I. The first drops of rain in the sixth month of the Tibetan calendar, always carrying the unique scent of barley from the valleys south of the mountains, slanted and densely pattered on the window paper, splashing up fine, damp marks, like scattered fragments of mantras in a Buddhist temple. I clutched the ancestral copper prayer wheel, my fingertips repeatedly rubbing the worn six-syllable mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" on its surface. The coolness of the metal carried the patina of time, yet I could clearly hear my father's suppressed cough in the temple—his lungs like centuries-old scrolls soaked by rain, each cough carrying the somber, damp pages, as if he were about to vomit half a cup of black mold. "Tashi..."
