The wanderer

Tibet, 1949, during the Chinese invasion

Han Bao Zhao, a soldier of the people’s army of china slowly struggles forward on the desolate mountain road. Almost dying of thirst and hunger he stumbles with almost every step. He has got rid of his rifle, backpack and helmet countless miles ago. After he got lost from his unit after a violent battle with a group of armed resistance men of some sort he has been trying to get back. He don’t really care where “back” is, any longer, just as long as he gets water and some food. It’s pretty cold and cold winds blow through the mountains. Just as he moves out from behind a rock he manages to spot several pillars of smoke in the distant. It’s a village and it’s obviously a village that has been visited by Chinese forces already and tried to resist. For a moment he hesitates on going into the village, since the villager would probably love to get their hands on someone with a Chinese uniform that is unarmed. But he quickly realises that he have no choice. Strangely enough no one seems to take notice of him as he walks through the village. Most people seem too busy mourning their dead loved ones. Even when he walks up to them and pleads for food and water he gets only a few scared looks. He can understand that they don’t want to give him anything, when the Chinese has done these terrible deeds to their people. But suddenly, a man dressed in a red and yellow robe walks up to him. His head and face is shaved. His old face has a few scars and has a few wrinkles. “I think it’s me you seek” He says smiling. The man speaks remarkably good Chinese.

“Well if you have any food you can spare, then you’re the man I seek” Bao Zhan answered. The man nods. “Yes, I will give you food as well” The monk starts to slowly walk away and waves for Bao Zhan to follow. “Come” Bao Zhan obediently follows. After about a minute of walking through this quite small mountain village consisting about 50 houses, Bao Zhan soon notices that more monks joins the first monk as they walk through the village. As the group grows larger they starts chanting a quiet prayer. The now eight man large group continues through and out the village. As they continue uphill Bao Zhan can see a Tibetan monastery with two houses white stone walls, red roofs, some windows and these houses are connect with what seems like a wall of white stone. At the distant he hears a dog barking and it gets louder as he gets closer. The ground is just like everywhere else covered by small stones and small patches of grass and snow. When the group reaches the large wooden gates, Bao Zhan spots a couple of small yellowish dogs with hanging ears, short muzzles and quite allot of fur sitting on one of the outer walls. They do not seem to take too much notice of the group and their fur waves in the wind. The group is standing in a yard in the middle of the monastery, the first house is in front of them and it’s a broad two story building. The other one is a small rectangular building with three floors and that building is on their right side. The group seem to ignore the taller, smaller building on the right and walk forward towards the building in front of them. The smells in the large room is a mixture of incense and boiling food and it hits them as a soft wave as they enter the building. The interior of the room is almost totally made out of wood. One the far left side of the room there’s a large cauldron with something boiling in it. There are several low tables in the room, with a couple of pillows lying on the floor, acting as a cushion to sit on for those who eat. A very young boy, who is also wearing a monk robe, already sits at the table and one pillow away from him another one of those dogs he saw outside is laying on its side on the pillow. It looks very fat and well fed. The starts talking to one of the monks and as he finished talking, he spots Bao Zhan and looks surprised. The monk he spoke with puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, says something and then points at Bao Zhan. The boy listens with his mouth open and his eyes grow bit before his eyes follows the direction of the monk’s finger and stares at Bao Zhan. “Err.. Hallo” Says Bao Zhan cautiously and bows lightly. The boy doesn’t seem to understand but bows in response. As they do this the monks calmly settle down in front of the table and serve themselves some food. When Bao Zhan decides that now it’s time for him too to take a seat he discovers that the only seat left is the one between the boy and the dog.

He sits down a clay bowl with beautiful paintings of trees and some kind of a animal. He notices that all of the bowls have beautiful nature paintings on them. In the bowl there’s a portion of rice, some boiled vegetables and some water. Bao Zhan immediately starts wolf down up his food. The monks start smiling amusingly at the strong appetite of their guest. When Bao Zhan puts down his bowl the rest of the monks are still eating. The old monk, the one he met in the village gets up and politely asks if Bao Zhan wants another portion of rice. Bao Zhan feels a little sick from eating too fast so he declines the meal for the moment. Instead he slowly puts his hand closer and closer the dog next to him, to check so it won’t bite him. The dog only looks calmly at Bao Zhan. As his hand reaches the dog he feels the dog’s soft fur he realises that the dog is not a biter and he dares to pet the dog. He immediately feels that this dog is a female, her teats are swollen and her stomach feels full of life. He slowly caresses the dog’s soft silky fur and enjoys it until he suddenly starts to have trouble feeling the soft fur with his fingertips and his palm as they have turned oddly numb. He turns his hand to his face and looks at his palm. His fingertips and the upper part of his palm has started to take on a swollen and leathery look and his finger nails no longer look flat and sharp, they look round and blunt. They’re looking a bit darker. “This is very good, young man. This means that you’re becoming a ‘jemtse apso’” The old monk says smiling as he looks over the shoulder of Bao Zhan and points towards his hands and the dog. Bao Zhan is confused but calm. “What do you mean?”

“It means that you will stay here with us for a couple of years, jemtse apso are the lion dogs, they keep us warm during the cold winters, help us pray and helps us keep boredom and loneliness away” Suddenly the man’s Chinese lose it’s grammatical perfection and good pronunciation it had before. Bao Zhan’s eyes turn to the boy’s as he feels one of the boy’s hands touching his arm. Silky yellow fur, not unlike the fur on the mother dog has started to creep its way through his skin. The watches and feels Bao Zhan’s arm with fascination as it gains fur. “Stand, let us take clothes off you” The monk instructs, this time in even worse Chinese. Bao Zhan’s willingly stands up. His pant legs cover his feet and it looks a couple of seizes too large, his hands are hidden underneath his jacket because of its now too long arms and his boots feel radically too big. His jacket and dirty service shirt falls to the floor and reveals more of the silky fur. His hands start to lengthen, his fingers start to bend and shorten and his arms grow shorter and his thumbs starts to disappear into his hands. The transformation is totally painless and Bao Zhan continues to follow its progress with calm. The boy starts smiling and says something to the old monk who chuckles. “He said, you lucky man. He said he too wants such good looking fur when it’s his time” Bao Zhan smiles a toothy smile as he feels his growing canines touching each on each side of his tongue while the rest of his teeth change form. At the same time he feels his forehead collapse and smooth out. Suddenly he’s asked to step out of his pants and boots. That’s when he notices that his pants lie on the floor and that his boots reach up to his knees. For a moment the rooms feels very windy and cold but the feeling soon disappears. He feels no embarrassment that his organ’s change is fully visible for everyone. He watches it for a moment and is he’s just in time to see his foreskin thickens, grow fur and attach itself to his stomach. A strange sensation from his back makes him want to look over his shoulder. He sees that past his hairy back a tail has made its appearance, a proudly held plume-like tail that’s curled over his the beginning of his back. A strange sensation flows over him as he feels his ears soften and fold themselves. He sees his nose move outward, it has already taken on a black color.

Suddenly he’s surprised to feel the suddenly very strong arms of the boy grab hold of him and even lift him! He starts to kick his legs, wave his arms in surprise and starts barking in protest. The boy quickly lifts Bao Zhan away from his clothes and lets him down. Bao Zhan feels two soft clicks as he lands on his feet and he immediately falls forward but manages to shoot out his arms catch himself with his hands. He looks around and suddenly he realises how easy it would to escape this place if he wanted to, he could just run in between their legs and they wouldn’t have a chance to catch him. Not that he wants to run away… but he has the possibility. He looks up at the monks and the boy that stares down at him. The boy strokes his back a couple of times which feels good. Bao Zhan shows his appreciation by wagging his tail. But as he looks at them they all start to look larger and taller. Suddenly everything starts to get cold and sleepy. He looks at the large and warm mother dog and slowly starts to move towards her, totally ignoring the humans. Suddenly the world gets very quiet and as he curl up against the large body of the female dog his eyes start to get so heavy that he’s unable to keep them shut. As they close, he feels that he can’t open them again even if he wanted to. A moment of nothing passes and suddenly he feels surrounded with warm slimey liquid. The hunger is gone and he instinctively feels that he’s safe for now.

About the same time, a many miles away, a group of Chinese soldiers find the remains of a small battle. There are many dead but not a single wounded and among the corpses they find the body of Han Bao Zhao. He was lying lifeless on his back and stared up into the sky. After a quick survey of his wounds the group can tell that he died a fairly quick death.

A couple of days later the bitch gives birth to her puppies. After the birth the boy excitedly picks up the puppies one by one under the supervision of the oldest monk. “You think this one is him? It’s a male and it looks like him” The monk chuckles as he watches the small squeaking puppy in the boy’s hand. “I’m sure it’s him… now you’ve witnessed your first wandering soul and helped guiding it to its next life, my boy. And now you may take care of him in this new life as well”

The End

Note from the author: I’m sorry for any historical or cultural foul-ups in the story. The only real thing that I know about this is that China invaded Tibet in the year 1949 and some about the Tibetan monks… But I’m not sure what actually happened during the invasion, so this is just my guess at it. I was also not too sure which of the names I should have used on my character since I'm not too familliar with Chinese names. And no I don't think believe that reincarnation works this way.