solemn unspooling

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

The river tucks each ledger into its current like a child, ink exhaling into hush and small tides of vowels Petals become tiny skiffs; the bloom rows them slow, counting commas until sleep folds every margin closed The origami church answers in low creases, its choir rocking the horizon until mountains forget to be sharp The Monkey King lifts his map and feels the world lull itself toward morning,

Creases open like throats; folded voices exhale whole hymns of paper, Maps unroll into staves and the river writes its name in clefs of rushing ink, Petal-skiffs take alto while mountains answer low—valleys hum with stitched bass, The Monkey King folds to that pulse; borders slip like spent stamps into the refrain

Margins giggle: receipts peel free and wobble like new leaves, misnaming kings with crooked signatures The origami choir folds a hymn into paper boats that guffaw and race the river's ledgered grin Maps tuck themselves behind the Monkey King's ear, whispering detours that make compasses blush and spin Petal-skiffs sprout listening flaps; ledgers exchange ink-smiles, rearranging history into riddle

Petals fold like last pages; the bloom buttoned its receipts into dusk and hummed them mute. The river unstitched its catalog, names slipping home on the current's slow apology. Origami choir smoothed its voices flat; maps rolled soft and lost the sharpness of command. The Monkey King laid his map across his palm, and the world unwound itself in a slow, reverent letting-go into morning.