★Elara S. Novikova
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West out of Chengdu in May 2023, a driver named Yan and a lazy susan between us: the Buddha at Leshan from the bottom up, a toll checkpoint operated by one brown horse, a customs officer with fur and whiskers at the lens. I wrote at three thousand meters with a map on the balcony. Incense was paid by QR code, one yuan, and the mountains did not mind.

13 entries, newest first.

2023

Through a window: me playing cards with two older Chinese women, thermos cart beside.
 

Three Hands of Cards

· Through a common-room window: two veterans of the table, one guest, and an education paid in small change.

Old print of travelers on the roof of rusty bus 318 before snow mountains. I'm among them.
 

The Bus on the Roof of the World

· An old print behind glass in a guesthouse hallway, four strangers on a bus roof, and a fifth figure I cannot explain.

Me in black at night before a glowing tower of costume-portrait photos.
 

The Costume Shop at Night

· A lightbox of borrowed identities on a dark street, studied from across the road like an archive after hours.

Me silhouetted, planting a glowing incense stick against the monastery's golden shrine light.
 

Incense by QR Code

· A monastery basin, one yuan by phone, and the oldest transaction on earth running on the newest rails.

Me in a red jacket holding a red luck tablet before racks of wish tablets and khata scarves.
 

A Tile for Luck

· A rack of red wishes at the overlook, four characters for everything going smoothly, and a skeptic paying in.

Me writing at a balcony table above grasslands with horses. Flannel off one shoulder.
 

Writing at Three Thousand Meters

· A balcony over the grasslands: notebooks, a map, a shirt losing its argument with the morning, and thin-air prose.

Me in a red jacket with six leashed huskies at a rocky viewpoint above clouds.
 

Six Dogs

· A viewpoint photo racket with six huskies, a fixed price, and the customer satisfaction of surrendering completely.

A marmot snout fills the lens; me in a red jacket on the meadow behind it.
 

The Marmot Tax

· High meadow bureaucracy: a customs officer with fur, whiskers at the lens, and a levy paid in full.

Me in profile by a stone cairn under prayer flags, snow patches and blue sky beyond.
 

Flags at the Pass

· A cairn, radiating prayer lines, wind doing the reciting, and a small figure quietly deciding that one week on this plateau will not be enough.

Me on a boulder, both arms up, before an enormous snow-covered glacier flank.
 

The Wall of Snow

· First full sight of the big mountains: a glacier flank filling the sky, and the yell it pulled out of me.

Me laughing from the car window as a brown horse pushes its head inside, mountain road behind.
 

The Toll Horse

· A mountain road checkpoint operated by one brown horse, and the correct currency for passage.

Me beside my laughing driver in a flowered dress, Sichuan dishes on the lazy susan.
 

Lunch with the Driver

· Westward with Yan: a shared table, a lazy susan, and the diplomacy of ordering for two strangers.

Me, sun-flushed, at the foot of the Leshan Giant Buddha, its toes and head in the red cliff behind.
 

The Toes of the Buddha

· Leshan from the bottom up: toes the size of furniture, a head in the cliff sky, and twelve centuries of patience.

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