After the militia left, Somchai carried Tam’s notebook with him as he made his evening temple rounds. He was pretty sure there were no monastic prohibitions against reading the personal diary of a dead friend, but he wasn’t certain. Not for the first time he wished the other monks were still alive to share their knowledge and wisdom.
But there was no way he could stop himself from reading Tam’s final words, so that was that.
As usual, there was no one but Somchai in the temple. The once golden paint of the curved-roof bot had paled over the last few years and now looked merely tan, while the sparkling glass impressed in the cement barely shown through the many layers of hardened ash.
At least Somchai had been able to keep the ubosot, or consecrated hall, clean. Every afternoon after meditating he mopped the hall’s teak wood floors and washed the paneling. But without a community of monks to work alongside him, there was little he could do about the temple’s other buildings. His cleaning was also hampered by the increasing amounts of time devoted to his morning alms rounds. He now walked to a village more than an hour away before anyone would give him the food he needed to survive.
In fact, even in that village his only reliable food came from a woman who sold black-market kerosene. The woman always smirked as she placed rice in Somchai’s alms bowl, amused that people considered a monk like him lower than a thief like herself.
Somchai knew the villagers’ dislike for him was only one reason his temple was now shunned. The other was the charnel grounds. People feared the nano there. Feared it might infect them and bring the Blues down upon their families.
Still carrying Tam’s notebook, Somchai picked up his bone rake, a bottle of water, and his umbrella tent. He then walked the bare-dirt path behind the temple, the ground around him burned empty of plants and leaves. Most of the pine trees were also burned bare, their empty branches reaching skeleton fingers to the sky. Every tree bore the deep grey paint of ash.
Under the trees lay hundreds of bones. Thousands. All human. A rib cage half rose from the ground in front of him. A putrefying corpse, half burned and naked, lay off to the right. Detached arms reached out from both sides of a small pine. Half-starved dogs growled at Somchai as they dragged bones and meat away. From the tree tops, crows challenged him.
民兵離開之后，頌猜帶上譚的本子去寺廟巡夜了。他清楚寺院里沒有禁止閱讀去世友人的私人日記的戒律，但是他還是忐忑不安。他不止一次希望其他僧侶們還活著，能給自己分享一些知識(shí)和智慧。
? ? ? 只是他無法控制自己不去翻譚留下的遺言，真切如此。
? ? ? 寺廟里和往常一樣，除了頌猜再無他人。原本神殿曲頂上金色的油漆也在這些年里逐漸灰暗下來，現(xiàn)在看起來像是黑乎乎的棕黃色。水泥里原本嵌著晶瑩的玻璃上也積了一層層硬結(jié)的灰塵，難以散發(fā)昔日的光澤。
? ? ? 頌猜終于把受戒儀式的主殿打掃干凈了。每天下午做完冥想，他都會(huì)拖一下殿堂里的柚木地板，然后清洗周圍的壁板?？墒菦]有其他僧侶們的幫助，他一個(gè)人難以打掃完寺院里其他的宮殿。他每天早上的化緣時(shí)間越來越長，影響了清潔工作?，F(xiàn)在他要走上一個(gè)多小時(shí)到村里，才有人施舍給他生存必須的食物。
? ? ? 其實(shí)在那所村莊上，他所維系的食物還是來自于一位兜售黑市上煤油的女人。女人每次把米飯盛進(jìn)頌猜碗里的時(shí)候，總要輕蔑的戲謔他一番，大家認(rèn)為他這個(gè)僧人都不如她自己這個(gè)小偷，真是可笑。
? ? ? 頌猜心里清楚，村民們討厭他只是現(xiàn)今寺廟關(guān)閉的一個(gè)原因，另一個(gè)則是尸骨地。人們害怕那里的納諾，擔(dān)心自己會(huì)受到影響，把藍(lán)軍引到家里來。
? ? ? 頌猜依舊懷揣著譚的本子，撿起骨耙子，拿上一壺水和他的傘形帳篷。走在寺廟后面在裸露的骯臟的小徑上。四周的植物，葉子都燒光了。松樹也大都被燒的光禿禿的，空骸的樹干把它們枯指升向天空，每棵樹上都負(fù)上了深色的灰燼。
? ? ? 樹下躺著上百具尸骨。不，是上千具。全是人的骨頭。在他前面，半個(gè)肋骨架子突出了地面。右邊，躺著一具腐爛的尸體，一半燒焦一半赤裸著。支離的手臂從小松樹兩邊伸出來。餓的半死的狗一邊拖咬著骨頭和肉，一邊朝著頌猜狂吠。樹上的烏鴉也向他叫嚷著。
