Free The Flask by Nicky Singer Page B

don’t disbelieve this,” says Lalitavajri. “Just as you can have déjà vu about someone coming into a room and then they come into a room.”
    Or you can have someone look at you and feel that look.
    “Ghosts and the supernatural,” Lalitavajri continues, “are much more real for people in the East.”
    And for me. And for the flask.
    Paddy is scribbling in his notebook.
    “Well, is that it?” asks Lalitavajri.
    “Yes,” says Zoe. “Thanks. Except – what does your name mean, Lalitavajri?”
    “When you’re ordained you are given a new name by the person who ordains you,” says Lalitavajri. “You don’t know your name until this moment. You are named either for things you have achieved or for the potential seen in you. Lalita means she who plays and vajri means diamond thunderbolt . The diamond thunderbolt represents reality, the truth and unstoppable energy.”
    “Wow,” says Paddy, looking up from his notes. “So if I was a Buddhist I could get called Supreme Striker, or something?”
    “Well, maybe not something so…” Lalitavajri pauses, “… specific.”
    “You could be called Paddy though,” says Zoe and laughs. But she’s not laughing at him, she’s just laughing because everything suddenly feels relaxed, easy.
    “Sorry?” says Lalitavajri.
    “They call me Paddy,” says Paddy. “Because…” He looks at Zoe. “Why do people call me Paddy?”
    And Zoe laughs some more and Paddy grins in his Happy-to-Be-the-Centre-of-Attention way, and I feel a strange warmth wash through me, which takes in, without judgment, Zoe and Paddy and Aunt Edie and the supernatural and ghosts and souls.
    “Well, I need to prepare now,” says Lalitavajri. “I have to lead a meditation in a minute. Although, you’d be welcome to stay if you’d like. A meditation would give you a very good idea of Buddhist practice.”
    Paddy’s face suggests that the last thing in the world he’d like to do is stay for a Buddhist meditation.
    “No,” he says. “Thanks. I think my mum will be back for us any minute now.”
    “Well, another time,” says Lalitavajri. “I’m here every Tuesday if you want to change your mind.”
    And I think, yes... I’m going to come back here.
    And I’m going to bring the flask.

“Well?” asks Mrs Paddy. “How was it?”
    “Buddhism,” says Paddy, “is mental.”
    “Mental?” repeats Mrs Paddy.
    Paddy consults his notes. “Buddhists,” he reads, “claim to be able to walk through walls. ‘I don’t disbelieve this.’ That’s what she said, Onion Bhaji: ‘I don’t disbelieve this.’”
    Mrs Paddy laughs. “Bit like Christians then.”
    “What?” says Paddy.
    “Well,” says Mrs Paddy, “Christians believe that, three days after being crucified, a man rose to life again.”
    “That’s different,” says Paddy.
    “Is it?” says Mrs Paddy.
    “Course,” replies Paddy. “Christianity’s true.”
    “Oh,” says Mrs Paddy. “Says who?”
    “Father Neville!” says Paddy, like he’s just played the Ace of Spades.
    Mrs Paddy keeps quiet.
    “Anyway, it not just the walls stuff,” continues Paddy. “There’s plenty of other weird stuff in Buddhism.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as after you die, your soul hangs about until, until…”
    “Until?”
    “Until a man and a woman have sex,” adds Zoe helpfully.
    Paddy sniggers and Zoe beams, as if the joke is all hers.
    “And then,” Paddy adds, “your soul goes into the baby which means…”
    “Everyone gets a pre-owned soul,” concludes Zoe.
    Then they both laugh and things seem to be going back to the way they were with the conversation about films.
    “Isn’t that horrible?” says Paddy. “I mean, having someone else’s soul inside you? How creepy is that?”
    “But if it was in you,” I say, maybe just because I’m beginning to wish I was back in the Shrine Room where all things seemed possible, “it wouldn’t be someone else’s, it’d be yours.”
    “It would still be pre-owned,”