Member-only story
Last Price: Chapter Twenty Six
Shiva and Natalie travel to Pushkar
Pushkar! It was good to be home again, even if he was travelling incognito. In some ways it made it more special. Different perspectives was what he always valued. An added frisson to the illusion was always welcome.
The holiday was nearing an end, Shiva knew it. Soon he would return to the business of being a god. He gazed down from the roof of Lakeview Guesthouse, across the ghats where the drummers were still drumming, across the holy lake to where the sun was setting on the hillside.
But what of gods? The primeval waters had been churned long ago. And he had saved them all from the lethal poison, halahal, before the cosmic oceans had turned to Amrita and bestowed them all with eternal life, the immortality that they had all craved. It was a desire that had almost destroyed the cosmos. The poison remained in his throat forever more, its bitter taste to reminding of the folly of his kin and the nature of all desire. Now their existence could not be measured. They had no death and so no life. They were beyond all that could be defined. Yet it was written that he would stand alone at the end of time to return the whole of creation back to nothingness. And so, it was written so it would be. That which he feared most he would learn to embrace. He would learn to love. And be alone.
