It is a little unusual for a Welsh bookseller's to have an Oriental theme, which may be why Lei Mi's is so popular. The outside is lacquered red wood with rice paper panels in two of the windows instead of glass (the rest of the windows are glass, so that books of various sorts piled up can be displayed), and a pagoda-style little shrine is in the courtyard. It's completely filthy with bird crap, but the resemblance can only go just so far.
     The bookstore itself has an upper loft area in addition to the main floor, and bookshelves reach from floor to ceiling regardless. Some new books are on shelves - in which case they are always Welsh authors, and inscribed by the authors themselves. The rest are used books of varying description, vintage and condition, and hence, price.
     During rare sunny days, the world flocks to the courtyard, with its wrought iron chairs and indestructible foam cushions and the little gelato cart that a neighboring shop sets up to sell by the cupful. Any other day, the shop varies in fullness (and emptiness); the interior has a handful of chairs and one small reading nook in the loft with old, scarred leather chairs and an ancient coffee percolator. Donations are left for the coffee in a battered biscuit tin next to the percolator, along with china mugs by the sink there. A sign next to the sink reads: Wash Your Own - Your Mum Doesn't Work Here.

     The coffee donation Loki left in the tin is probably more than several pots of coffee really cost anyone, but he has justified this on the grounds that no doubt other people take coffee without donating at all. With a fresh mug of coffee in one hand, Loki has just begun to peruse the shelves, in search of something he's never seen before.
     It's the joy of used books; you might find something amazing, you might find something horrid, but there's likely to be something stunning in either its quality--or lack thereof--somewhere on the shelves. The real trick is in getting past the seventeen copies of last decade's hit thriller paperbacks to find something worth pulling off the shelves and paging through. He's starting with the books located furthest in the back, in the most awkward to reach places, on principle. That's where the strange books tend to congregate.

     The strange books, and the strange people - in a shadowy corner there is a young man, a youth, really, with startlingly aquamarine eyes and skin the colour of moderately weak tea. His hair is pulled back into an ebon ponytail, strong eyebrows delineated further by the red dot marking the Third Eye.
     The aqua eyes open, blinking, and the smile is immediate and white, and he scrambles to his feet, the linen tunic the colour of cranberries and the grey serge trousers crumpling a bit as he does so. "My apologies I give you," he says, voice husky as if with disuse or sleep, "I did not realize any would be in this way for me to be in the way of. If you are looking for Voltaire, I regret there is none; I checked already. But if there is assistance I may give you, there I will aid, if I am able."

     Loki slides back a twist of black hair that isn't really quite long enough to be obscuring his vision, and says as if it's something he ought to apologize for, "I've never actually been much of one for Voltaire. More of a Dumas fan, really. Except I'm not looking for Dumas, because I've already read most of his books, though not all of them in the original"
     He pauses, with a flick of an embarrassed smile to have been caught babbling. "Which is all a verbose way of saying that I haven't any idea what I'm looking for. Something I haven't seen before, which is worth the time to read. Do you have any suggestions?"

     He grins immediately, smoothing his clothes down with a careful hand. "Of poetry, of history, of literature, I can say only that I know a little, have dallied among the companions of the august as a small footling creature, ready to spring up at any moment and flee. Where do your tastes lead you? Dumas? Then adventures might be your meat and drink, in which case you might consider de Balzac - or, equally, The Ramayana, if you do not mind flowers strewn upon your path. I assure you that their sweetness hides daggers' points and adders' nests."
     He bows, a moment later, and straightens, grin intact. "Forgive me. I am Valmiki. A wanderer to your shores, with no small ego of my own, although humblest of place in this vast and crowded, crazy world. How do you do?"

     "I'm Loki." As introductions go, it's one to be breezed on past as quickly as possible, preferably before anyone offers a comment on the name. "Doing fine, and a pleasure to meet you." Some of that's rote, Introductions 101, and some of it sounds reasonably sincere.
     "I don't think I've ever read the Ramayana, if they have a good translation here. I can't read it in the original." He sips his coffee, and adds in that halfway apologetic tone, "Though what I had in mind was something with...fewer gods, if possible. More adventure, less mythology."

     Valmiki does not appear to find anything odd about the name, which might be an oddity in and of itself - but then, to gauge by the skin, the hair, the slightly sing-song mellifluous accent to his English, he might not be from around these parts. "Gods are to be avoided whenever possible, yes? Their interest in the lives of mortals complicates those lives immeasurably." His smile is slightly shy and embarrassed, but delighted all the same. "It shows in the stories over, yes, over and over again. And yet we poor mortals, puny and fragile as we are, they need us more than we need them."
     And I humbly ask you, o gods, to remember that...
     "Let us see, then, wherein a journeyman might wander." Valmiki turns to peer at the shelves, reaching up on tiptoe (he isn't very tall) to rummage above his head. "Robert Louis Stevenson? I confess I am not oceanic in my wanderings."

     Loki follows along, the slight sign of relief on his face attributable either to lack of comment on his name or that you don't seem inclined to push the matter of gods. "I get the impression it depends on which god is being discussed."
     He has to stand on his tiptoes as well to see where you're rummaging. Behold, the congregation of not particularly tall men. "He wrote Treasure Island, didn't he? Aside from the apple barrel deus ex machina, that book wasn't bad. What else do they have by him?"

     "Kidnapped," Valiki contributes, blithely oblivious to your dilemmas and distresses. He clarifies a moment later, "Another of his tales; I believe he was also responsible for the phenomenon of Robinson Crusoe, was he not? Ah; so many names, tumbling one after the other - I do not recall, I fear. Pray forgive this wanderer the lack."
     He shifts back from the bookshelf to allow you greater access, sitting on the floor crosslegged and resting his hands on his knees. "It sounds to my ear as if I am not alone in wanderings, today; do you wander far, or near alone?"

     "Far," Loki says, after a moment's hesitation in debate over where his point of origin is right now. He takes down a book, glancing over its title. Prince Otto, and thus not anything he's read. "Though not, I gather, as far as you. I can't claim I wandered this far just to sack the local used book stores, though it was something of a secondary goal. What about you?"

     "To where I wander, I do not know. From where - I am from India." He smiles at that, with a hint of embarrassment. "For now - I am here." Valmiki rises to his feet and bows again. "I often wander through bookstores, I confess, there to pass the time between stories."

     "I've never been to India," Loki says, about the way someone might note not having been to a restaurant that just came up in conversation. "Some other year, maybe." He glances down at the book in his hands. "In stories, or between stories? I'd think most of the stories would be found in the bookstores, not outside of them."

     "There are far more stories outside of bookstores than in them, though," Valmiki answers serenely. "Every life is a story, or even, often, a collection of stories. As many people, then, as are alive, are stories - look! Through the window, you see a child's story." He gestures to one of the glass windows, where a little girl is scolding her little brother. It's obvious from the expressions but not at all audible. "What adventures await them? Who knows what they will find."
     "Every railway station is full of drama, romance and pathos - lovers parting, lovers' reunion, the secret world of business and espionage, betrayal and partnership," Valmiki continues, grinning at you delightedly. His face is expressive, caught up in eagerness and something of melancholy alike for a moment. "They are uncaptured stories; they have not been committed, caught, killed as trophies and fixed in place with the lance-tip of pen and ink, still walking around in flesh and blood and breath."
     Valmiki grins at you sheepishly, quiet as if divulging a secret. "It is easier, to be sure, to read others' trophies - but to walk among the stories, even when there is the risk of being devoured by them as tigers might, has a certain appeal, has it not?"

     Loki watches out the window a moment, and lets himself take that metaphorical deep breath of feeling some hint of what's going on outside. Most of it's what's obvious, but it's always different, knowing what's felt instead of just...suspecting.
     The hard part is to take it in and not drown in it. Drink of water, kid, not breathing in the water.
     "The advantage of books," he says wryly, "is that it is easier, yes. And authors usually feel compelled to give neat conclusions to the stories. People are much messier, and their stories don't tend to come to satisfying narrative conclusions. Things just keep adding on until they--stop. Which isn't always more pleasant, but it does tend to be more surprising. There's something to be said for not being sure where a story will go."

     Outside the window, there is a quarrel going on over the possession of a bag full of marbles. The elder sibling claims they are hers; her brother, his. Valmiki watches them wistfully, holding himself aloofly for a moment, in the way of someone doing his best not to take seconds when a guest at someone else's house.
     "There is something worse," Valmiki says wistfully. "There is knowing that the story will remain the same, no matter how many times it is written."

     "History repeats itself? In my more optimistic moments, I try to believe that's a warning, not prophecy. I've never been much of a fan of unchangeable fates." Loki cuts a smile to the side, thin and quick and maybe not meant to be seen. "Which isn't exactly the same as thinking there's no such thing. "

     He glances over at Loki with a smile of his own. "I am a Hindu, you see," Valmiki explains apologetically. "Not by choice, but by birth, I am born to believe that everything repeats." He makes a slow circuit with a fingertip, revolution in a circle. "We are born and we die, and based upon our pasts, we repeat - both within our current lives and the next. It is to our benefit, thus, to strive to better ourselves in all things, to accept only that which is immutable, and to seek grace."
     He laughs, then, gently, and with embarrassment. "And we return to the topic of gods. I am sorry, my apologies indeed. Another topic, another noble story, perhaps? What of Arthur?"

     "Arthur, King of Britain? Almost worse than gods. At least the gods have the excuse of not being human for why they're supposed to be inherently superior to everyone else." Loki's voice is light as he says this. Mostly. "I come from a classic humanist background. You are what you make of yourself, and all that rot. I don't think it has much more validity than rebirth, as far as being testable and true, so I'm not about to argue the point. Though if there's room for bettering yourself, in Hinduism, doesn't that mean the story doesn't repeat precisely? Or is it just assumed that for every step forward there'll eventually be one back?"

     "That is a very interesting way of looking at it." Valmiki gives Loki a thoughtful look, interest plain as he drops to sit again, tucking his fist under his chin. "I must confess that never had I seen Arthur as superior - it is, perhaps, a trick of my being born outside Britain, yes? But while he is a hero, a hero is not a good man, by default. He may - or may not - be blessed by the gods; he may even labour under their curse. He may have no more birth than a cockroach." It is almost profanity, the way he mentions the bug's name. "But the hero's journey is more important than the hero himself, is it not? We all of us come from the same place, and we all of us are going to the same place. Is it not what lies between those two poles, both before and after, that changes?"
     He looks embarrassed again, and he smiles. "In Hinduism, depending upon of course the branch that is practiced, there is room for rising, if one is very, very good, and very, very holy. Most of us, it is said, will not succeed in that. To be born holy is an excellent start, and gives you a beginning, an advance upon where all the rest sit, they say. I? I am a Hindu, but there are many who would say that I am a very bad Hindu. Or even a heretic. I keep the faith in the way I know best."

     "I've never much liked the idea of kings, whether or not they have to do an awful lot of work along the way. Not ones that are anything more than vestigial titles for ceremony." Loki says it a little apologetically. He's not really in the right place to be disapproving of inherited titles. "If King Arthur had run about being heroic without any expectation that therefore he ought to be in charge, he'd probably bother me less."
     He shrugs twitchily, taking a seat on one of the battered old chairs in the nook. "I don't know enough about Hinduism to know if this is a stupid question, but--if everyone and everything cycles, is being born holy fortunate, or does it mean that you worked your way up previously and so deserve that easier starting point anyway? Though I'd almost think if someone proved able to handle a hard life and still better themselves, it'd almost argue that they ought to be portioned out the harder starts, since they could handle it, and leave the holy beginnings for those who need all the help they can get to improve. I'm not sure whether or not reincarnation is supposed to be that kind of fair."

     He does not seem put out, listening to your point of view without offense but with considerable interest. "It is a very recent, and American construct, the notion that every man is free to make his own destiny," Valmiki agrees, "and it is understandable that it would rankle anyone who has lived under it all their lives. As for being born holy," he smiles beautifully again, "it depends..."
     "The famed examples are that of the holy ones who have followers flocking to them, with everything handed to them on a plate. However, more often the reality is being taken from your family as a small child or even as an infant, having been 'recognized' by the teacher, the holy ones or the heads of order, and raised among them to fulfill the destiny awaiting you. It can be a life with some material rewards - which, of course, you are expected to be largely indifferent to - or it can be a life of extreme ascetisms. For, if you are truly the holy one they say that you are, you must live up to that role. An easy thing, for an ideal. A much harder thing, for those who are in truth flesh and blood, whether or not that flesh and blood encloses an ideal as well."
     One slim browned hand adjusts the neck of his tunic. "Reincarnation is not about fairness, you see. India is not fair; life is not fair. And, by extension," Valmiki's smile includes and encompasses a wince, "the universe itself... there is no true fairness save that which mankind attempts to impose upon its surroundings. An argument can be made that doing so is a mistake; even if it is not a mistake, it is a quixotism. I am, myself, a quixote."

     "There's one argument--not a very popular one these days, but it's out there--for atheism that says any god in charge of a world like this one isn't worth worshipping," Loki says. He leans in a little as he speaks, coffee almost forgotten, though not so much that it's in any danger of spilling. "I know some people who think of fairness--maybe not fairness, call it justice, the same way. The world is demonstrably unfair and unjust. They consider that no reason not to fight for making it otherwise."
     He uses caffeine to focus his thoughts, now as any other time. Sip of coffee to figure out what he means. "I mean, of course the world isn't fair. Fair is a human concept, or at least one that requires some understanding beyond the solipsism of simple organisms. You need to understand that the world is bigger than yourself to disagree with how it's being handled. Plankton don't care about fair, if they could be said to care about anything at all. So if the world and how it's run--with reincarnation or otherwise--isn't inclined towards being fair, so what? There are plenty of things the world inclines itself towards that we humans are contrary enough to keep kicking against and trying to change anyway, for better or worse. Even trying to keep alive is fighting against the inevitable, and it's hard to fault anyone for that."

     "I do not think that there is any one god that can be agreed to be in charge of this world," Valmiki answers tranquilly. "But as for justice, and the fight for it, or for fairness - I would propose that there are those who can fight, and should, and those for whom such roles fit poorly at best. In any time of war, there must still be those to grow the crops and tend the bruises and all the rest - for the survival of the species."
     He smiles quickly, lowering his voice. "It is the way of humanity, that there will always be as many people to fill all the roles and sides that can be - so that, in the end, there will always be the seeds for a fresh start, until such time as tears and earth are alike, wiped away."

     "I don't have quite your confidence that there'll always be what there needs to be to continue humanity until some definitive conclusion," Loki says. "What. Who? Who is the better word for that." His voice has lowered a little as well, more in response to that than any personal conviction that what he's speaking of is private. "I find it too easy to picture humanity doing a sort of wheezing decline into senility, as opposed to a quick death."
     He gives another of those twitchy shrugs, with a quick, thin smile. "Probably because I'm a pessimist at heart. Or, worse, a disappointed optimist. I'm told it comes with this stage in life and shouldn't be taken too seriously."

     "Ah, but there is where Hinduism can come in handy. According to the learned sages, the world has been destroyed by the gods before - many times. And yet, here we are again. If a god should destroy the world after all, how would we know?" Valmiki mulls this over before resignedly shrugging the thought away. "We are here; life is good. Is that not enough, in the end?"

     "Past destruction isn't a lot of comfort to people here and now," Loki points out. "I suppose that is, again, where Hinduism comes in handy. Cycling makes any single decision or calamity less terrifying. You'll always have a chance to come around again and try doing things differently if it doesn't work out the way you like. More or less."
     He looks down into his coffee with that thin smile. "Maybe that should be enough. Here we are, and there you go. It is what it is."

     "It is what it is. But that cycle can be a curse and not only a blessing," Valmiki counters. He slides up from the floor, smile regretful. "If, after all, we are to repeat what has happened..."
     "How do we escape endless repetition?"

     "Making different decisions the next time around?" Loki hazards. "Otherwise what's the point?"

     "I have often asked myself that very question," Valmiki admits sadly. He smiles nonetheless. "Alas! the gods make sport with we poor mortals, yes? And there is no knowing the answers save through the portal of death and rebirth."

     "Call me picky, but I prefer knowledge I can pick up without needing to make a stop in death along the way." Loki looks over with vague wave of his coffee. "Just one of those personal opinions. Knowledge, check. Death, I'll pass."

     "Death is, they say, not worse than the fear of it, but I confess I am in no great hurry to repeat myself." Valmiki brushes himself off with surprising daintiness. "I think - yes, it is just about tea-time, is it not? Can you tell me where a good place to eat might be, or shall I wander to try and find as best I may by blind luck?"

     "I'm not local enough to recommend the best place around," Loki says, rising as well. "I could point you at a place that did provide a decent early lunch with quality slightly higher than its prices, though."

     "Always legitimately preferable to the other way around!" Valmiki laughs, sweeping into a goodnatured salaam before turning to peer at the doorway. The quarrelsome children have gone, leaving in their wake a stickiness suggestive of spilled ice cream. "I shall trust you to lead me, sir, then, to where such goodness may be found. I shall be able to pay," he adds hopefully, as if for the universe's benefit more for your own, "if it is not too much."

     "Not too much," Loki promises. He washes out his empty coffee cup, and sets it properly back in its place before he goes for the door. "As I recall their menu relies perhaps overmuch on the potato, but there are worse ingredients to be fond of."

     Valmiki follows, bobbing his head in a nod. "I am a vegetarian," he answers apologetically, "so I have no objection to potato. Do you, then, walk any particular path?"

     "In diet? Not--these days." Loki drapes his hands in his pockets as he walks, fiddling briefly with the phone earpiece that he's too polite to take out and put on when in company. "I've tried a few styles, but veganism was too strict for me to enjoy it."

     "Ah! Yes, I forget that there are so many rules." Valmiki chuckles at that, pulling on the collar of his tunic and brushing his ponytail back. "I confess that I do not walk with many rules; a few, but only a few. I think that life is burdensome enough, isn't it?"

     "Between the written and unwritten, there are entirely enough rules already," Loki says, dry for a moment. "I don't see a lot of reason to add more unless they have some kind of purpose to them." He pushes open the door to a pie and mash shop, which dollops out pies (of mashed potatoes) and mash (ditto) from a counter, with a small cooler offering the only beverage options. There's a distinct odor of brown gravy about the place, but it has a few selections not packed with meat, and a small cluster of semi-private rooms upstairs with tables and chairs for customers to retreat to.

     He looks immediately bright-eyed and happy at the smell and taste coming with the smell, selecting a vegetarian option and a bottle of whatever's least expensive. "Upstairs or down?" Valmiki inquires, then laughs gently. "Ah, but we are in Britain, yes? And it takes on an entirely different meaning."

     That receives a quicksilver smile. "Upstairs. The view's not bad, and we might as well get what pretention we can out of the way." Loki's acquired a highly traditional beef pie, drenched in gravy, and a can of universally available Diet Coke to go with it.

     He smiles and takes the can of ginger ale he's chosen and his plate and heads to the stairs, the aquamarine eyes turning outwards to a thousand miles away while going through the blind process of selecting an empty table and chair. He sits, picking up his fork with the nervous delicateness of the virtuoso, tapping it on the edge and then skillfully scraping a bit of mash off to the side of his plate. Valmiki murmurs something with eyes closed, one hand moving quickly in some kind of benediction, then takes a forkful of mash for himself.

     Loki has no religion--or at least, none that he involves in his meal habits. He is polite enough to pause slightly before he begins eating while his table companion takes care of such things. He's hungry enough to begin eating promptly, letting that take over for the conversation for a few minutes.

     It is a few moments before focus returns to the world other than the inner man (such as it were). Aquamarine eyes dart from plate to window to you, and Valmiki smiles shyly. "Thank you. This is more than adequate, and better than many," he remarks. "I have eaten in some places which ... but there is no use in complaint. Each day is a blessing."

     "There's use in complaint if it can change things," Loki points out, perhaps somewhat too literally. "After the fact, maybe less so. In any case, you're quite welcome. Some things are better shared, and meals are often on the list."
     It's maybe more touchy-feely than he meant to get, because he turns back to his food for a moment before speaking again. "I do wonder, though. If everything repeats, and there aren't really ends, just changes that will be repeated again, what's the value of any given day or moment? It'll all happen again anyway."

     "The value is in what we assign to it, by and large - but there, the answer alters, depending upon sect, upon sliver of belief," Valmiki explains. "The Buddhists believe that the world, this world and any other, is illusion - that we must transcend these illusions to achieve enlightenment. They did not come up with this idea entirely on their own; there were always the sects, the holy men, who claimed this, that Maya," his hands dance on the name, "is the tempter - in some ways not unlike your Satan. I think that myself? I think that things do repeat in cycles - as we are taught they do - but that the details may vary. And that if we repeat, then it is because we have not learned what we were intended to learn. Is it not a famous saying, after all?"
     "That those who do not learn from history - are doomed to repeat it?"
     He sips his drink, then continues placidly, folding his hands in front of him on the very edge of the table. "So we sink downwards or rise upwards through the coils of realities - in accordance with the spiritual truths we must learn and absorb, through life, through pleasure, through pain, through suffering - all are illusions which we have set for ourselves, for ourselves to learn from. If they are illusions, then they are immaterial, meaningless, unimportant, are they not? Ah, but they are very important. To us, while we live - for they are the illusions in which we clothe ourselves. And most of us are not willing to test the limitations of that illusion."

     "I suspect that a great many people, if not nearly all people, would rather take their chances with illusions that include suffering than an unknown theoretical beyond." Loki listens to you attentively while eating his possibly illusory pie and mash. "Whether or not what we call reality is actually illusion, it's what we know, and people always fear the unknown more than solid knowable threats. There's a saying to go with that, too. Better the devil you know..."
     He's finished his can of soda already, it being somewhat small for a full meal. "Though maybe they do teach us something in the process. I'm just not sure that it follows, even if that's the case, that it's better to escape them than keep within them. And if we're going to stick to the illusions full-time... The fact that they're illusions stops being all that important."

     "You must understand, must consider where these beliefs came into being, were dreamed into being." Valmiki's smile is tinged with regret. "India is a very big country. And in all countries, there are those who have... and those who do not. Where there is vast suffering, might it not be logical to believe that our sufferings will be rewarded, if not now, then later? Does Christianity not have, in a way, its own version of the same? If we suffer in this life, surely we will be rewarded in the next. Our text is ... perhaps a trifle more literal."

     "I only received enough knowledge of Christianity to act as innoculation against it," Loki says. "But I do see your point. My father says that religion is a crutch, but for those whose life has given them broken legs, who am I to dismiss the hope of a better life?"
     He looks around the little upper floor room of the pie shop, where he can sit and talk comfortably at his leisure while having a meal prepared by someone else. "It's not as if I'd be able to understand where they're coming from through my experience alone."

     "Do you not?" Valmiki regretfully sets aside his plate, emptied of all save that scraped portion. "I think that all know suffering, to be truthful. If you cannot understand it, then you must be very blessed."

     "Relatively speaking, yes," Loki says. "But I've never been starving, or been in serious danger for more than a few hours at a stretch, or...any number of other things. Pain may be relative, but I'm not going to pretend that the things that have bothered me are anywhere on the scale of what a large percentage of the people on this planet have to worry about."

     "Ah, but scale is also an illusion. If we cannot empathize with our fellow men based upon our experiences - extrapolate from them, the lesser to the greater - then can we, truly, say that we have lived?" Valmiki smiles quickly, and as quick as a flash, crumples his emptied can as if it were paper. "It is a point for philosophers."

     Loki gives the can a brief, thoughtful look. "Sympathize, yes. Empathize... It feels too much like condescension to try that, when the gap's so wide."

     "Empathy is needed in this world. I recommend you cultivate it. You do not know when you will need it. It has saved me, more times than I could count." Valmiki rises to his feet, salaaming again. "But now I tread dangerously the line between philosopher and counselor; I apologize, a thousand times, yes? I thank you for this shared experience. Fate tugs me, however, and I fear that I must go." He looks regretful and weary at the thought.

     "Perhaps I'll see you again," Loki says, with a twist of a smile at one corner of his mouth. "It's not a very big country. It's been a very interesting conversation."

     "If Fate wills." Valmiki salaams one last time, smile restored to brilliance. "Until such time, sir! I wish you well." He turns, whistling quietly as he turns to head for the stairs, the shadow of Fate on his shoulder.

Posted by rowan at July 01, 2009 01:19 PM