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.

民兵离开之后，颂猜带上谭的本子去寺庙巡夜了。他清楚寺院里没有禁止阅读去世友人的私人日记的戒律，但是他还是忐忑不安。他不止一次希望其他僧侣们还活着，能给自己分享一些知识和智慧。

      只是他无法控制自己不去翻谭留下的遗言，真切如此。

      寺庙里和往常一样，除了颂猜再无他人。原本神殿曲顶上金色的油漆也在这些年里逐渐灰暗下来，现在看起来像是黑乎乎的棕黄色。水泥里原本嵌着晶莹的玻璃上也积了一层层硬结的灰尘，难以散发昔日的光泽。

      颂猜终于把受戒仪式的主殿打扫干净了。每天下午做完冥想，他都会拖一下殿堂里的柚木地板，然后清洗周围的壁板。可是没有其他僧侣们的帮助，他一个人难以打扫完寺院里其他的宫殿。他每天早上的化缘时间越来越长，影响了清洁工作。现在他要走上一个多小时到村里，才有人施舍给他生存必须的食物。

      其实在那所村庄上，他所维系的食物还是来自于一位兜售黑市上煤油的女人。女人每次把米饭盛进颂猜碗里的时候，总要轻蔑的戏谑他一番，大家认为他这个僧人都不如她自己这个小偷，真是可笑。

      颂猜心里清楚，村民们讨厌他只是现今寺庙关闭的一个原因，另一个则是尸骨地。人们害怕那里的纳诺，担心自己会受到影响，把蓝军引到家里来。

      颂猜依旧怀揣着谭的本子，捡起骨耙子，拿上一壶水和他的伞形帐篷。走在寺庙后面在裸露的肮脏的小径上。四周的植物，叶子都烧光了。松树也大都被烧的光秃秃的，空骸的树干把它们枯指升向天空，每棵树上都负上了深色的灰烬。

      树下躺着上百具尸骨。不，是上千具。全是人的骨头。在他前面，半个肋骨架子突出了地面。右边，躺着一具腐烂的尸体，一半烧焦一半赤裸着。支离的手臂从小松树两边伸出来。饿的半死的狗一边拖咬着骨头和肉，一边朝着颂猜狂吠。树上的乌鸦也向他叫嚷着。