I have a temple in the human world.
Hardly anyone visits, but one girl came to pray three times.
The first time, she offered ten years of her life in exchange for her grandmother’s recovery.
The second time, she raised the offer to twenty.
The third time, she muttered, “Why won’t it work?”
“Because you’ve come to the wrong temple,” I said.
“I bury people.
I don’t save them.”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear me.
She still knelt and bowed, three times to her knees and nine times to the ground, then took five yuan from her pocket and put it in the offering box.
Who had lied to her?
I followed her out, back to a cramped, dilapidated alley.
A group of children crowded around her, laughing.
“The idiot’s here!
Come look at the idiot!”
She clutched her sleeves and said quietly, “I’m not an idiot.
“I’m just a little slow to react.”
