Devotion to cause.....

"How many?”

“We…  around a hundred, over the last forty years.”

“You're telling me, that the ground just….opens up and swallows them? Like that tourists video”

"Yes Sir. Exactly like it, Sir." The younger man glanced across the police chief, to the still frame on the monitor: A brown robed monk, falling into a letterbox shaped fissure. A hole that had opened precisely beneath his feet, in front of a crowd of screaming tourists.

This had led to questions being asked. Which had led to eyewitness accounts of something very similar happening to the monks on a regular basis.

Which had led, eventually, to the report the young lieutenant had just delivered.

“And the monastery?” Enquired the chief, with a worrying lack tone.

 "No sign of foul play sir.”

“Monks vanish down holes in the ground, and there's no sign of foul play?"

“That’s... the monks reported all the vanishings, to the local governor, sir...."

"And?"

"The governor said he wasn't concerned with runaways from the monastery. Sir."

The chief picked up the report, and read aloud: "The abbot insists..." now he looked at his lieutenant, sideways, "....insists that the mountain on which the monastery stands is the home of the fire god Ehgdum. In return for.... great Ehgdum.... remaining under their mountain, they allow it to take two or three monks, at random, every year, to serve it in the underworld."

Lieutenant Advani blushed.

The Police chief shot out of his chair, and rounded the desk with remarkable speed for a man his size. “You’ve got shit for brains lieutenant" he shrieked. "Whatever this is, it stops today. Round the bastards up and interrogate them until we get some sense. Am I perfectly bloody clear?! " 

The younger man tried to avoid the chiefs gaze - difficult with their noses only an inch apart.

"YES SIR!" He bellowed.

"Dismissed,” the chief howled.

 

*

" This is the BBC world service: Governments across Asia have declared a state of emergency today. This follows devastating eruptions and earthquakes, along a hitherto unrecognised fault line, stretching across Asia......"

 Image above by Carsten Peter.