The old master sat in his wheelchair, out on the deck, watching the sun set over the ocean.
Slowly thumbing through his bamboo prayer beads with his good hand, the other, limp by his side.
Incense and flowers, white robes and long shadows, we sat and watched him dying.
“We are all dying,” said the master. “You. Me. Everyone.”
We pondered his words in the context of a finite lifespan on a cosmic scale.
When we should have pondered them literally.
The deck collapsed into the ocean.
The one thing we never learned from the master was how to swim.