I am the acolyte of the Three Pure Ones' Abbey. Not a living acolyte — the last living one died of old age two hundred years ago. I am the spirit of the censer-bearing acolyte statue that stands beside the offering table.
Raised on incense. Eight hundred years I have stood at the table's edge, watching worshippers come and go, hearing the priests chant — my days like the old cypress before the gate, ring upon quiet ring.
Which night of the eight hundred years was least quiet? You needn't ask.
The night three hundred years ago. The night the storytellers have retold ever since: Sun Wukong and his two brothers slipped in after dark, hauled the statues of the Three Pure Ones off to the privy, mounted the altar themselves, impersonated the gods in state, ran the abbey's whole priesthood in circles — and devoured every offering on the table. And at the end, the matter of the "holy water" —
you all know the holy water part. The teahouse roars at it.
You have laughed for three hundred years. I have stood at the table's edge, thinking, for three hundred years.
Thinking of this: before that night, I had stood five hundred years. Five hundred years of kneeling worshippers, of offerings laid fresh and cleared spoiled — did the statues move once? Answer once? Was one grain of rice ever missing?
Never. The gods sat high; the incense coiled; the offerings ripened, rotted, were replaced. Five hundred years, and those three statues did nothing at all.
That night, the "Three Pure Ones" spoke — voices like temple bells, full of wit and laughter. The "Three Pure Ones" reached out and ate the table clean, with the relish of three beings starved a long, long time. The priests kowtowed till dawn in ecstasy: the images have shown their power! — glory unseen in eight centuries!
It was false. Three monkey-spirits. I knew — I stood beside the table; I saw everything.
But hear me to the end —
the hall of priests did not know. That night, their belief was real. When they cupped the "holy water" and toasted their good fortune, the light in their eyes was real. Next day the trick was exposed; the priests burned with fury and shame — and not one of them asked the question:
why did the true gods we fed for five hundred years never speak — while three monkey-demons on the altar spoke, and laughed, and ate?
I have asked it on their behalf for three hundred years.
I do not plead the monkeys' case — mocking the faithful is impiety. My question is for the gods: the offerings were set out for you. You did not eat, did not answer, did not look. Then table upon table of sincerity, five hundred years of it — what did you take it for?
The statues do not answer. Statues never answer.
After the black moon rose, even the worshippers ceased. Half the abbey fell; dust settled on the Three Pure Ones. An acolyte statue with no incense to feed on begins to crumble. Before crumbling, I assigned myself one final duty: dust the images daily; make the offering daily — wild fruit gathered from the hill behind, three portions, one bow apiece.
Not that I still hope for miracles. I had simply reasoned my way to one truth:
an offering is half for the god and half for the one who offers. Whether the god receives it is the god's affair. Whether we still offer is the state of our own hearts — and the heart must not gather dust just because the statues do.
The night the medicine-basket boy sheltered in the abbey, he found me at my offering and asked: little one — the statues haven't answered in three hundred years. Whom do you serve?
I said: I serve the proposition that gods ought to exist.
He was silent a long while. Before leaving, he took three steamed buns from his pack, set them on the offering table with full courtesy, bowed to the Three Pure Ones, and said: if you are in the west, we are coming to ask you for an accounting. And if you are gone —
he paused — then let this table stand as the human world's last proper invitation to you.
Deep in that night, at my dusting, I found: one of the three buns was missing a corner.
A rat? Weathering? Eight hundred years of these eyes can tell rat-work from crumble.
Neither. That corner was broken off. Gently. Carefully. As if afraid of waking someone.
For the first time in eight hundred years, I am freshly afraid and freshly glad, both at once:
somewhere — in that hall, or somewhere impossibly far beyond it —
someone who has hungered a very, very long time has reached out a hand toward the bread of the human world.