Monkhood is a Sacrifice

On a rugged little plateau of a mountain– not too high up but not too low down – existed a quaint and modest little monastery of the most dedicated of orders. It was nestled between two tranquil and equally meek rivers, the River of Good Deeds and the River of Un Materialism, that, legend had it, sourced directly from the heavens itself delivering life and existence to the inhabitants of the material earth below. Trees were few and sparse, but their unfathomable wisdom undeniable.

This establishment, reverentially built from organic substances that the nearby earth bore, such as clay tiles and stone rock, hosted a legion of elite purists who had committed themselves to the ultimate human cause – a life of true sacrifice and true obligation. These were the monks of the Saint Laurent Monastery and this is their story.

Hermes awoke promptly at 9:15 am after accidentally having snoozed his alarm relentlessly the past three and half hours. He peered out his small square window that, to his dismay, was flooding in light.

He shot out of his bed in a startle. They were usually only allowed to sleep past sunset on a Sunday, and today was certainly not a Sunday. Hurriedly, he unplugged his xbox from the TV all monks were given solely for broadcasting meditation and occasional current events updates, and hid it under his bed. He splashed his face with water from his faucet and dashed for the wardrobe.

Hermes wrestled with fitting his arms through the armholes of his brown robe as he quickly paced down the stone hallways of his dormitory. He checked his watch, the action of doing so suddenly reminding him he wasn’t supposed to have one, and snuck it into his pocket. They must be wrapping up breakfast and if he hurried he could make it.

The great hall, to his luck, was packed this morning which was unexpected given the noticeable drop in attendance recently. The cold that had been visiting everyone must’ve packed up and left today or something.

Unfortunately, nobody was in line, with the majority of monks sitting at a long table, their plates nearly empty. That didn’t stop Hermes from trying to sneak into the queue unnoticed anyway.

“Hermes,” A familiar and unpleasant voice called out, making him grimace before he swiveled around to look at his supervisor while sporting a phony smile on his face.

“A pleasure to finally see you this morning.” He continued, sarcastically.

“Vuitton,” Hermes responded shakily, “Forgive me, I was meditating from home this morning.”

Vuitton frowned and studied him closer.

“And, remind me again what the policy is about being remote?”

Hermes looked down nervously in search of words.

“Sorry, I … Yes I know, I apologize. I was low on paper and haven’t been feeling well enough these past few mornings to hand deliver a message.”

“And that’s what our couriers are for?” Vuitton responded rhetorically, “Right?”

Hermes nodded. The aroma of fresh sausage links drifted by his nose, beginning to make his mouth water. Hopefully Vuitton would wrap up this berating soon.

“A lot of people have been remote lately huh.” Vuitton wondered out loud, looking around the great hall, “Anyway, I needed to talk to you.”

Hermes almost groaned but thankfully his many years of monkhood had instilled enough of a discipline to instinctively hold it back.

“We have a new brother arriving tonight,” Vuitton said, a sense of dread building over Hermes, “I know you haven’t had the opportunity to be a shadow yet. Well, I would like to give you that opportunity.”

That was exactly what Hermes was hoping to not hear. He already had enough meditation on his plate.

“Ah …” He answered hesitantly, “Well I definitely appreciate the offer but I think I was planning to fulfill more of my individual awakening requirements this year… And particularly this week.”

“I see,” Said Vuitton disappointed, “Well you see I’m not really asking actually. I was more requesting that be your new objective for this week, on top of your current responsibilities of course.”

It was definitely not the ideal start to his morning or week, and that interaction helped ruin the remainder of his breakfast as well. He went about their morning affirmations in a somber manner, and kept up his dejected act through the rest of his day, checking out during yoga on a cliff and expressing far too much sorrow in the pool of sorrows.

Nighttime was always the best time around the grounds. Besides the fact that they got to finally be done with their inner peace and other meditation tasks, it was actual, unbothered free time to yourself. Just shortly after dusk, a messenger would traverse the dormitories dropping off a daily stipend of various amounts, depending on seniority and sometimes arguably nepotism, in each monk's mailbox. It was usually a good idea to pick yours up as soon as possible, just in case another monk happened to be extra hungry or down bad and felt they deserved your stipend as well.

Hermes peered around the corner of his living quarters hallway to see nobody. Like a rabbit, he sprinted on his tippy toes across the cold stone floor, down the carpeted stairs, and out the chambers back doors into the brisk night.

It was rather deep into the night now, and wrapped in black garments guised under the darkness of the outside, he zipped down the mountain and across the valley below.

Just a couple miles outside of their monastery happened to be a convenience store that the monks often visited for various necessities they may need before receiving them during the weekly deliveries such as water or toiletries. Of course it was strictly forbidden to get anything deemed otherwise because at the end of the day, the Saint Laurent monks were simple and wise people completely detached from earthly desires. As well as it was illegal to use their state funded stipends towards anything the monkhood hadn’t outlined in their contract, but of course that wasn’t a legitimate reason that crossed any of these honest men's minds.

Panting, Hermes put his hood up and walked inside.

“Hermes! Good to see you buddy!” The shopkeeper immediately said out loud, to which Hermes shushed him angrily.

“I told you, don’t call me out like that!” He snapped under his breath, trying to recollect if he’d actually told this worker or not. Unfortunately, he was regular to just about every employee that worked at this place to the point he was losing track of what conversations he’d had with who and so on.

“My bad bro,” He said, putting his hands up, “You want the usual?”

Hermes groaned, slapping his own face. He looked around.

“Yes.” He said, before quickly snatching a bag of chips from the snack aisle and meeting him at the register.

“How many?”

“6.” Hermes responded. He was feeling lucky today. The cashier did some made up typing on his register or something because it took a while but finally 6 different receipts printed out that he then handed to him.

“There you go, your lucky numbers are at the bottom but you already knew that!” He grinned, to which Hermes angrily snatched the receipts and walked out.

He’d been playing the lottery every single night for the past 2 years since he’d arrived at the monastery, and every single time he still felt he could win it as much as he did the first day. In fact, these days he felt it was becoming statistically even more inevitable. Looking down at the numbers, he really felt these were the –

Hermes bumped into a heavy figure and collapsed backwards onto the ground, his receipts fluttering in the air.

“What the!” He cried, groaning on the floor as he looked at what he bumped into. Or better, who.

A man in a black robe was also sprawled on the ground beside him. He groggily rubbed his head and looked at Hermes in a daze. His blood went cold.

“Gabanna?” Hermes said in confusion, getting up grabbing his papers as quickly as humanly possible.

“Hermes?”

It really was him. Gabanna was one of the monks in his direct regiment who lived around the corner of his hall. Monks were already supposed to be quiet, but this guy was known for being quiet because he liked it or something cause he never spoke to anyone.

In fear of blowing his cover, Hermes was about to just take off and gaslight him later somehow but receipts appearing nearly identical to his caught his eye.

“Are those… lottery tickets?” Hermes asked, pointing at Gabbana’s still scattered papers.

“Hey man, I need this. Please don’t tell anyone,” Gabanna said in a clear panic.

“Nah man, that’s messed up.” Hermes said, shaking his head. How else was he gonna afford his tickets if others were wasting their money on tickets too?

“So what’s that in your hands huh?” Gabanna said, a little agitated at that.

“Comparison is the thief of joy, you know that!” Hermes snapped, shoving them into his pockets.

“You’ve always been such a pain man.” Gabanna said.

“I barely know you!” Hermes began off, wrapping his robe tightly around his body.

“You know like half the floor does it too right?”

Hermes stopped in his tracks.

“Does what?”

“Lottery tickets. You think you’re the only one with that idea?”

“Wow, they’re chill like that?” Hermes wondered aloud.

“Yea I mean with all that extra money think about what the monastery could do.”

Damn they were really in it for the monastery? Hermes thought. He was a little ticked that his odds were lower thanks to these monks buying up tickets too, but he tried to think about how astronomically low his odds were to begin with to make him feel better.

“Well if you keep your trap shut, I won’t say anything then.” Hermes agreed before heading back. He needed to get some sleep. He couldn’t afford to miss sunset for the how manyth time in a row.

“Arthur? What kinda name is that? Isn’t that a kids show?” Hermes said the next morning to Vuitton who had just handed him a list of information pertaining to the new guy. He was running on 5 hours of sleep and hated being up this early, so his mood was pretty easy to test.

“He’s over there,” Vuitton pointed across the crowded courtyard, “The one with the shaved head and robe.”

“Oh yea that helps, thanks.” Hermes said sarcastically as Vuitton took off in a chuckle to deal with other supervisory tasks like do nothing.

Muttering under his breath, Hermes made his way across the lush courtyard, sticking to the stepping stones to avoid getting his feet wet from the morning dew. He figured Arthur wouldn’t be part of any of the huddles that had formed, and fortunately Hermes at least recognized most of the people out there enough, so he stuck to asking only the people he swore he’d never seen in his life who they were.

“Are you Arthur?” He asked one of the lone wolves again who had clearly acknowledged him but didn’t respond. He had a worried expression. “Hello?”

“Yes.” Arthur whispered back, looking around worried.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Are we … supposed to speak?”

Hermes sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Oh nah we don’t do Oaths of Silence here.” He responded, wondering how much of a nub this guy was gonna be, “Look buddy your my shadow. So today you’ll stick with me and hopefully by tomorrow you’ll get what’s going on so we don’t have to do this again. How does that sound?”

Arthur nodded and so together they kicked off their day with morning mediation in the courtyard before making their way to breakfast. Fortunately, for Hermes, Arthur really wasn’t too bad to get along with and they found themselves almost having a good time during study.

Today was a particularly unique day as their legion was celebrating a wrap on a successful month of charitable efforts. So as a reward, the team went down to a nearby Chinese restaurant for lunch where they nearly ordered the place out of business and got fat for 2 hours. Of course, to the servers dismay, they left a humble and meek tip because they were grounded and honest men who weren’t bound by manmade constructs

The rest of the day consisted of physical activity in order to keep the monks' health in tip top condition since living remotely in mountains far from civilization wasn’t an ideal place to fall ill. Just a few hundred meters away from the courtyard was a full sized basketball court where the monks spent the rest of the day running it back and practicing control over their emotional responses to external stimuli.

Deep into the long sweaty session, the monastery’s bells chimed 5 times signaling the end of the day where the monks bowed and broke apart to take much needed relaxation time.

“Wow, well this place definitely wasn’t what I was expecting.” Arthur said to Hermes as they walked back to the monastery.

“Yeah well you came on a celebration day so this wasn’t a normal day. Life usually isn’t this hard.”

“Hard?”

“Yea, you don’t usually have to deal with the other monks this much.”

They walked in silence for a little out of respect.

“So now what?” Arthur said after a while.

“You do your own thing, and you mind your own business until tomorrow where you’re up by 6 am. Somebody, probably Vuitton, will eventually tell you what you need to do but for now just stick with the group.”

And with that, Hermes sped off to get away from him.

It was that time of the night again. It was a particularly exciting night too because a new tax free lottery was dropping at midnight with a guaranteed winner announced by the next day. With a $100 million cash prize and instant announcement, he’d never seen anything like it.

Like a donkey holding in its yee-haws, Hermes slyly slipped through the hallway. He stopped by Arthur’s door and opened the mailbox.

By some miracle it was empty. Someone must’ve told him about the stipends already, Hermes thought, rolling his eyes. Oh well, it was worth the shot.

A few meters from the convenience store, Hermes reached into his pocket and counted his bills to make sure he had exact change. He didn’t want to waste time.

“Hey.” A voice whispered behind him. Hermes jumped back, startled.

“What the? Arthur? What’re you doing here?” He snapped.

“I was meditating out on the rocks and you passed by so I thought I’d join you.”

“What? And you didn’t say anything the entire time?”

“Well you said not to bother after hours.”

“Then why are you bothering me now!”

“Because, what is this place?” Arthur said, looking past him at the convenience store in confusion.

Hermes grumbled under his breath.

“Just buy something and leave.”

With that, he walked into the store and straight to the line since that interaction threw out his appetite. He came to a screeching halt when he saw the line wasn’t just long, it was filled with monks. Gabanna was near the end and waved to him.

“What the? What’s going on?” Hermes said to him, stopping beside him.

“Like I said. You and the rest of us buddy.” Gabanna said, before pointing to the back of the line.

It was a bit of a shock that none of them were even trying to hide it at this point. But screw it he wasn’t going to let this swindle him out of that much money.

“You’re buying the lotto?” Arthur asked, getting next to Hermes in line surprised.

“Yea we buy them to denounce them.”

After 20 minutes, the two of them were at the front of the line. Hermes received his ticket and then Arthur, his own.

“Here you are sir, number 4.” The cashier said, handing it to him.

“4?” Hermes said suddenly, “What kind of lottery number is 4? I thought it was 7 numbers.”

“No, for this lottery we just sell the number ticket. They’re out of order of course and he happened to get 4.”

“What kinda scam is that?” Hermes said out loud before gesturing to Arthur to head out with him.

The following night, the monks decided they might as well watch the calling of the numbers together.

The announcer reached into the bowl and slowly and dramatically unraveled the paper he chose. There was a long pause.

“.... 4 …”

The monks waited in agony. One shouted his started with 4, making his way closer to the screen in excitement.

“Thank you!” The announcer cried, to which he received a standing ovation.

“4? Is he gonna finish the rest?” One monk shouted.

“That was Arthur’s number!” Hermes cried, getting up, remembering he wasn’t there and was instead out in the courtyard meditating.

The gang tore for the outdoors and shook Arthur, who was perched in perfect criss cross applesauce, like a plane in turbulence.

“Where’s your ticket!” Hermes cried.

“I-I threw it in the river of Un Materialism like you said. I denounced my desire for earthly possessions!”

Hermes screamed and the group ran for the river.

There was tons of other junk in there like wrappers and bottles that the monks tossed to as a symbolic way of letting go of their worldly desires. They waded knee deep into the water, searching deep into the night, but to their utmost dismay, there was not a shred of evidence of the lottery ticket in sight.