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The Om Grove

          The twilight sky above the grove made the time of day unclear: was it day or dusk? It was certainly unnatural, the motley collection of characters drinking bitter green tea, some on mats, others leaning against the smooth, pliable bark of young trees. Two impossibly translucent men, one tall and dark (at least, in his current state), the other shorter and unmistakably Asian, stood without cups, watching the others. Two equally see-through women stood, talking animatedly, the plain one slightly more subdued than her gorgeous friend. A wiry black girl argued with two fat, lazy-looking young men, one dark, one a pale yellow. One meek Asian girl, too thin, sat next to an old Asian man radiating peace, who met her fast, impassioned questions with simple answers and a smile.
          "And are we really here to see the ghosts?" came her quick words.
          "No," Siddhartha replied, taking a draught of tea. "We are here because we are not elsewhere."
          The girl frowned, then thought and returned her features to a state of rest. Her father, the eldest of the ghosts, looked over at the girl he had sold many years before and bowed his head, but not before his homely ghost-wife shot him a resigned glance, in one of Kamala's pauses.
          Okonkwo, the black man-ghost, gazed at his daughter as she almost-playfully shoved Wang Lung's son. She did his memory proud, packing up and moving her father's body to a hole she herself had dug. If he had known how, he would have smiled.
          "Why aren't they drinking tea?" the girl's voice rang out. On closer inspection she was no girl, but a woman of twenty-six or -seven years, who only seemed young in ways her mother never had. Her indentured servitude was over quickly and she married a city man who widowed her, leaving her money and no sons or daughters. She took her chance and followed Gotama the Buddha, before settling in and learning from Siddhartha instead. "Well?"
          "They don't need tea," Siddhartha replied. O-lan and Wang Lung were now side by side, she worldlessly helping him walk, he looking grateful but tough. Kamala tried to charm Okonkwo, but he was past petty flesh, and tired of her prattle. He listened when she spoke of hating rich idleness, but when she did not mention white men, he lost interest. Wang Lung's son looked terrified of Okonkwo's daughter, who was now chiding him for being unable to climb trees or plant a good crop. Her brother, who she had previously been talking to, looked longingly at his father, whose death had only pushed him further into Christianity.
          As the light grew bluer, those who belonged to each other gravitated towards each other. Okonkwo's son and daughter stood on either side of their father, who grew less substantial by the second. Wang Lung and O-Lan stood near their daughter and surviving son. Kamala sat next to Siddhartha, who was still underneath his tree, face blank but warm. Their languages bled into one thick mess of sound, words rearranging to become one perfect hum of Om.
          The grove did not exist the next day, just as it never had before, and has not since.