Zero K by Don DeLillo

process was genuine or that he’d devised this strength of conviction over time to drown out doubt. Doesn’t the fact of imminent death encourage the deepest self-delusion? Artis in the chair sipping tea, the shaky voice and hands, body narrowed to a memory.
    The Monk walked in then, nearly startling me, and the small room seemed to gather itself about him. He wore a hooded sweatshirt under the cloak, the hood flopped down behind his neck. Plate, glass and utensils appeared in the slot and he took these to the table. I let him settle into the chair and position the plate.
    â€œI’ve been hoping to see you again. I have a question.”
    He paused, not anticipating the question but only wondering if that intrusive noise was a human voice, someone speaking to him.
    I waited until he began to eat.
    â€œThe screens,” I said. “They appear in the halls and disappear into the ceiling. Last screen, last film, a self-immolation. Have you seen it? I thought they were monks. Were they monks? I thought they were kneeling on prayer mats. Three men. Awful to see. Have you seen it?”
    â€œI don’t look at the screens. The screens are a distraction. But there are monks, yes, in Tibet, in China, in India, setting themselves aflame.”
    â€œIn protest,” I said.
    This remark was too obvious to provoke further comment from the man. I think I expected some credit for raising the subject and for having witnessed the terrible moment itself onscreen, men dying for a cause.
    Then he said, “Monks and former monks and nuns and others.”
    â€œOne of them drank kerosene or gasoline.”
    â€œThey sit in lotus position or run through the streets. A burning man running through the streets. If I saw such a thing, firsthand, I would run with him. And if he ran screaming, I would scream with him. And when he collapsed, I would collapse.”
    The sweatshirt was black, sleeves protruding from the cloak. He placed his fork on the plate and sat back. I stopped eating and waited. He could have been sitting in a weary café in a lost corner of some large city, an eccentric figure of the type who is left alone by others, a man often seen but nearly never spoken to. What’s his name? Does he have a name? Does he know his name? Why does he dress that way? Where does he live? A man warily regarded by those few who’ve heard him deliver a monologue on one or another subject. Deep voice, unslurred, interior, and remarks too scattered to warrant a sensible response.
    But the Monk wasn’t that man, was he? The Monk had a role here. He spoke to men and women who’d been placed in a shelter, a safehold, people in the last days or hours of the only life they’d ever known, and he had no illusions about the sweeping promise of a second life.
    He looked at me and I knew what he saw. He saw the figure of a man hunched sort of sideways in a chair. The look told me nothing more than that. The food I was chewing told me it could conceivably be meat.
    â€œI needed to do something, do more than pledge to run alongside, do more than say something or wear a certain garment. How do we stand with others when the things that separate us are imposed at birth, when the separation haunts us and follows us day and night?”
    His voice began to carry a storytelling tone, a sense of recitation, self-remembrance.
    â€œI decided to make a journey to the sacred mountain in the Tibetan Himalayas. A great white icy pyramid. I learned all the names of the mountain in all the languages. I studied all the histories and mythologies. It took many days of hard travel just to reach the area, well over a week, finally, the last day on foot. Masses of people arriving at the base of the mountain. People crowded into open trucks with bundled possessions hanging from the sides and people tumbling out and milling about and looking up. There’s the summit washed in ice and snow. The center of the universe. People with