All The Gods We Can Touch

三 The Burning of a Promised Land

How does the world continue to pump blood? How can his heart keep beating while a gaping, bleeding wound is dug deep into his soul?

The smell of the funerary incense is overwhelming, as unnerving as it was on his first ceremony ten years ago. The scent grabs at his throat and brings tears to his eyes.

As he grips the fuming sticks between six of his fingers, his hands were trembling. He is used to this; yet he has never felt so washed, worned-out as he is now. In a practised and mechanical move, he brings the incense to his forehead, letting the bottom kiss his mourning band. He bows once while standing, then kneels to bow again. Finally, he stands up to bow a third time, then plants the sticks in the main funerary urn. A row of the pots are aligned on the ground, against the wall: there was not enough place on the ceremonial table.

The spirits tablets that were previously arranged on the clan's altar were gone, tucked away in the Huái Niàn's burial site.

While the Ancestor Hall was large and high, there was not enough space for all the dead to be honoured with their own tablet and hung on the walls; not if he wanted to rebuild the Sect, and honour the deceased that its future life would bring. Lacking time to properly embroider silk banners, he had to ink each name on scrolls that he then put on the wall. Though this exceptionary measure was taken to gain space, the names still covered one entire wall and a half.

Carefully, he right the fold in his robe and lowers himself to his knees. As he presses his face to the wooden floors, he has to take a moment to gather his mind: it was spilling out onto the floorboard, into the air.

The memory of his brother's mutilated face kept welling up in front of his eyes. Bái Jīnpéng will never be able to become the teacher he was meant to be.

He didn't have time to reconstruct his people's flesh and had to wrap them in bandages, hiding away their gruesome wounds and keeping their mouths closed. This bodies' preparation was unbecoming and disrespectful, yet he trusted his ancestors to be lenient with all of Huái Niàn's and still offer them guidance into their new birth regardless of their undignified appearance.

He rights himself, his back stretched taut. His voice is tight as he intone the first prayer.

"Great Ancestors and Spirits of the Heavens, we call upon you to bear witness on this solemn day. Before you, we present Gāo Jun, Wen Cheng, Jiang Lao, Han Sang..." His voice went on, enumerating each of the departed. In a normal world, he would be detailing each of their lives and accomplishments. In a normal world, he wouldn't be doing this alone.

It was not a normal world.

After it is done, he rises to his feet.

The broken wall on his left allows the soft light of dawn to cast a soft, soothing look on the scene. Untying his incense bell from his belt, he wraps the cord around his right hand and softens his muscles. Like water, he let his body flow with the rhythm of the second psalm. His breathing pumps his members through the usual dances as his spirit tears and burns at the edges.

As he stops, an incense-heavy arm raised high to Heavens and right hand poised to guard the rallied spirits, a lone tear fall down his cheek. Holding the form, he whispers the last prayer like a secret. His gaze is looking, unseeing, at the hundreds of tablets and the names engraved there.

He bowed one true last, final time.

His eyes closed. The soft touch of lips kissing the centre of his mourning band shattered him and he clenched his jaw. As he feels the spirits leave, his knees fold, and he falls. Face scrunched in full-bodied sobs, he let himself curls on the dusty floors, letting his heart howl.