On June 26, 2017 Nicolas Berglund boarded flight to Beijing. He had only a small backpack on his knees, filled with daily necessities and small bills of cash. His theory was simple – ‘it is 21st century and as long as I have cash I can buy anything anywhere’.

Being disabled sucks, but it had some perks. He was given a special attention at the airport, boarded the plane first and got unlimited attention from the flight attendants as well. The downside, of course, were the compassionate looks and the pity, but he was long used to that in his one year in the wheelchair.

Despite being direct flight, it still took almost 12 hours. While Nick was sitting like a king in the middle of the first class, he firmly refused all the meals, drinks and snacks he was offered. Except for the hot water with lemon.

Last year before the flight to France, Marianne gave her usual lecture to both father and son duo on the healthy lifestyle. Her rule was simple: ‘going on vacation is not a reason to harm yourself’. The audience enjoyed these lectures, each for different reasons. Olle found his smart wife adorable, Nick, on the other hand, loved to learn about anything that could improve or harm his running abilities.

Thus, similar to the last year, he only ate food that he brought along – roasted hazelnuts with honey. The small jar would last only for this flight and he still had to figure out how to ‘resupply’ in Beijing. Nick was munching on hazelnuts while watching some old Chinese kungfu movie. He used this time to ‘refresh’ his Mandarin.

‘It is kind of funny’ he though, ‘I am traveling to the west and my first stop is China.’ He chuckled at this amusing paradox and decided to read “Journey to the West” once more while in Beijing.

The movie was boring and he just didn’t like fighting, so he turned off the small screen and decided to sleep even though he was not tired. The first class chair was almost like a hotel bed. Nick lied on his back, hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.

It was just one year ago. The three of them were flying in the opposite direction – to Europe. It was planned to be a wonderful trip and Marianne was excited beyond words. She wanted to introduce her son to all her special childhood places and show off the incredible Mediterranean cuisine. Both Olle and Nick were foodies and it was not easy to have a healthy diet in US. But in the southern France she could just let them loose – they could eat almost anything and it would not only be healthy, but also very tasty as well. This was where Nick learned the real meaning of the word ‘restaurant’.

Of course, to Olle this was nothing new. He was born in Sweden and, long before Nick came to this world, he and Marianne had crisscrossed whole Europe by a car several times.

During the visit Nick’s grandparents pampered him to no end. And he did not mind that as well – they have met only few times when grandparents came to the states during the summer. They loved the climate there, but were disgusted by the American food.

The trip to Marianne’s homeland was at all high and the three of them went out during celebrations of Bastille day in Nice. They walked down the Promenade des Angles laughing and enjoying the sights when suddenly a truck drove into crowds. Last thing Nick noticed was his father’s huge figure trying to cover both him and his mother.

July 14th, 2016, was one of the bloodiest days the in modern French history. 86 people died and 458 were injured in that terrorist attack.

“Sir ... sir, please wake up!” A blond flight attendant was gently shaking Nick’s shoulder, “We are a beginning our decent, please pull up your seat and fasten your seat belt. Do you need my assistance?”

“No.” Nick shook his head while forcefully coming back to realty. He has been having the same dream, or rather – nightmare quite regularly for a year already and, while the wake up every time was accompanied by heartbreaking farewells, he was almost used to it.

Sitting in the hotel shuttle Nick watched the evening sights of Beijing floating by. This modern metropolitan was not as romantic as described in the travel guides. But he did not really care – the goal was to see a piece of the Great Wall and may be visit a few temples.

‘Tomorrow I will finally see if I can fulfill my dream.’ Nick thought to himself, ‘Can I manage in a foreign place without a strong tradition of supporting the disabled?’

Checking in the hotel went really fast and him speaking Mandarin left the girls at reception blushed and stupefied. After getting to the top floor in his sweet, he rolled his wheelchair to the big window and stared at the city below. The reason he picked “Shangri-La” was exactly this – it was the highest hotel in Beijing. Although it was not the nicest one, Nick could see the whole city beneath his feet even if it was shrouded in a thin fog of smog. He checked out the bathroom – it had a huge bathtub right at the window. He did not need to think twice – he turned on the water, dropped his clothes and crawled right in. Then he spent an hour ‘floating in the sky’ with closed eyes.

‘Damn, I am hungry!’ Nick thought, ‘May be it is not that late? May be I can still visit a temple tonight as well?’

From his bathtub in the distance he could see some structures resembling temples. Or were those just some lit up advertisement installations? He could not tell.

‘It’s not like I have anything to do tonight. I might as well go out, grab a bite and try to find something interesting to see around here. Should I try out ‘Beijing duck’? I hope they won’t cheat me with a chicken or pigeon.’

In ten minutes he was already downstairs at the concierge getting a map and directions to the closest restaurant. Turned out Beijing had quite a few late night establishments and some of those were in the vicinity.

Nick rolled thought the large hotel entrance and turned down all offers of help from hotel staff and nearby taxi drivers.

While rolling towards Tonghui river, he was observing pedestrians. This seemed to be a different world compared to US and Europe. May be it was the stature of Chinese people or the way they walked or talked, or may be something else. Or may be it was just his imagination. Anyway – he enjoyed this change.

At one moment he noticed he had caught up to a couple of monks in purple robes. This was not the typical color for Buddhist monk attire, but what really caught Nick’s attention – there was a line of strange symbols on those robes. Normally monk robes should be plain, but these did not only had something one them – those symbols were foreign to Nick.

He was quite fluent in Mandarin, Hindi and Arab, he could at least recognize words in Korean, Thai and other Eastern languages. He also somewhat knew Sanskrit. But he was confident these symbols were not in any European or Asian languages – may be those were not words but just pictures with some special meaning?

Nick’s scientist gene was triggered. He slowed down and started following the monks. After 20 minutes or so they had left the neighborhood with the skyscrapers and entered an ill-lit alley with two and three storey buildings on the both sides. Nick did not really catch the change – he was still racking his brain on the meanings of those symbols.

Then he saw few more monks further down the alley standing near an open gate and the two Nick was following joined up with the bigger group and they all went inside.

Nick rolled his wheelchair closer just to see behind the gate a small simple temple in the courtyard. Calling it a ‘temple’ was exaggeration – the building seemed to have lost roof long time ago and only few columns remained. At the far end an old, but beautiful Buddha statue carved out of white stone was sitting on the altar, some incense sticks and candles burned at its feet. Apparently monks were gathering here for the evening prayer.

‘It should be way too late for prayers.’ Nick thought, ‘But … what do I know. There are thousands of different traditions in this country.’

“What are you looking for?” A sudden question startled Nick. There was a short and thin old man sitting near the gates, wearing similar robes to the other monks. At first Nick did not notice him sitting in the shadow close to the wall, “Has European youth come to pray with us?”

“Well, I am not really European. What is this place? And who are you?” Nick shot out his own questions while smiling at the old man. There was a strange aura of calm and peace coming from him. He probably trained that for years to attract more people to follow his Lord Buddha.

Old man smiled back, “Although your Mandarin is really good, it looks like you are not very smart. This is Buddhist temple and I am the abbot here.”

“Oh? Your mandarin is also very good” Nick stated.

Old man looked confused for a moment, then started laughing out loud. The monks inside the temple turned questioning gazes towards the duo, but then went back to arranging the evening ritual.

“May I ask – what do the symbols on your robe mean? I have never seen anything like that before.” If there was someone who could help solve this little riddle, it would be the abbot of these monks.

Abbot stopped laughing. He seriously looked at the Buddha statue and put his palms together, then closed his eyes and said, “It’s a secret.”

Nick almost fell off his wheelchair, ‘What the hell? A secret, but put on the public display?’

He stared at the old man in daze. After couple of minutes he suddenly got enlightened, “Hahaha! Old man! You don’t know that yourself! How can a monk be so shameless?”

Abbots face instantly turned more purple than his robe, even darkness of the night could not hide it, “Sigh … fine, fine! You are not dumb after all. The truth is, we don’t know the real meaning of these symbols. The founder of this temple wrote them down while being in a state of enlightenment, but he did not explain the meaning. Later many generations of monks as well as modern researchers tried to decipher these lines without any real results. The best explanation they could come up with is that those are ‘random pretty drawings’ or ‘ancient magic runes’.”

Nick was intrigued, “What do you think? What is your opinion? I am sure you have spent some time trying to solve this.” If the abbot was telling the truth – this was getting interesting.

“I am not sure.” Old man shook his head, “The only thing I know, is that if you meditate while looking at those lines for a long time you might start getting strange experiences … like looking at yourself from the side, or seeing things.”

“Hallucinations?”

“May be. A dozen years ago I had one myself. It was incredibly realistic.” Old man paused for a second and continued, “If you want to – you can write them down on paper. Many researchers have. But for whatever reason at some point everyone is loosing their copy. Some people came to copy these symbols several times and the result was still the same. Just don’t take any pictures here.”

Nick scratched his head, “You are not trying to be mystical just for some special effect to fool me, are you?”

“Go check yourself. We are starting our prayers – feel free to listen. You might find them helpful. I can see your soul is in much pain and you are struggling, so prayer to the Lord Buddha can help you heal.” Old man stood up, patted his robes and slowly walked towards the altar.

Nick was dumbstruck for the second time this evening. And this time it also took him a couple of minutes to regain his senses, ‘That old charlatan! How does Lord Buddha even allow him to be a monk?! It is obvious that I am in pain and struggling – I am sitting in a f*cking wheelchair!’ Nick really wanted to go and kick the old man’s butt. At the same time he had deep respect for this crafty old fox. He liked good actors.

‘Ufff … I am so hungry. Oh well … I hope I can get something to eat back at hotel.’ The time had flown by and it was almost midnight.

While looking around Nick slowly rolled his wheelchair towards the altar. Monks were sitting in two rows at one side of the temple and chanting mantras. The old abbot stood next to them when he noticed Nick approaching. He pointed his bony finger at the bottom of the altar and then sat down, closed his eyes and joined the chanting.

When Nick moved closer, he saw nine lines of symbols, nine symbols in each line. The first line was the same he saw on the monk robes earlier.

‘Now then. How do I take a picture without the old fox noticing it?’ Nick thought for a moment, but then decided to show some respect to the temple he was in. The request to not take pictures was probably the only earnest thing old man said all night.

Thus he sat there pondering, while monks were chanting mantras and the old stone Buddha was looking at everyone smiling like the Buddha statues always do. The atmosphere was becoming more and more surreal.

Nick stared at the symbols for a while trying to figure out the meaning and compared them to any old scripts and symbols he had seen, but after a while he started to doze off.

Suddenly he felt like he was floating in the warm bath back at “Shangri-La”, except this time he could float higher and higher. Nick opened his eyes and saw the small temple without the roof below, not far away. At one side monks were chanting their Buddhist mantras, but in the middle of the temple, in front of the altar, was sitting a young blond man in a wheelchair.

‘Motherf*ckers! What kind of incense are they burning?’ Nick wanted to go back down, but for some reason he just floated higher and higher. The weird thing was – the higher up he went, the more comfortable he felt.

‘Tomorrow I will bring couple of police squads here! Let’s see how they will poison tourists with opiates after that!’

Nick gazed at the city of Beijing. Through the thin layer of smog he already could see the outskirts and it did look beautiful. Floating higher up he recognized thin line of The Great Wall which like a long snake was disappearing in the distance.

‘Hahaha, who would have thought I would see it already today.’ Nick felt even better now, ‘Since I can’t go down – let’s see how far up I can levitate like this!’

He felt like he was accelerating. The city of Beijing that once stretched on the both sides of the horizon was now in the size of a small pond and continued to shrink smaller and smaller. Nick already saw the outlines of the Korean peninsula and Japan, then the whole continent of Asia. The higher he went, the faster he became. And he felt really warm and comfortable.

‘How did they produce this stuff?’ Nick was contemplating, ‘If this thing is smuggled in the US, DEA is in big trouble. Popularity of such narcotics might overshadow the common ‘weed’ in a month.’

He gazed at the whole blue planet from afar. It was as beautiful as astronauts told in those interviews.

As he flew further away from Earth, he witnessed the most amazing sunrise in his life. A huge ball of blazing white fire suddenly covered the whole view. Now he understood why many civilizations were worshiping Sun god in one form or another. The presence this star gave off really made one want to bow towards it.

Nick continued to speed off. He passed some planets he did not recognize. In fact, he visually could recognize only the one with the belt around it – Saturn. As he was leaving the solar system, thousands and thousands of stars started to form a galaxy.

Suddenly Nick had an idea, ‘How far can I go like this? Can I reach the end of the Universe?’

His speed continued to increase. Stars flashed by him, then galaxies one after another.

‘Indeed, it is infinite ...’ Nick thought, ‘… what a weird dream.’

Then everything became blurry and the next moment – there was nothing, nothing at all.