Sil Worthy Studies Dharma

Peace, Lily. Painting by R Young, mixed mediums on canvas, 2021.

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This piece is a companion to yesterday’s “One Night at the Voodoo Do-Nut Shop” and introduces Sil Worthy to the series “Assumption Street” which continues unraveling the intertwined lives of various denizens of Chandeleur County on the Gulf Coast.

More to follow about Sil, Mario, Dr. Quiet, Fran, Clove, Geno, Charlene, Gene, Abby, and many others so stay tuned.

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Sil Worthy Studies Dharma

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At the beginning, there was only the supra-mundane Void.

As it was in the beginning, so it is now, in the present.

Nothing has changed.

Nothing worth noting has changed.

Nothing meant anything then.

Nothing means anything now.

I am here now.

I was here then.

I am meaningless now.

I was meaningless then.

Sil Worthy was seated on the loading bay of the Greyhound Bus Station in Bay St. John waiting for the 10:40 bus into Port Sulphur and kept repeating these words, the essence of sutras his pal Smith had recommended. Smith was no dharma bum, but the old fellow thought he was, and Sil, who was no dharma bum, either—at least he didn’t think he was and accepted his own lackluster karma and studied sutras with Smith just to make him happy. Smith had settled into calm and gentle ways in his cabin on Bayou DeSang and Sil had come to the point in his life when calm and gentle people were worth cultivating for the good effects that might rub off on him, Sil, who had finally accepted his ordinary presence in the flow of things and that he himself was not one of life’s heroes, merely a straight-no-chaser bum—and a run-of-the-mill one, at that—who happened at the moment, in the present, to be at meaninglessly at odds with his wife and looking for a place to sleep.

(To be continued)

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Text by R Young

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