“Do they really expect me to eat this muck?” Doc Willoughby regarded his bowl of dark cereal with a look of disdain.
“It’s called tsampa, the staple diet of the monastery, and it is all that there is,” snapped Durosimi O’Stoat. “If you bothered to taste it, you would find that it’s really quite good.”
“I would be happier if I knew exactly what I was eating,” complained the Doc. “I can’t say I trust these fellows…”
“They are monks, for goodness sake!” exclaimed Durosimi, exasperated. “They’ve saved your life. Show some gratitude for once.”
Doc eyed his companion warily. This sudden respect for others was a side of the sorcerer that he had never seen before.
“Well, what’s in it?” asked the Doc.
“As far as I understand,” replied Durosimi, regaining his composure, “it is made of roasted flour and some seeds…”
“And what else?” muttered the Doc, suspiciously.
“Something called bod ja – Tibetan tea. It’s all perfectly good and, I have been assured, extremely nutritious also.”
Durosimi decided not to go into the details of how bod ja is made. Doc did not need to know that a large lump of greasy yak butter gets added to some heavily salted tar-black tea, which had previously been strained through a horse-hair colander. Neither did he need to be apprised of the information that this concoction is then churned until it reaches the consistency of thick oil, and added to the flour and seeds in order to make tsampa. Durosimi felt that knowing this, the Doc may have been disinclined to eat. Why such facts might have bothered someone who was more than happy to gorge on starry-grabby pie, however, is something of a mystery to me.
If you have just wandered into this tale after several weeks, or more, away, you may be wondering what Durosimi O’Stoat and Doc Willoughby are doing, enjoying the hospitality of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, high up in the Himalayan Mountains and many thousands of miles from Hopeless, Maine. To cut a long story short, Doc Willoughby – for reasons yet unknown – had been found, not so much at Death’s door, but wiping his boots on Death’s welcome mat. Philomena Bucket and Mr Squash, the Sasquatch, agreed that the Doc’s only hope of being saved lay in the healing hands of the lamas of the legendary Dge-lugs-pa, or the Yellow Hat sect, (fortunately, these days they are known more for their distinctive burgundy robes than their yellow hats). Durosimi, who had visited the monastery some time before, offered to go and keep an eye on the Doc, and so Mr Squash transported the pair of them to the Himalayas, via one of his mysterious portals. Now you are up to date.
Philomena Bucket winced as Mr Squash lowered his huge, eight-hundred pound frame onto the old wooden settle bench that had stood for years in the corner of the bar of The Squid and Teapot.
“Is that worried look, etched upon your dear face, placed there for my welfare, or for the settle’s?” he asked mischievously.
“Both,” Philomena admitted. “I wouldn’t want to see either of you damaged.”
“That’s not likely,” said the Sasquatch, “This old seat is as solid as The Squid itself; it will take more than my delicate weight to do it harm.”
Philomena smiled. She hoped that he was right.
“Talking of damaged goods,” said Mr Squash, “it’s high time that I brought Doc Willoughby back from Tibet. If the monks have not cured him by now, they never will.”
“You don’t know, he might want to stay there,” said Philomena, optimistically.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” replied the Sasquatch. “Besides, Durosimi is with him. Having to entertain those two for any length of time wouldn’t be fair on the monks. It would be enough to make them lose their religion completely.”
“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” laughed Philomena.
Mr Squash waited until daybreak on the following morning before leaving for Tibet. As ever, wisps of mist curled around the portal, which was just a simple natural gateway formed between two trees. If you or I had stepped through we would have found ourselves to be nowhere other than a stride away from where we had started, but for Mr Squash, and anyone whom he carried, it was a wormhole – albeit a large one – to the Himalayas, the land of his cousins, known to humans as the Yeti.
“Bon voyage, old friend,” said Reggie Upton, who had come to see him off. “Give my regards to your relatives.”
Mr Squash waved and disappeared into the portal. A few seconds later he returned, a concerned look in his wise and ancient eyes.
“Something wrong, old chap?” asked Reggie.
“There has been a rock-fall on the other side,” said the Sasquatch. “It’s totally blocked, and far too much for me to shift. There is no way that I can get through.”
To be continued…
