John Morton posted:

This is where Alf left off:

> But for now, enlightenment is once again in a bottle, contentment
> in the overwhelming odor of Masa Harina and dried sweat, though the
> difference is minimal.  Juanita knocks quietly, pauses, then opens
> the door, leading her brothers into the room.

The seven Garcia brothers surround the stuporous body of El Dupree, sprawled 
on the floor, the heavy thuds of their footsteps unheard in his reverie 
of dancing Fajitas Festival maidens in the Mejave Mai twilight.

The eldest brother pokes the grotesque body with his lead-weighted custom 
special 'Louisville Slugger', jarring El Dupree's dulled senses into 
awareness.

The thought of a whimsically-proffered matrimonial proposal passes through 
his head as he reaches for the nearest headsack.  Alas, too late, as the 
foot of the youngest brother comes down on El Dupree's sweaty, twisting 
hand.

Just as the brothers raise their clubs to begin their "feast of pure reason"
with El Dupree, a shattering cry is heard and a wild whirling presence
catapults into the room through the window overlooking the street.  It is
Ching Hai!

With a shout she declares, "If we stop all violent acts, the world will 
become a paradise!"  The eldest Garcia brother moves his right foot 
slightly to get a better angle for his swing at the strange presence.

"What we do not want others to do to ourselves, we do not do to others,"
quips Ching Hai as she adroitly moves her agile spring-like body to
avoid the furious swing of the club.

"Killing is never good.  God said revenge belongs to Him," she adds,
executing a perfect karate chop on the eldest brother's neck, rendering
him senseless, but alive, on the dusty floor.

The other brothers simultaneously rush at the petite spinning woman,
as El Dupree deftly squirms into the corner of the room (so as not 
to interfere).

The largest of the brothers grabs for Ching Hai. "Go through the ceiling!"
she cries, executing a thumb-lock leading to a jujitsu maneuver that
smashes her attacker through the flimsy roof of the dilapidated bar.

Her other attackers pause, uncertain, after their brother's fate.

"As you sow, so shall you reap," she intones, her fingers curling into
the classic 'dragon's paw' formation.  "So the answer is enlightenment 
and nonviolent life, live and let live!  It is karma."

The baffled brothers slowly back out of the room, facing their strange
conqueror.  When the only sound left is the quiet, senseless moans of
the eldest brother on the floor, El Dupree scampers out of the corner,
gathering up his head sacks.

"Not bad, for a woman!" he says, checking his bandolera for ammunition,
"you should meet my sister, Tortilla Dupree; she talks like you."

The two casually stroll out of the room down the ricketty wooden stairs 
of the bar.  "You must not interfere with other people's karma, because 
by doing this, you will lose your spiritual force and will remain in the 
physical side." Ching Hai says knowingly.

El Dupree flashes his best dimpled smile, "Whose karma did you throw 
through the roof?" he asks.

"To be enlightened doesn't mean that we can create suffering for others,"
she answers, "because we have a choice."

Just then a large turd comes careening out of the sky, crashing to the
earth a few feet from Ching Hai's saffron sandels, as a jetliner, far 
above, floats gently to the west, its contrails making pale scratches 
in the evening sky.

El Dupree draws his revolver and fires three shots at the departing plane, 
shouting, "El Stupido! I will come up there and blow your stinking asses 
off!"

Ching Hai merely answers, "If you can do it, it is fine, but it is almost 
impossible.  Up to now no one has succeeded, maybe up to a certain level 
but not higher. "

They are on the outskirts of town.  Ching Hai gently fondles the petals of 
the rare _sonda_flamado_, "We can't talk too casually about someone else." 
she says, "There is too much work, too much travelling."

El Dupree empties his revolver into the night sky, where the plane is now 
no more than a speck of memory, "I'll kill them all!" he says, continuing 
to pull the trigger on the spent cylinders.  The clicking makes a harmony 
with the crickets and the buzzing of the cicadas.  "All of the them! Every 
one of them!  Everything!" he shouts.

Ching Hai laughs, "It is good if everything was to disappear, because I 
would have no more work to do, and I would disappear also."

El Dupree scratches his ample girth, letting out a small belch. "So where
do we go from here?" he asks.

Ching Hai answers, "If you cannot find the exit, you must return in order 
to find it."