Peach Orchard Park

 I stared out the window from my darkened cave like room into the Peach Orchard in the middle of the City. There were apples and other fruit bearing trees as well. But the Peach Orchard is why the garden part of this housing project was not paved over or built over and was at the founding of this building complex of low income housing and businesses on the edge of Chinatown. 

    In the mornings there was not really a lot of activity on my window facing side. A person would pass by now and then. Later on the day care centers would release classrooms of children to play among the orchards like little monkey kings. Biting a peach here, through them at each other there. 

But right now it was all quiet. Staring out from darkness into the sunlit area was almost like staring from a place of meditation, peering into another world. But instead ot was a physical window I was staring out of. 

It had only been a week since I took my place at this property, that used to be a Kung Fu school. From my perspective, an ancient Kung Fu school where I had learned as a child. I then stumbled through time and space and various dimensions... so I was no longer the child that had moved away from this area only a decade or so ago. Instead I was an old man by appearance and went by the name Heruka. I had lived for centuries, millenia even, having taken many forms. 

But right now none of that really mattered. I was just a strange old man from some sort of religious group that was going to start teaching Kung Fu in this little space again.

I unlocked the door and stepped outside into the peach orchard. On the other side of this little courtyard, cars drove by. Some of them driving at the appropriate slow speed for a residential area, but some of them going much too fast. A friend, who had been  an older grown up looking woman to me 10 years ago... whom I now saw as a young woman. I waved to her as she passed by, and she nodded, somewhat awkwardly to be honest... probably wodnering who I was. Behind her, her mother wondered aloud in Hoisan Wah, 

"Are they making another Kung Fu school here? What happened to Sifu Wu? Did this Lo Fahn learn from him?"

Lisa, the young woman, turned to her to admonish her but stopped short when I said, "Hai le Hai le yes yes yes..." chuckling, "in a way yes and in a way no... but pretty much yes."

"I haen't seen you before?" Lisa looked at me, suspicious... and not to be all creepy I just shrugged and said, 

"We're still fixing some things inside but will open up shortly."

"What happened to Adam? And the others? And all the kids? Are they still over at the school inside Santiago?"

"Yes I said, this is a new school. And will be only for adults.