Chaotic Not Random

Sometimes I dream about quitting my job, selling my car, blowing off my credit card debts, and buying a one-way ticket to China, where I would join a martial arts monastery. It doesn't matter which one. As long as it had an old but well-maintained building with a tiled roof and a garden for contemplating, I would find my home there.

At first the monks would not accept me. They would poke and prod me and call me mean things in Mandarin, like "shit-sucking soft American" and "round-eyed pussy." They would ridicule my puny muscles and pelt me with vegetable peels. They would order me to go away, to go back to my SUV and my PlayStation and my Run Lola Run poster, because no American has ever lasted more than two weeks at this monastery. But I would absorb the abuse with dignity and humility, repeating again and again the only Mandarin words I know: "Please, I want to be a student here."

At last, they would relent and allow me to come inside. But they would not allow me to train. I would have to carry water and wash floors and serve the others their meals. They would make me eat scraps and leftovers, standing up in the kitchen, and I would sleep in the basement on a packed dirt floor. The students would trip me as I passed. They would jeer and point. They would knock the water bucket out of my hands. I would bear their insults in silence, and the monks would grudgingly admire my stoicism. And I would watch the students drill and spar as I scrubbed the floor of the training room.

At sunrise one morning, a monk would look out his window to see me practicing forms in the garden. At first he would be furious that I wasn't drawing water for the students' breakfast, but then he would notice the rough grace and dexterity I showed in executing the most difficult of movements. "The American is determined," the monk would say the other monks, "think what he could learn if he was training properly instead of scrubbing floors!" And that day I would become a student at the monastery.

I would learn quickly. The other students, impressed by my iron will and my growing expertise, would come to accept me. But one of them would continue to torment me -- Chen Li, the best and toughest student at the monastery. He would recognize my burgeoning skills as a threat to his dominance, and we would become bitter rivals. Li would hatch a series of nefarious plots to destroy me, but I would foil them all at the last moment, and in doing so would win even greater admiration from the students and monks.

There would be a girl. A peasant girl from a nearby farm, a beautiful girl with delicate features and a slight figure, and she would come to the monastery once a week to sell vegetables to the monks. Her visits would be a splash of color among the grim days of unrelenting training, and the briefest glimpse of her face or even the back of her neck would etch itself in our memories for days. I would make up some pretense to talk to her. She would laugh at my halting Mandarin, but when she left she would press a ripe Fuji apple into my hand. With the passing weeks, we would find ourselves chancing upon each other more and more often -- never for more than a few minutes, but like a dash of hot pepper sauce, those few minutes would flavor our lives for the next week.

All the students would be jealous, but none more so than Chen Li, who would want the girl for his own. He would challenge me to meet him -- alone -- by the old stone wall at midnight to settle our differences forever. I would refuse. Then Chen Li would declare that if I denied him satisfaction, he would kill the girl, and her little dog, too. Enraged, I would spit on the ground at his feet and whisper, "I'll be there."

The fight, intense and brutal, would rage for hours, with Chen Li and I exchanging spectacular flurries of blows atop the old stone wall while silhouetted against the full moon. Both of us would suffer terrible injuries, but our shared hatred would spur us through the pain. Finally, with both of us teetering on the edge of exhaustion, I would force Li to his knees. Li would close his eyes, preparing for the killing blow, and for a moment I would see myself crushing his windpipe with a chop to his neck. Instead, I would help him to his feet.

"The next time we fight," I would say, "we fight as brothers."

You probably want to know what would happen with the girl. How should I know? It hasn't happened yet.