A Tile for Luck

At the overlook temple the racks are heavy with small red tablets, thousands of wishes in weatherproof lacquer, gold characters asking for health, sons, examinations passed, journeys survived. For a modest fee you add yours. I bought one that reads, in four characters, may all matters go smoothly, which as a wish is beautifully unambitious: not triumph, not fortune, just the absence of friction.

I held it up to the camera with chapped lips and a wind-burned face, the certified portrait of a woman whose matters had been going roughly smoothly for three weeks. Then I hung it on the rack among the thousands, one red leaf on a tree of asking, and stood there longer than a skeptic budgets for.

I do not believe the mountain reads lacquer. I believe repetition is how humans store hope outside the body, and the racks are a battery of it, charged daily. My tablet is in there now, doing its share of the storage. May all matters, yours too, go smoothly.