New Journeys to the West
St . Paul ' s Convent School , Kawasaki , Yurika - 13
“ W
hat am I doing here ” Sun Wukong said to himself , “ What am I , the great Sun Wukong doing , sprawled out on the ground ?” He tried to recall what happened , to no avail . For the great Buddha had erased almost all his memories . He only remembered his name but he still retained his awful personality . Quite unfortunate , in my opinion …
Who am I , you may ask ? I am Xuanzang , a monk and the narrator of this tale . I am an acquaintance of this monkey . If you do not want to read about confusion , heartache , pain , sadness , I advise you to stop reading , immediately . For this story may not end well …
As the monkey started to cone to his senses , he started to panic . He did not know where he was and long he was unconscious . No matter how hard he thought , he could not remember . His mind was as blank as papyrus .
Suddenly , he heard people counting down numbers loudly . He scurried to find the place where the noise came from . “ Three ! Two ! One ! Happy New Year !” the people screamed and at that very moment , enormous fire-balls were shot at the sky and it exploded . The monkey had no idea what this potentially dangerous object was , so he hid himself behind a tree and whimpered . “ What are you doing ?” a voice asked . The monkey raised his head and he saw , an extremely chubby man snacking on dried bacon . The monkey quickly recovered and casually asked this man what the fire-balls were and where he was .
“ Those fire-balls ? You mean fireworks ? Also , what do you mean ? How do you not know where you are ? You ’ re in Times Square ! It ’ s 2018 !” the man replied . The monkey was listening intently until he heard “ 2018 ”. What . How . The last time that he checked , it was still 1318 . How did 700 years pass while he was unconscious ? Then he realised and thought , “ Of course ! What was I thinking ? That sort of phenomenon would happen to me only !” Then , it dawned to him … even if he had a horrible personality and hardly any friends , he still had a strong sense of belonging to somewhere , something or someone . The ignorant monkey did not know that this experience was a punishment from Buddha and the thing he had a strong sense of belonging to , his Somersault Cloud was not his anymore and returned back to where it came from . He did not know that all things that he kept close to his heart were gone , as punishment for his reckless and selfish deeds . He had close to nothing left in this new mysterious world .
Wukong racked his brains and tried to remember his old life . The chubby man decided to sit next to him and observe this curious monkey-looking man that seemed so confused . As for the monkey , he was mighty confused .
Suddenly , he heard a voice . Buddha ’ s voice . He didn ’ t know how he knew but he knew . The voice said , “ Find the cavern that you have been exiled to and repent your sins . After you have done so , your memory will return . Repent your sins once more … Preserve and you will be rewarded . Go back to the cavern in no-man ’ s land in South China . You will know the way the moment you step foot in Chinese soil .” The voice trailed off … and left the monkey perplexed . However , he understood that he had to go to China , South China to repent and become a decent person again , or a decent monkey , to be exact .
He decided to depart immediately . However , he soon realised he had no resources nor money . The monkey realised that the man was still next to him and asked , “ Did you hear that ?” The chubby man looked at him , puzzled . “ Yes ,” he thought to himself . He then inquired how he could get to South China as soon as possible . The man answered , “ I don ’ t know much about geography but China is basically on the other side of the globe !” This left the monkey flabbergasted for he had never travelled father then the Middle East . He plopped himself down on the grass and interrogated the chubby man about how he could get to China . He soon found out that what he needed was a flying metal bird , an aeroplane and money . A lot of the things the chubby man said did not make sense to the monkey . However , the man explained to the monkey