Yudhiṣṭhira and theYakṣa

The forest floor shot up like the

Hypotenuse of a right angle triangle;

Death-pale trees, like white house fronts slid by on either side. Much like days of exile gone by, and 

Days to come: 

each as like the other, as its own face in the mirror -

(Which the Red Door really was, hanging ‘twixt the trees and infinity) - and then, 

The Demon Bird, stock still 

on one long thin leg, cocking its head at the fish in the water rimmed

By withered sedge, (what

terrible heath is this? and lying there, death staring from their cold, hard eyes!

Ah! Woe is me and my splitting head!

All my brothers??)

Clacked its pointed bill:

“Who or what is weightier than the earth?

Reply truly: even as thou hast stepped through the Red Door, so must thou heed my word, thou puny mortal! 

Or thou shalt die

here and now, beside this very lake, 

Of a thirst that no water in heaven, hell or earth can slake!”

And there and then, I began (eyes tight open, in stark concentration) 

To shake, tremble, quake, like luminous jellyfish in the sky, with uncontrollable 

Laughter. 

(In all truth, being browbeaten by a water bird,

When your brothers lie dead in the mud - could things be more hysterical?!)

“Aha! Thou knowest not the answer!

O Yudhiṣṭhira, the Wise!

Prepare thou for death, for thus shalt thou 

Rejoin thy beloved siblings, 

who, in their supreme folly, 

ignored my injunction!”

Choking still with boundless mirth,

“To die, ever unprepared, is man, O Bird!” quoth I,

“Drowning every moment

in the sights and sounds of death, (wonder of wonders!)

He perpetuates this absurd love of life! 

And, who is so foolish that

He knoweth not :

She who bears Life in her womb,

Is borne down by her own weight, O mighty Yakṣa?

Or, if I have recognised indeed,

Father?”