fight bite me?”
“I know you know what I mean, Dehen.”
And in that beautiful, blessed moment of conversation, Dehen chucked the snowball at Khulan’s face in the middle of the temple courtyard. “HA!” She walked up to the fallen Mongol and this time she was the one who stuck her tongue out. “So yes, I can win snowball fights. You owe me a bowl of rice.”
“Ugh,” Khulan gagged as she wiped the snow off her face. “You know, you didn’t have to throw it at my FACE.”
“But that’s what makes it so fun!”
“You’re weird, Dehen.”
“And you only came to the monastery because punch your uncle in the nuts and set a goat on fire.” It was true, really. Khulan had told her, after Dehen had firmly announced that they were friends and a few weeks of lonely nagging at the pretty girl had gone by, that Khulan had been what her parents had called a “difficult child,” but who she called, “a kid with a backbone stronger than pudding.” After several incidents that put her parents to their limits up in the Gobi desert, all of which somehow involved a goat, her parents had sent her to become a nun, or maybe just to get her out of their hair. Dehen personally thought that Khulan simply stopped hurting goats for the time being and as soon as she got home she would wreak havoc across the Gobi, but she was just a novice, so what did she know?
Khulan had finished wiping snow off her face and hastily gather a frozen weapon of her own. With a quick toss, the snowball landed on her legs, and she cried out as the cold did more damage then the weak throw did.
“My robe!”
“Ha!”
Dehen narrowed her eyes and picked up another snowball, throwing it in Khulan’s direction but missing slightly and hitting another novice. The novice gaped like a fish at Dehen, who was about to apologize when she was hit by a snowball the novice had hastily built. With a roar from Khulan and an outraged gasp from Dehen, the temple courtyard turned into a full-on snowball fight between every novice at the monastery, snow flinging from one corner to the next, everyone laughing or giving screams of war.
It ended with the lama being hit by a snowball the size of a hand, and then they were all sent back to their rooms with less supper than usual. But Khulan had smiled as she walked out of the courtyard, robes wet but prompting a grin from Dehen with the joy in her eyes.
___
Dehen woke up from the memory, shoulders raised and eyes wide. A few more breath brought her back to normal, and she sighed away the shock of the moment. It had a nostalgic feel to it even now, but, well, that was so long ago. So many years ago, as was testified by the wrinkles on Dehen’s forehead and the shaking of her hands. It was over, but she had to confess she missed it. She missed the days of fun as a novice and she missed the wild rides of youth.
She missed Khulan.
Her friend has been gone for so long. She had left the monastery a lifetime ago, yet Dehen missed her. Was she even a friend anymore?
Was she ever a friend?
Was she always, something more?
Dehen shook her head, wringing her hands and trying to shake off those thoughts, those feelings, those memories. She leaned back and focused again on the natural music of the wind, closed her eyes, and sat in the dark. But the dark is an empty place. It’s lonely, its cold, its an empty mind when you want your world to be filled. It is human to fill the dark, and the memories were swept along into her mediation with the desire not to be in the black.
__
The moon cast shadows in her little nook, the mat Dehen slept on empty as she stared out the window. Her robes showed not a child anymore, but a teenager, an almost-woman. A girl that was just about to reach her 16th birthday, come the moment the moon grows high. She waited, watching the moon intensely, waiting for the moment another year would add to her collection. A few minutes now, surely.
There were footsteps behind her, whispering on the stone as a woman crept up behind her, slowly walking into her peripheral vision and-
“BOO!” the assailant screamed and Dehen jumped, letting out a muffled cry until she saw the grinning face of, who else, Khulan. God damn it.
“Khulan,” the Tibetan sighed, shooting an annoyed look at the snickering teenager. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Yeah, but it was HILARIOUS!” Khulan plopped herself down next to a frowning Dehen. “Aw, don’t feel bad!” She nudged her in the shoulder. “I didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday, you know.”
“It’s not even my birthday yet.”
“Yeah, that’s how great of a buddy I am.” Khulan smiled again and Denhen couldn’t help but do the same. It was hard not to smile around her.
“So, how many minutes until 16?” Khulan leaned on her elbows, and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. In the moonlight, her unusually pale skin glowed and her eyes looked expectantly at her, lips red and-
“Hey, Dehen?” Khulan waved a hand in front of the Tibetan, now concerned. “You okay? You kinda fazed out.”
The nun blinked, going red and quickly looking away from the Mongol. “Yeah, sorry. I was thinking of, um,” how pretty Khulan was at night and how much Dehen wanted to be around her? To be close? She stopped. It was late at night and her head was foggy, tired. She wasn't thinking straight. That was it. “Um, things.”
“Wow, very specific.”
“Yeah, well, go kill a goat if it's that important to you,” she snapped, turning back to the pale, emotionless moon floating across the sky.
Khulan blinked in surprise and narrowed her eyes. “Well excuse me for being concerned about you.” Dehen refused to look at the voice beside her and studied the celestial body like it was the only thing in the world. “What’s wrong with you lately?” The voice was more aggressive this time, a dog’s snarl, yet there was a tone of worry buried in the harsh words. “You’ve been acting all distant and, and just cold! What happened?!” Dehen counted the craters on the silver circle. “Did I do something?!” There was a break in the voice on the last word
The Tibetan finally glanced at the girl beside her, eyes going wide as she caught sight of Khulan’s red cheeks and wet eyes. Something jabbed at her heart as she realized she had hurt her friend, leaving her looking at the stone floor and trying not to cry. It was a twisting feeling, one the ripped at her heart from the inside.
“No, of course not,” she whispered, coming close to Khulan and wrapping her arms around her. The Mongolian embraced her back, head lying in the nook of her neck and she tried to dry her eyes and shove her tears away. Dehen hesitated to hold her, but they stood there in silence for a few moments. It felt...nice. That they were leaning on each other, being close. Dehen even thought she could feel a fast heartbeat under her fingers, which was most likely just the pounding in her ears. This felt different then when they hugged as children, then she couldn’t feel Khulan’s breath on her skin and the moonlight on her frame.
“Hey, Dehen?” Khulan pulled away from her, and Dehen felt the cold air fill in her spot immediately. “Is it your birthday yet?” They both looked up at the moon, which was now over the barren tree in the courtyard. It was midnight.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Dehen responded softly. She didn’t feel any different. Her heart was still pounding and her nook was silent, as usual. It was just another year. She sighed, rubbing her eyes, now finally realizing how late it was. “Alright, let’s go to-”
“Happy birthday Dehen!” Khulan tackled the Tibetan, and they both fell to the stone floor.
“Get off me! We’re not 10 anymore,” Dehen laughed, but there was a pause as Khulan stood over her, face red as their eyes met and stayed locked. More seconds passed. It was longer than friends, longer than everything they had spoken and smiled and lived with each other for. It was something else.
Khulan jerks herself off of her, scooting back and coughing to try and hide those seconds under the scowl of the full moon that was frighteningly similar to the old lama’s scowl when they broke Buddha’s nose. She smiled awkwardly. “Er, sorry Dehen.” She wrung her fingers, and to avoid the Tibetan nun, now 16, looked up at the moon. “Man, I haven’t even thought of a gift for you.”
The woman a thousand miles away from her words nodded silently. The moon was climbing higher now, the barren tree in the courtyard was fully lit. Perhaps it was time to sleep. Perhaps it was time for this dream to end.
The Mongolian looked at her again, finally. Did those dark eyes hold a vendetta against her? “Well, I can think of one gift,” came the whisper. It was odd, she thought. Around everyone, Khulan was so brash, so headstrong. But in the silver light, she looked soft and shining. “Dehen, come here.”
She followed her orders, scooting closer much like the other had scooted away. Cocking her head, looking at her with her own perfectly arched brow, she asked, “What?”
The dark-eyed woman inched closer, holding her breath slightly. “Alright, close your eyes.”
“It better be a fun present or by Buddha’s left eye I will throw another snowball at you-” she was interrupted by the feeling of something brushing against her lips. World dark, she felt it brush again, until it pressed harder and she opened her eyes. And under the full moon, in the morning starlight of her 16th birthday, Khulan kissed her.
____
Again Dehen awoke, no longer in the dark, no longer wanting to fill the void of meditation with horrible, horrible memories. Gasping a bit again, she dug her frail nails into her worn skin, focusing on the shine of the lone fire in the dark shrine and not the faded feeling of that kiss. It was so, so long ago, she thought, and yet. Why could she live that memory so clearly?
Well, she supposed it didn’t matter anymore. Noticing the candle’s dripping wax and singed edges of the stone, she drew out another candle from her robes, and walked over to the shrine of old offerings and candle wax. The candle drips, drips, drips, and Dehen quickly burnt the candle she was holding and snuffed out the old, shortened one. As she put the new candle into the old one’s place, the shrine was alight again, yet she felt that, well, it cast its light on the stone in a colder, fresh way than the snuffed one had done.
What they don’t tell you that there exists something emptier than the dark. The mind is always, always scared, it must reach out and fill the black. Yet there are some moments it likes to fill as well, the ones that, upon reaching the eye, strike a cord in the mind, ringing and ringing and ringing a sound no full mind hears. You are right to be afraid, it sings, for this is just what happened before. Before, before, before. The world repeats, it rings and rings, and the world is empty.
The mind is scared again, and even if there’s a light, a new candle in the dark, it reaches out again, wanting the fellowship of its memories. And it was there that Dehen found herself, staring into the light and being reminded of a time where the world was cold and she too had to throw away an old light for a colder, newer one. The memory invited itself in and played before her in the light of the fire, and Dehen again remembered.
_____
“I’m going to get married.” These were the words that greeted her when she said goodbye to her lifelong friend. Khulan, with what little she owned in a bag beside her, a bowl, a necklace, the robes, stood at the edge of the courtyard, at the start of the road. She was going home, back to the Gobi. Her parents had let her live there for long enough, surely she must be a disciplined and orderly woman now. Away to the desert and to the camels and gers she always went on about. Away. She was going away.
The temple stood behind them, forgotten and lonely. There were still nuns roaming about, but without Khulan’s laughter and smirking pranks, it seemed grayer. Dehen pretended not to notice.
She had seen her off of course. Helped her pack her little things, instructed her how to put on the deel she hadn’t worn since she was 7, waited outside the door as she shredded her robe and the life she had known for 13 years and put on the deel and expectations of a Mongolian woman, someone different than the nun Dehen had spent so much time with. A stranger had stepped out of that room, but she had Khulan’s smile.
Dehen understood, of course. Khulan was never going to be just a Buddhist nun, she had a future, she had camels to tame and sand to swim through and children to raise. She was always going to live with her family name. It was said on day one.
Maybe that’s why the children avoided her during free time. Not because of the way she snarled at the other kids and ate alone, but because perhaps there was a promise, a promise of never seeing her again. Maybe that’s why she wanted to avoid the Mongolian at first, because that was all she would be. A Mongol, destined for Mongol life, living a short dream in Tibet until going home. Maybe she should have heeded that warning. Maybe, if she did, her eyes wouldn't be so blurred and wet, her throat wouldn’t hurt from tears, and she could finally breathe.
“Dehen?” Khulan tired to get her blurry attention. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah.” She hoped her voice didn’t crack, and her broken mask didn’t slip. “You’re getting married? I’m happy for you, of course.” She wished she had been trained to be a better liar. “Who’s the man?”
Khulan was watching her face for something, hopefully, her emotions hadn't started to leak. How rude would that be, on her grand day? Khulan, her friend, was leaving. Just her friend. An acquaintance, if anything. Not the one she cuddled with at nights, or slept with under the barren tree. How childish.
“He’s someone from a strong clan. My mother wants to find an alliance.” Ah. Not for love? Not for the sweet moments under fruit trees, away from the stone temple? Not for the hidden whispers in the dead of night, telling secrets and gossips of their fellow nuns? Of course. Because, Dehen swallowed and smiled at her friend- her acquaintance, that would be silly. People don’t marry for love. Certainly not nuns.
Khulan shuffled in place, looking a little uncomfortable in her deel. Was she waiting for the Tibetan to say something? “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”
“Yes. It is.”
“I’ll miss you,” the stranger whispered.
“Yeah.” Monotone. Show no emotion. Don’t tell her about how you’re breaking inside, how much you want to drag her back to the temple and stay the way they were before. Before the letter saying Khulan’s time was up, back to the time where they were in love. Back when her eyes weren’t red and she didn’t feel like crying on Khulan’s shoulder and begging her to stay, to stay with her.
But she wouldn’t. Khulan had a life, a home back in the Gobi. Why should a 20-year-old woman stay and die in a monastery, when she could live? She would never be satisfied with daily prayers and paintings of bodhisattvas. She knew her, god how she knew her, and she would never be happy.
It was better this way.
She should leave.
There’s nothing she could do about it anyway.
Tears started to build up in Dehen’s eyes, and in front of the wide-eyed stranger, no, her lover, she started to sob. The nun collapsed to the floor and covered her eyes, trying to muffle her cries and silence the tears. “Dehen?” Khulan rushed to her, like she had been expecting this from her soft-hearted Dehen, and with a sigh of something bittersweet Khulan dropped onto the ground and embraced her. “Don’t cry, love, don’t cry.” They were out of sight from the nuns, hidden behind the walls. “I’m here.”
“I h-hate you!” the Tibetan sobbed, burying her nails into Khulan’s deel and resting her head on her chest. She was supposed to better than this, she was supposed to be strong-
“I know.” The Mongolian smiled bitterly and embraced her tighter. Her voice was soft. “I know.”
There were so many things Dehen wanted to say. She wanted to beat the woman’s chest, she wanted to scream at the gods for letting her fall in love with a woman she would never see again. She wanted to cry.
They stayed together, the pair of nuns, until the heartbreaker’s deel became wet and the world was free from the sounds of holy sorrow. They broke apart, and Dehen wiped away the emotions from her cheeks. Khulan stared at her, but nothing could be said.
Nothing the stranger, her stranger, could say would make all of this right.
Khulan reached out to hug her again, but Dehen jerked away. “Goodbye,” she spoke, telling herself her sore throat didn’t crack her words. She stepped back a bit, waiting for her to leave.
“Love-”
“Goodbye.” That was final. Go.
The Mongolian simply looked at her, hands gripping her bag as she searched the Tibetan’s eyes. “Before I go,” she smiled, “Can I give you something?” Dehen looked up, curious. She allowed for her heartbreaker to step closer to her, up until they were only a foot apart. “Close your eyes.”
She knew this scene, she knew this present. It was given to her underneath the moon, 4 years ago. Despite her mind, her empty mind, begging her to step away, her heart wanted to receive the present one last time. She closed her eyes.
Lips brushed against hers. It wasn’t the quick kiss of a girl that was given before. This was more passionate, a song ringing between them that echoed longing and salty tears. Dehen bit back more sobs from under her eyelids and returned the gift, both woman kissing behind the wall of the monastery, the road she would leave on waiting for her to begin her journey.
But, like all things, the gift ended, wrapped up as Khulan pulled away. The other could have stayed there forever.
But in the end, she was gone.
And in the end, she was alone.
And all she had was a fading gift and memories to love her by.
___
The old nun stopped, looking away from the candles and eyebrows jumping in surprise when she realized that her eyes were wet. With a smile, a small, broken smile, she said, “I really haven’t changed, have I?” Her voice echoed in the empty chamber, and then it was no more.
With the last light of the new candle, she opened her mouth the give a prayer for that woman, that Khulan. Just like every visit before.
It was a simple prayer. “Gods above,” she whispered into the dark chamber, “keep her safe.” She smiled up at the stone ceiling, at the dark she so wished to fill.
The dark and a candle, whispering her memories as she left for the light of day.