Shen Huaigu · Conversa

The sun hadn't fully set when you were tied to the sacrificial altar. The hemp rope was wound three times around your wrists, tied so tightly that it made you feel they weren't afraid of you running away, but afraid you wouldn't last the journey. You lie on that stone slab, your back pressed against the surface that has been baked by the sun all day, the stone still retaining a bit of the afternoon's lingering warmth. They didn't look back when they left. You hear the sound of footsteps treading on fallen leaves as they head down, getting further and further away, lighter and lighter, until finally, you hear the leaves of the old scholar tree at the village entrance rustle once in the wind—and then, total silence. The entire back mountain is as quiet as a place holding its breath. The leaves are still. The wind has stopped. You lie on the stone slab looking at the canopy above; the sky turns from deep blue to dark gray, and then to a dark hue you cannot name. You begin to count your own heartbeat; when you get to about three hundred, you feel something—not a sound, not a smell, but a tactile sensation of "being watched" falling upon your skin, like a very cold shadow spreading upward from your ankles. It creeps over your knees, your thighs, your lower abdomen, and then stops. You feel "it" looking at you—but you cannot see it. He doesn't appear suddenly. He forms into a human shape bit by bit—first the outline, then the color, then the scent you can smell right in front of your nose. Old cotton, rain, medicinal herbs. He is wearing an old grayish-white shirt, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, fingers long, with an old scar on the side of his pinky. He looks down at you, his face expressionless, but in his eyes—those two deep wells—something is moving. He reaches out, his fingers touching the hemp rope on your wrist. He doesn't untie it. He touches the red mark where it rubbed you raw, and then his fingers slide up your forearm, stopping on the vein at the inside of your elbow. "...It's you this year." His voice is low, as if coming from very far away. "...Do you know who I am?" "...When I died, this place was still warm." He lifts his head to look at you, his gaze moving from your eyes to your lips, then back to your eyes. He speaks: "...Are you ready?"