somber procession

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

The bloom began to inventory the impossible: receipts for storms, a ledger of vanished streets and small apologies It listed a moon with pockets, a compass that read which childhood you'd be tomorrow, a church spattered in origami birds Rivers were filed under "waiting," mountains cataloged by the taste of their shadows, borders stamped with lullaby signatures The Monkey King watched the list sign

So the bloom began to pare the ledgers into three-breath prayers, each entry a small sky pocketed moon emptied river holds a child's name until morning opens its palm origami church bows

The bloom threaded receipts into a litany, columns folding like hymnals and ink rising into voice Invoices chanted storms paid in thunder; the moon's emptied pocket tinkled with small forgiving coins He watched as debits softened into refrains; names once stamped returned as swellings of mercy Paper prayed itself blank; the origami church nodded and opened a choir of creases that let borders unsew

Ledgers were intoned like temple-bells, each column chanted until numbers softened into prayers Debits unhooked like winter mittens; names returned with the small clatter of coins and laughter The origami choir counted exiles back into breath; borders loosened when every owed thing was named The Monkey King's palm held the final due, the bloom sealing forgiveness inside the closed book

He lays the book flat; the bindings toll like temple-bells and figures kneel in line. A fingertip traces debts into offerings — ink fogs up the air and becomes slow incense. Petals fold receipts into prayers; village names lift from margins and stand, small and present. With a breath he seals the final tally; signatures unroll into roads and what was owed walks back home.

The binding loosens; sheets rise like strangers buttoning receipts into coats for travel He watches them unroll maps from signatures, margins becoming feet that know which doors to find Ledger-boats ferry debts across waiting rivers; each doorstep takes a breath and remembers its name At the origami church the choir folds themselves into pews as returned things lay down like bread

They marched the mended roads in quiet ranks, receipts hung like lanterns that mourned without smoke Names pressed to chests, steps counted like beads—each footfall a slow, certain undoing of maps The origami choir breathed signatures into yawning doors; houses received them and set out bread and hush He laid the bloom on the threshold; it folded into a seed, and the long return softened into home