The most important teaching of her life, delivered once, with no notes and no second chance. She is freezing to death at the time. A free 20-minute read.
Three voices, one bookshelf — fiction and reflection in about twenty minutes.
Author: Melvin Horton
Melvin Horton is a Buddhist practitioner who combines Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions with his Baptist roots, Catholic upbringing and his meditation and yoga practices.
He is a student of Gnostic Christianity, Tibetan Buddhist and Zen Meditation.
He writes essays, short stories and poetry.
He has a cat name Marvin.
Never meet your heroes. Twelve weeks into a year alone on a mountain, a dead saint turns up in her tent and will not admit she exists. A 15-minute read.
A nun who can stay awake inside her own dreams gets adopted by three demons with excellent taste. Everyone has a feed they cannot put down. 15-minute read.
She is in love with a woman who can feel a lie the instant it is spoken. She has been lying to her since the day they met. A free 20-minute short story.
A monastery where lunch is the only hour anyone may speak. She offers the new girl the rest of her potato. Nothing happens. Everything happens. 10 minutes.
She sees the dead in every hall and classroom and cannot switch it off. Everyone has rehearsed an awkward question in a corridor. A free 10-minute read.
She sold what she had to buy into a seminary that teaches rather more than scripture. Then somebody handed her the laundry rota. A free 10-minute read.
Everyone has argued with somebody who just says no and will not explain the rule. Hers is the Lord of Death, and she is already dead. A 15-minute read.
There is a two-thousand-pound yak standing in the kitchen. The doorway is intact. Nothing is broken. She has somewhere to be. A free 15-minute read.
Everyone has told a stranger too much at three in the morning. She is hiding from four armed men. He is thirteen, and fifty years away. A 15-minute read.
She came to the city with fourteen silver coins and a plan. Everyone has taken a job just to tide themselves over. Hers is still going. A 10-minute read.
Everyone has sat at a table while people discussed them in the third person. Not everyone was being sold at the time. A free 10-minute short story.
Eight questions. No warning. No time to prepare. Nobody likes a pop quiz — and this one decides whether she survives the night. A free 20-minute read.