It's a Wonderful Life, No? {Ephraim}

[Deon]

Ming sat still on a bench, her back straight and stiff, dainty slippers kicked to the side to let her feet into the open air. She held a slip of paper up to her face, detailing the meridians and channels of the body and the 365 acupuncture points. She traced one finger along the lines of the intricately drawn picture of a human and his organs, assuring herself of the paths. A decorated box of clean, glittering needles lay beside her foot, next to the mirror that she used earlier to make sure she was getting the right place behind her neck. She didn't want to disrupt her flow of qi any more.

She placed the piece of paper carefully beside her on the bench so that it wouldn't slip through the cracks and leaned over, inserting a tiny needle as thin as a piece of hair into her skin at the top of her foot, between her toes. She duplicated the action on her other foot next. Another needle was sticking out behind her at the base of her skull, where her head and her neck met. A glint of metal also could be seen shining out through the darkness of her hair when it caught the bright light of the late morning. Lastly, two more needles were inserted into each of her inner arms, just above the wrists, and she shut her eyes, breathing in and out in a deep, controlled manner.

She smiled lightly at the feeling of the warm sun on her eyelids, the sound of birds chirping in the distance, the feeling of life. She concentrated on her life force, trying to feel its aggravation, its calming redirection. It was hard to visualize, especially with the noises of other people disrupting her concentration. But she felt no contempt for them. She didn't own this area for her own personal use. The smell of the greenery reminded her of the herbs and incense she had forgotten to bring... But the last time she was in public with incense or scented candles she was reproached by a teacher for the fire hazard. It would be best not to cross them again, though she would of course be careful. It wasn't her wish to harm anything, though that seemed to be a hard concept to contemplate for some people. Huh. What a world. She hoped they would find contentment and release from frustration.

Now how long was she supposed to keep this needles sticking into her...?

[Delerium]

Zhou Xi never felt more at one with nature than when he was meditating in the garden of his home, the Xiaolin monastery at Xi Liang. However, as that place was across the globe, Zhou Xi had to make do with what he could. The courtyard of the school was no zen haven, but it still allowed him to appreciate the elements and get in touch with nature.
'To be at one with nature is to achieve inner peace', is one tenet of Buddhism Ephraim took to heart.

And the grass here felt absolutely marvelous on his bare toes! Singing a song in his native tongue as he went along, Ephraim would frequently spin on one foot or hop a couple of times, just to really get the feel of the grass. It was green and moist and the smell was so refreshing!
Here was life in its simplest, purest manifestation, and Ephraim revelled in it. Timeless and primordial, yet undeniably here and now, the youth let out a small whoop and let himself fall spread-eagled on his back.
Oh sure, there was some girl over there on the bench, but she couldn't possibly know what he was experiencing. Her western mind most probably had already dismissed him as a 'crackpot'.
"If they only knew..." Ephraim breathed in Mandarin.
The world would be a much nicer place if people only stopped to smell the flowers once in a while!

[Deon]

Ming's ears perked up at the sound of her native tongue, the way they always did whenever she heard a word, a sentence of Mandarin that slipped through the net of English. She turned to the source of the sound that she heard so rarely in these parts, eager to see what was going on.

Ephraim lay sprawled out in the grass, his silvery hair making for a stark contrast in the dark green of the well-mowed lawn. He looked quite pleased with himself, the way one should look in such natural surroundings, no matter how cultivated and carefully worked on by human hands -- there was still the wild pureness of nature that lay underneath, simply suppressed. She only wished for a rock garden. That would make this place so much lovelier. The sheer harshness and asymmetrical planes of rocks touched only by the process of nature's sculpting is much more beautiful than any flowers planted in rows or mosaic tile pathways.

She smiled at the sight of enjoyment, of contentment, of happiness. And, carefully removing the two needles from her feet to discard them in a separate plastic bag, spoke up.

"I think I must meet you," she told him happily in Mandarin, as if stating a fact innocently that was blatantly obvious on her face. "I'm called Ming Yu. May I ask your name? Such a familiar language, and such a familiar contentment is hard to come by these days."