Mile-High Malediction, Part III: Touch-Down

Priya buried her face in the sand, but Shen-Yun still heard her faint, lonely weeping. He inched closer—this time, without disturbing their tangled threads. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I know,” Priya said, hiding tears. “You already said.” She gazed at the horizon. “I am too.”

“No,” Shen-Yun insisted. “Maybe my fault. Maybe all my fault.”

“Huh?” Priya retorted. “It’s not. No matter how many times I blame you.”

“I don’t know …” Shen-Yun muttered. He thought of the cedar planks, the quiet water of his monastery. Still. Silent. Peaceful. But no room—not for anything else. Not for his childhood toys. Not for his dreams.

“I don’t think I want this to end,” he confessed.

“I knew it, stalker.” Priya couldn’t hold back an awkward smile. Like Shen-Yun, her thoughts drifted to home—that cramped Manhattan studio. Or at least, she called it a home. It was packed with achievements and expensive ceramic pots.

“Me neither,” she whispered.

“Maybe that’s why …” Shen-Yun squeaked, looking at the tangled mess between them. “Exactly why we stuck.”

Priya nodded. “So how do we get unstuck?”

“Maybe we try … this,” he muttered, starting to untangle the threads. The words hung in his throat.

“How your relationship with your mother?”

Priya burst out laughing. Was he serious?

He was. He wasn’t filling the silence.

“Pretty shit,” she said finally. “How about you?”

“Don’t know. She gave me up to monastery. Not enough money.”

“Oh …” she replied, quiet now. “I’m glad you still have that community, though. Probably is nice.”

“Not my choice to be a monk,” Shen-Yun replied coldly.

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you stop then?” Priya asked, concerned.

“Know nothing else. Have no one else,” Shen-Yun answered blankly. “Not like you.”

Priya lay silent, considering what to say. She reached for the tangled mess he was unraveling and began to help.

“If it’s any consolation … having a mom isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.”

“How so?” Shen-Yun asked.

“Sometimes they hurt you. Sometimes it’s better to detach,” Priya let the words fall.

“Ah. Maybe not so bad,” Shen-Yun reassured. “Buddha say attachment keeps us tethered. To plane of suffering.”

They glanced at each other, eyes widening.

“Yeah,” Priya broke the silence. “My mom used to say the same thing.”

“Really?”

“She used to say it was a man’s world. And if we women wanted to succeed, we had no use for ‘unnecessary’ things like attachment,” Priya stared vacantly. “Or love.”

Before the memories could sour her mood, Shen-Yun interrupted.

“Mom crazy,” he said, cracking a smile.

“Now you’re getting it,” Priya chuckled.

They talked for hours about mundane things—like family and dreams. And life. Every time one was locked, the other happened to be key. Strangely interconnected, their collective wisdom was uncanny.

They even used it for absurd causes. Came this close to cracking JFK’s assassination—before one of them got sidetracked by a childhood memory. Lucky for them, though—because they were being watched.

The agencies monitoring them breathed a collective sigh of relief.

When they finally untangled the mess of threads, the full moon shone over the ocean, glistening in their eyes as they listened to rumbling waves and watched flickering stars.

They could remove their harnesses now. Out came those saffron robes that had traumatized Priya. But in the moonlight, Shen-Yun looked different—more handsome than she remembered.

And Priya? Looking at her black leather jacket and lustrous wavy hair, Shen-Yun realized “witch” might not be the best descriptor. Perhaps temptress.

“So … If you didn’t want to be a monk,” Priya asked, “what did you want to become?”

“Dancer,” Shen-Yun gleamed confidently.

Priya erupted into laughter again. “I can never predict you.”

“Why laugh?” Shen-Yun shrank, face reddening. “Dancing beautiful … like crane. Like majestic butterfly, fluttering through the wind.”

Priya extended her hand. “Show me what you got, hot stuff,” she smirked.

By this point, the feds had arrived. Even arranged an inter-agency truce. But they were too invested in the plot to interfere.

Shen-Yun struck a dramatic pose and tapped through the sand, taking her hand. She tried to reciprocate but trembled from the crash landing’s whiplash.

Shen-Yun caught her immediately. Priya put her arms around him as he held her waist. They danced slowly under the glistening moonlight, always leaving respectable room for Siddhartha—until.

Priya collapsed into his chest, clutching those ugly saffron robes. The tears came out hard and sudden as she clenched him tightly. Shen-Yun gripped back, body frozen at first, instincts kicking in. He wrapped his arms around her like she might disappear. 

They held each other as if their entire worlds were in the palms of their hands.

“I’ll see you again, right?”

Shen-Yun held the back of her head as he whispered into her ears. “Fate won’t have any other way. Always.”

They smiled, loosening their grip—only to melt even deeper into each other’s hold. They held each other peacefully now, savoring each other’s warmth.

They would never see each other again.