Chapter 28: ZEN

“Die before you die, and you will never die.”

—  Zen saying

The hard iron slats of the Paris bus stop bench still haunted Alex's dreams. Almost three days later, the agony of defeat lingered like a bitter aftertaste as he paced his unchanged house. The memory of those 58 hours—especially those final moments at Charles de Gaulle Airport—kept replaying like a broken record: his backpack as a makeshift pillow, the morning fog rolling across the terminal, a sound of a plane liftoff, and that crushing realization that Nepal would remain just another broken dream.

Is this what running away feels like?

The thought had tormented him then, and now, back in Cardiff, it morphed into something darker. The backpack still sat in the corner, a silent witness to both his courage and his failure.  Back to business—the words felt like acid in his mouth. The usual cacophony of the house—fetching of cars, secret packages, dealing of drugs, and the haze of weed and alcohol—quickly returned, accompanied by the familiar buzzing of the LED lights and the ventilation of mayhem. Yet in those interminable, ever-stretching 58 hours, Alex's core underwent an unalterable metamorphosis. One further unneeded fragment of him vanished into the Paris airport's veil of mist, while its indefinable counterpart—still beyond his perception's boundaries—began to emerge, flickering into life. It seemed that the universe had its own timing and a twisted sense of humor at that too.  It would be a flower delivery van, of all things, that would force Alex to pause and rethink his existence one more time. The same paralyzing fear that had gripped him on that cold airport bench now fueled his reckless driving.

One moment he was racing down the M5 highway in stolen Audi A5, filled with another delivery package to Birmingham, mind clouded with the usual chaos; the next—screeching brakes, rubber burning against wet asphalt, a car skidding across the motorway, and a flash of a white minivan and three green bold letters shimmered oddly ZEN. Their edges blurring as if viewed through a watery mirage on a hot day in the desert—a phenomenon he’d later recognize as fate’s fingerprint. The same universe that had stopped him in Paris was about to deliver another message, this time through a near-collision that would leave him shaken in a ditch, staring at a vanishing van with flowers and that word—that simple, three-letter word that would change everything.

Sitting in a highway ditch with his heart pounding against his ribs and adrenaline flooding his veins, he was being forced to stop running, the sudden quiet unearthing faint echoes of who he'd been before the chase—a man capable of more than evasion. The flower delivery van, oblivious to the profound impact of its presence, disappeared into traffic, leaving behind not just tire marks on asphalt but the first real crack in Alex's heart armor, through which slivers of unguarded emotion began to seep.

Paradoxically, Alex—a near-death experience with a van marked ZEN—forced him to confront what Paris couldn't. The agony of defeat had morphed into something more profound, more suffocating. Cursed by fate, he thrashed about, unable to escape the recurring vortex of toxic thoughts, flowing like thick darkness, saturated with rage that burned his mind and soul like blazing lava, leaving scars on every thought. Every breath, every heartbeat—like a knife—reminded him of every failure, every desperate attempt to escape, and every wrong turn that had led him to this abyss.

The Bristol Zen school became both his sanctuary and his tormentor. In the morning, he might be counting drug money or coordinating car movements. By afternoon, he'd sit cross-legged on a meditation cushion, staring at a wall, trying to find stillness while his mind screamed about deals, debts and runs. The contrast was almost comical—a criminal seeking peace, a chaos merchant trying to find order within.

During meditation sessions, his thoughts would spiral wildly. The teacher's gentle instruction to "just observe your breath" seemed impossible when every inhale carried the cargo of his double life. While others appeared serene, Alex's mind raced between the morning's drug run and night car delivery. The peaceful Buddha statue in the middle of the room seemed to stare right through his facade seeing the grower, the dealer, the thief and the runaway who couldn't even make it to Nepal.  "Your mind is like muddy water," the Zen teacher had said during one session. "Let it settle, and clarity will come."

But Alex’s waters were beyond muddy—they were toxic with guilt, seething with the relentless tension between his criminal reality and a fleeting glimpse of another path. Sometimes, sitting in silence, he'd feel tears rolling down his cheeks, the pressure of his contradictions becoming unbearable. Yet something kept pulling him back. Perhaps it was the way the teaching stripped away all pretense and judgment and gave him some sort of peace. In that room, he wasn't a criminal or a failure—he was just another human being suffering in his mind and seeking a way out.  The stark simplicity of Zen practice cut through his complicated web of lies and self-deception, offering a mirror too honest to ignore and stirring his paranoia while seeing the Buddha’s eyes flicker in his peripheral vision—sometimes morphing into a blonde girl’s face, watching, judging. He blamed the lapse on the drug life he was trying to escape.

The only way out: to go within, straight into the depths of the soul.

That Buddhist wisdom clung to his mind like an anchor on the ocean floor during a storm, for time and circumstance were cruel masters, allowing not a moment of respite. The drive to Bristol became another exercise in futility; only when on the run could he attain the sitting if the times were aligned, which made each visit a battle between transformation and the practical demands of his chaotic life.  Often that wasn't enough to satisfy the growing hunger for change, yet just enough to make the return to his regular life more painful and hollow.  The Zen school became a painful exercise, stripping away layers of illusion he hadn’t even known he carried, while the universe had only just begun its brutal lessons in impermanence—awakening Alex in ingenious ways from a deep lethargy, as he grew increasingly disgusted with himself, his personal choices, and actions. The illusion of self-began to dissolve, layer by layer, revealing the whisper of infinity.

 Nothing lasts—not the moment, not the car, not even the illusion of safety. It happened on what should have been just another delivery day. Late afternoon, 3:33 PM on the dashboard of a brand-new BMW X5 transported from London, Alex had just dropped off a solid haul of weed at the garage office, slipped the duplicate X5 key under the front tire, jumped into his old BMW, and sped off without wasting a minute.

A few minutes later, he stood by a burger van just across the street, waiting for his order, when he saw karma unleash its fury. The moment the industrial district exploded into a symphony of chaos—a deafening, pulsating cacophony that made the air tremble. First came the screeching of tires, sharp as a blade dragging across metal, and then a wave of police cars emerged from opposite directions like a swarm of enraged hornets. Their blue and red lights slashed through the calm afternoon sky like a violent, colorful whip, lashing the air with merciless fury.

At the same time, they flooded the garage in waves, their sirens wailing like a funeral dirge for Alex’ criminal life—a requiem of loss and inevitable ending. The lights painted everything in alternating flashes of judgment: blue for the cold truth, red for the hot panic rising in his throat.  More squad and surveillance cars poured in, their urgent pulses transforming the mundane business into a grotesque disco of justice, all the while curious Welsh folks were swarming to watch what was happening. The garage—his underworld sanctuary just 15 minutes ago—now stood exposed in this strobing nightmare. Through the sanctuary of a local burger van, Alex watched, paralyzed, as the law enforcement hive descended upon their target. Officers moved like synchronized dancers in a macabre ballet, all in black balaclavas, black helmets, Heckler & Koch G36s and bulletproof jackets, catching and reflecting the chaos of lights.

In horror, Alex watched his shadow world crumble into a shit show carnival of repercussions, as a half-wrapped burger in his trembling hands grew cold. While observing three policemen, two bags of marijuana (his recent delivery), two handcuffed mechanics, and his boss, Zeke, from the garage followed them into the pulsating light. Paperwork from the garage office, along with the stolen vehicles along with his just dropped off BMW, were all retrieved. In that moment, a flashback hit him like a rock thrown in the face. Fuck!  The car parts delivery invoice he signed at 3:33 was just 3 days ago.

The following days brought more blows and terror as police started raiding more houses—houses that they found addresses to in the documents of the garage where they discovered more weed laboratories. All of the weed and equipment was seized, houses shut down and the people involved arrested.  In the aftermath, panic and paranoia ran amok. 

The gang dissolved like morning fog and all communication stopped. And Alex, with nowhere else to run, spent the first nights sleeping in his car, convinced that his house would be invaded next. Soon he found himself again with no money, no more runs, and no more weed to grow or move.  The days didn't just drag—they stalked Alex like shadows of paranoia, each one a reminder that he had nowhere else to turn. Two months of purgatory, and every passing car made his heart skip.  Every single phone call could mean his arrest.  He was constantly looking over his shoulder.  But where else could he go? His family had written him off years ago.  His old friends lived in a world he was embarrassed he could no longer access. These walls of the empty 77 Cecil Street house, however haunted, were all he had.

"Just two more weeks," the gang promise from a distance, their words as hollow as his bank account. "Things will pick up soon. The police situation will blow over."

Alex clung to these lies like a drowning man to a lifebuoy, knowing they were false but terrified of letting go. The gang's single remaining house felt less like a business and more like a prison he'd chosen for himself, yet it was still home—the only one that would have him.

Nights were a carousel of self-loathing and chemical escape. Ray's visits became the only calendar events that mattered, and each one was associated with the fervent hope of relief. The ritual was always the same, merciless: the familiar weight of the white bag, like an old friend with a knife; the sound of chopping powder, echoing like an approaching storm; the burn in his nostrils, granting twenty minutes of fragile freedom from the screaming paranoia in his head; all washed down with whiskey that scorched not only his throat but the last remaining fragments of hope.

Boasting, "We're family here," Ray would pass the bottle around and deal out lines like playing cards. It was almost believable to Alex in those fuzzy seconds. Even though the group was poisonous and chaotic, they had become his surrogate family. For some reason, every "next week will be different" and assurance that his business would be back on track seemed like a mirage from the one individual who still hadn't left him.

As the Lithuanian specter, his boss, was facing extradition, Alex's thoughts raced with innumerable possibilities of being the next victim.  In the gray hours before dawn, every nerve ending screamed for more and his mind raced through endless loops of regret. The whiskey wasn't working anymore and Alex would scroll through his phone, looking at photos of his old life. The volunteer job where people smiled at him, even though they couldn’t see him, his family Saturday night out at the Turkish restaurant, the warehouse where he had a locker with his name on it—all traded for this limbo of false promises and chemical comfort. But the thought of leaving this misery sparked a panic that felt like dying. At least here, in this half-life of addiction and paranoia, he belonged somewhere. The drugs might kill him, the cops might find him, but loneliness—that was a certainty he couldn't face, not right now.  Each morning brought the same cycle: wake up, check for police, wait for promises that never materialized, count the hours until the next hit. His veins hummed with need, his mind raced with fears, but at least he wasn't alone. In this living death of empty promises, constant worries, and chemical dreams, he had found his twisted version of home. Suicidal thoughts were nothing new; they had been dancing on the edges of his consciousness for a long time—not as an escape, but as a constant companion, another shadow in a life that simply refused to let go.

Still another night, defeat odor pervaded the living room. Empty Jack Daniels bottles stood like tombstones among scattered remnants of cocaine lines, leftovers from McDonald's food skidded across the table while stale weed smoke hung like a shroud. Ray's departing slap on Alex's back echoed through the emptiness—another dealer's farewell that felt more like abandonment than friendship.  Absolutely wasted and barely able to hold his phone, Alex was still looking for pleasurable adventures to numb his painful lust.  In the sickly glow of his phone screen, Alex sank deeper into the black leather couch that had become both sanctuary and prison. The water stain on the ceiling morphed into a Rorschach test of his failures, spreading like the darkness in his mind. Each breath felt like inhaling every single failure, shame, regret, resentment and all the what-ifs.

“What am I doing with my life?” The words dissolved into the void, heavy with a thousand broken promises—to himself, his son, his family. Voices in his head circled like predators: You’re spiraling, Alex. This is the end. He clamped his hands to his temples, but his mind kept clawing: Worthless. Failure. Coward. Each accusation carved scars into his fractured soul. His phone blurred with names he’d let down—his son’s ignored calls, his ex-wife’s bitter texts, friends who’d stopped trying. Loneliness turned to liquid nitrogen in his veins.

His wobbling hands moved with grim precision, laying out his nightly ritual: cocaine, three LSD strips, a thick premium joint—the trinity of escape—next to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Crush, line, inhale. Light, inhale, hold, drink. Each step a desperate plea to silence the pain. But tonight, the high was empty, a shadow that couldn’t dull the ache of his broken heart. “This is it?” he whispered to the shadows. “This is all I get?” The question echoed in surprised tone through the empty house, unanswered... unaware that the effect of the drugs, delayed by the amount of alcohol, was lurking and intensifying in the dark.

He stumbled to his makeshift bed, fully clothed, whiskey scorching his throat. The room spun—not with chemical haze, but with the vertigo of a life collapsing, nausea clawing at his gut. As sleep closed in like a dark tide, the whisper escaped: “Fuck this world,”

Words dissolved into the dark, leaving Alex suspended between chemical fog and a nightmarish reality. Just before his eyes closed, the red glow of the oven clock pierced through the fading blur in the distance: 3:31. Each breath grew heavier, until a sudden rush of northern cold and searing heat tore through his chest like a violent contradiction.

The room slipped sideways, as if reality itself had lost its balance, and a laugh burst from his chest—wild, bitter, like a resounding song of vengeance and despair.

"Ha ha, let’s see what hell looks like," he muttered, barely getting the words out, letting them vanish like smoke in the yard, leaving behind nothing but echoing emptiness.

NEXT WEEK! Chapter 29 : The Devil’s Hour

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