Munk had a head of grey hair that he shaped to look like a mess of wet dandelion pistils. Even though his mane was quite magnificent, it wasn’t until he grew out his signature salt and pepper mustache that others bothered to seek him out. 

 

“It’s an extraordinary mustache.” His most recent pupil, Todd, admitted to Munk during their first day of training together.

 

Munk, naturally, ran a dojo. Naturally, this dojo sat perched atop a mountain, accessible only by a set of mystifyingly steep stairs. Naturally, the dojo was not rigged for modern conveniences. And, of course, naturally, Munk was of Asian descent.

 

“Chinese. Japanese. Korean–both. Filipino. Even Burman, before Burma became…” Munk informed Todd, who, eager-eyed, gargoyled a wooden pole in the rain outside the sparring room. 

 

“I’m just plain, old American.” Todd exhaled, blinking rapidly to keep the rainwater out of his eyes. “My dad sells wagons in Pennsylvania and my mother is dead.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Is there a reason I’m doing this? This pose? It’s really putting a strain on my calves. Historically, my family, we don’t have exceptionally muscular calves… you can trace that back on either side, too.”

 

“Rather, put reason in your faith.” Munk said the words before he could think them through. But the more he contemplated them in the immediacy following their conception, the more he found himself pleased with how sagely they sounded. 

 

“Yes, sensei.” Todd puffed out his chest, inspired by this burst of seemingly divine wisdom that had been bestowed upon him as reward, not punishment.

 

“Tomorrow, I will teach you about silence.”

 

“Finally, sensei.”

 

*

 

Today turned into tomorrow, and yesterday became the day before, and Munk found himself hurtling one day closer to sixty-five. He chipped another tally off his bedroom wall using a rock hard knuckle.

 

The hunched back of the blazing early morning sun bathed the horizon in warm tones. Munk dressed in the dark in a simple white kimono. He left the thongs under the bed. The soles of his feet desired to be scratched by earthen tactiles: fallen pine nettles, crisp leaves, buds and blossoms. He walked slowly through the forest, purging any and all semblance of thought from his mind. Once the headnoise abated, he climbed atop a whale of a boulder and inhaled the woods around him. He listened. He sniffed. He knelt and patted the boulder like a dog.

 

“Good boulder, good boulder.” Munk said. Then, slicking his hair back, he prepared his mind for the lesson ahead.

 

*

 

“Today, you will learn about silence.” Munk stood over his pupil, Todd. Todd, like many of Munk’s clients, looked like he was in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Patchy head of hair. Tired, life-weary eyes. An unpredictable digestive tract and an intense attachment to material things that he was attempting to address by running away to Munk’s dojo.

 

“Yes, sensei.” 

 

“What did I just say?” Munk leaned over his pupil, preparing the reed.

 

“You said, ‘Today, you will learn about–’”

 

“Silence!” Munk said forcefully.

 

“That’s what I was going to say!” Todd said, scratching his head.

 

“You do not learn about silence by not being silent! That is the first lesson!”

 

Todd sat and contemplated the first lesson. Then, clearly agitated by some restless thought, he found Munk’s eye. Munk wanted to ignore his pupil, but curiosity got the better of him.

 

“What is it? I can see there’s something on your mind.”

 

Todd swallowed his lips.

 

“Relax.” Munk assured Todd. “I’m not testing you. We’re calling a time out on the silence lesson. Go ahead, ask your question.”

 

Todd shook his head. 

 

“Look. I’m serious. I’m not going to reed you for asking your question, okay? We could both do with a little back and forth, here.” Now, it was Munk’s turn to feel agitated.

 

Todd shook his head again.

 

“Why are you doing this! You bungling, impudent… “

 

Todd whistled.

 

“Does whistling count as being silent?” Todd asked.

 

“That was your question?” Munk replied, disappointed.

 

“No. Not my original question.” 

 

“What was your original question?” Munk asked. He wiped spittle away from his mustache with the back of his hairy hand. Todd observed him do so and cricked his neck in curiosity.

 

“Aren’t you going to answer the second question first?” Todd replied. 

 

“You’re getting on my nerves, you know.”

 

Todd pursed his lips together and let go a light, airy whistle that sounded like it belonged to an ocarina. 

 

“You cannot whistle if it’s silence you want. Whistling is a sound. Silence is the absence of sound.” Before Munk let loose the third sentence, again without having conceived any notion of it beforehand, he already knew he had plucked a winner. Silence is the absence of sound. Lao Tzu could have written that. In fact, he might have.

 

“Sensei! Yes, sensei!” Todd, humbled by the affect, manner and depth of his master, snapped back into the performed posture of the consummate pupil. 

 

A silence fell between them. But Munk stirred.

 

“Todd. I didn’t forget you know.”

 

“Shh.”

 

“Your original question. You said you had an original question.”

 

“I forget what it was, now hush. I’m trying to learn how to be one with silence.”

 

“Todd. Stop, I know you didn’t forget it. Look, please. I hardly get any visitors up here in my dojo. To be honest with you, I’m sort of tired of silence. In solitude, silence. With strangers, silence. Silence is great and all, and there are tremendous meditative and restorative properties involved with learning how to–”

 

“That.” Suddenly, Todd perked up and pointed at Munk. “I want that. The restorative properties part. That’s what I’m here for, with all due respect, sensei, sir.”

 

“Will you please tell me what your question was, Todd? Please? After you tell it to me I promise we can go back to being silent.”

 

“No. I don’t want to talk to you any more. I want to meditate in silence, for the restorative properties. Like you talked about.”

 

“Todd. I’m going to reed you.”

 

“Don’t reed me, please. I’m learning about silence.”

 

Thwack!

 

“Ow! You reeded me! What did you reed me for?” Munk’s pupil’s eyes flew open and glared at Munk.

 

“Insolence demands correction.” Munk volleyed back.

 

Todd brightened. “That’s brilliant. Holy–. I need to remember that. Insolence demands correction.” 

 

“Todd.”

 

“Yes, sensei.”

 

“Tell. It.”

 

Todd fell silent again. 

 

“If I write it down, does that count as being silent?” Todd eventually asked.

 

“If you write it down I’m going to reed you.”

 

“You’re going to reed me for writing?” Todd gasped. “That doesn’t make any sense, sensei. You said, ‘Silence is the absence of sound.’ And you reeded me because, like you said, ‘Insolence demands correction.’ But, I’m being silent when I write. I’m not being insolent, writing–because I’m not violating the… so, why are you going to reed me if I write it?”

 

“Either you answer the question using your lungs, or you take the reed.”

 

“Reed, please.”

 

Thwack!

 

“How about now?”

 

Todd remained silent.

 

Thwack!

 

“Todd?”

 

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

 

A hundred snaps of the reed later, Munk was out of breath. He wiped his brow, greased his hair, and snapped pole straight into his spine. 

 

“Well done, my pupil. Now, you have learned the power of silence. You are dismissed.”