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MANJUSHRI
 Brian was dying. Well, at least he was trying to. He had taken
four aspirins 
and saida very ardent prayer to Manjushri that he may be born into a better life, with nicerparents. He didn’t want to have to go through all this shit again, and he figured that ifanyone could help him, the Buddha of Wisdom should be able to. He was lying inbed, chanting mantras to himself, as slowly as possible so that the prayers wouldseep through his entire being at exactly the same time that the aspirin was shuttingdown his body. He hoped, as he lay flat on his back, in the most tragic position hecould hold, that the prayers would fill his entire being with holiness in his very lastmoments of living.He’d been driven to do this, he reasoned to himself,
forced 
, in fact. He had nochoice. How could he live this kind of life that his parents were making him live? No.He couldn’t. And he would rather just end this one and start anew as quickly as hecould. He surrounded his bed and pillow with holy objects before he lay down in whathe hoped would be his last resting place . He thought it was very clever that he was“digging his own grave” and even smirked happily to himself at the brilliance of hisgrand idea. So he put Buddha statues all over his bed and pictures of every Buddhahe had ever heard of under, around, on top of his pillow. He also put Jesus andGanesha and Mother Mary around for good measure – he wouldn’t mind seeingthem in the white light, he told himself, they’d be very welcoming too.This last dramatic flourish was the culmination of a few very difficult weeks. Brianthought back over the weeks in one of those cinematic flashbacks, where the herosees his whole life flash before him in a series of vibrant technicolour images.
 
 He wanted his parents to regret their bad decision-making, the pressure they had puton him, the unkindly way they had spoken to him in weeks. He wanted them torealise that they couldn’t do something like this to somebody they claimed to love,their own flesh and blood! His father had started saying things about him moving outof home, getting a job and getting his own place. He had thought his mother wouldside him – she always did! – and tut tut, say that no, it would be okay for him to stayat home as long as he wished. But she had surprised him, unpleasantly, by stickingby his father and saying in her nicecy nice way, “Yes, dear, we do think it would bebetter for you to get your own place, do your own thing. You’ll have to learn how todo all this on your own some day. Your father and I won’t be here forever, youknow!”He had balked at the idea. Move out?! But he had only just left university two yearsago. He was only 24. How on earth did they expect him to get his own place? Hecouldn’t possibly. He didn’t even know how to do this own laundry.“Darling, you don’t even know how to do your own laundry, and you’re getting older,you need to learn these things,” his mother had said, as if in answer to the noisybattle of questions in his head.He had ignored them, stomped off to his bedroom to sulk, hoping that they wouldfeel bad and retract what they had said. They didn’t. And the cold war went on likethis for a few weeks until things almost seemed to blow over and go back to normal.
 
Two days ago, his father started up again. “Brian, you know you really need to thinkabout getting a job and moving out. You just sit on that computer all day long, talkingto strangers, or whatever it is that you’re doing. You didn’t get a degree to just live inyour computer. Your whole degree, all that education looks a bit useless now, eh?”There had been tears, almost, and a lot of raging. Brian couldn’t believe the audacityof his parents telling him that all his hard work at university was “useless”! He tried toexplain to them that he spent time online because he was researching jobs through job websites and that he was making connections with all sorts of people online.“People work through the Internet now. That’s where everybody is. I need to beonline to meet these people, get familiar with them and that way they’ll help me finda job,” he had told them, perhaps unconvincingly. He knew he couldn’t even reallyconvince himself. He was online so much only because he didn’t have any realfriends in the real world, and his online friends – from all over the world! He had aninternational following! – adored him. They were always looking out for him and themoment he logged on, “ping!” they’d be there, waiting, wishing, wanting to talk tohim.But his parents were adamant. They wanted him out, to “fend” for himself. And theywere going to start by cutting his allowance. Get a job. Or else. Two days of thepressure was too much for him to handle, so here he was now, lying stiff as a boardon his bed, waiting for the aspiring to kick it and kill off his nerves, his blood supplyand do irrevocable brain damage to him. That’ll show them to kick out their only son.
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