Not a real fire. A glow behind closed eyelids. The mind, for one impossible second, stops its little commerce of memory and tomorrow. Then: a dog barks. A leaf falls. The coolness of the ground rises through the bones. Nothing has happened. Everything has been returned.
A bare foot hovers over cracked earth. Not yet touching. The last trace of village smoke drifts behind, thin as an excuse. Ahead: a termite mound, a broken stupa, a banyan whose roots have unremembered the ground. The foot descends. No one records this. A crow watches. anagarigam scenes
Inside the bowl: one mango, slightly bruised, two fistfuls of cold rice, a single flower left by a child who ran away giggling. The renunciant eats without naming hunger. The bowl, when scraped clean, makes a sound like a dried riverbed remembering rain. Not a real fire
