She pushed open the door.

Creak, creak, creak the screen door wept, a flock of dew surrounding her. She looked up at the bright moon and scattered stars and breathed deeply again and again. The night was cool as water, and in the moist air floated the clean scent of cassias. She chose a rock by the side of the road to sit down on, and idly kicked a stone with the tip of her foot. "Heavens!" she said, "Give me time!" But she didn't look at the heavens.

The sky began to lighten as she dozed a while on the stone. The cries of sparrows awoke her, and she followed the sound down the road toward the creek, thinking to wash her face. Although the gauze curtain of mist had not yet cleared, the birds passed through it without moving it. The creek sang melodiously like a flute from a distant village or a water buffalo drinking nearby, and the dawn had not yet come to draw water from the well of the world. She took off her shoes, bent over, scooped up some water, washed her face, and rinsed her mouth. Her body felt refreshed, and the sky grew clearer.

After cleaning off the night grime, she suddenly had the heart of a child. She hadn't bathed for several days, she was filthy, and giving herself a scrubbing would be good. She undressed, folded her clothes, handed them to a stone for safekeeping, and surrendered her withered body to the water for moistening. The water was cool, the stones were smooth, and freed of cares she let her body follow the flow without argument or struggle, feeling life in its natural rhythm grow, flower, emit fragrance, bear fruit, ripen, wither, and fall all safely and without harm. She was grateful that the sky had gradually brightened and that sunshine had come to bathe her cool body in rays of warmth. She felt like a fish, and imitating a fish she listened to the water's murmur and tried to make out the secrets of sunlight and cloudy shadow drifting on the water's surface and inhale the air emitted by the leaves. She wept, and the water grew warmer.

A sharp stone stabbed her foot, and she bent over and pulled it out of the grasp of the earth.

Its glistening black surface was circled by faint white lines, like veins, that seemed rather attractive at first but on closer examination proved to resemble the sketch of a skull. She pressed her temples, eyes, nose, and chin--man and stone, different in nature, yet both emptiness marked on emptiness. She sighed and couldn't let it go, grasping it tightly in her hand as though she had gained a soul mate.

Dripping she stepped out of the creek, which flowed nonchalantly on its way. Barefoot, to be closer to the skin of the earth, she quietly walked along the road as the wind dried her hair, neither saddened by the days' passing nor regretful that her life's flame was flickering out nor luxuriating in the flowers and leaves of a beautiful summer morning. She felt the broken stones under her feet one after another reminding her that people may be strangers but the land is not. The road wound about, like human life. The little phoenix plants beside the road spit out red tongues, and the morning lessons of the cicadas were solemn and reverential. She stopped, feeling herself walking into the frame of summer, like a portrait, to become forever a part of the mood of heaven and earth. "I'm coming."

As she was about to start, an unfamiliar child came toward her. She looked at him and he at her, and as they were about to pass each other she stopped him:

"Was that you playing the piano last night?"

He nodded.

"What piece was it? I really liked it."

"For Elise."

She smiled and nodded in acknowledgement, deeply moved.

The child rolled his big, watery eyes and asked her:

"Was that you crying last night?"

Embarrassed, she admitted it was.

"Why were you crying?"

"Because," she looked at the sky, "Because . . . I've got an awful disease. . . . "

"Oh?" The child didn't understand but tried to imagine. "As awful as a caterpillar?"

"Good Lord!" She almost danced with joy. "Of course, it's not as awful as a caterpillar!" The child had pulled her emotions back from the brink.

Greatly relieved, the child looked at what was in her hand. "Is that a stone?" He took the black stone and turned it over and over in his hands, examining it.

"What does it look like?" she asked him. The skull pattern was facing her.

"Hey, it's a child."

She realized at a glance that that was indeed what it resembled. She had been looking at the world the wrong way round. Who has a broader, deeper vision--a person who watched the river go by all her life, or a child who looks on it for the first time?

She was ashamed and joyful at the same time, swept by a feeling of universal forgiveness and acceptance.

"It's yours," she said in parting, and slipped into the frame of summer.

Back in her apartment she dusted and rearranged her untidy furniture, calmly and steadily putting the empty room in order. Fatigued, she sat down by the windowsill and casually touched the wind chimes hanging there-- time was melodious and intimate, like a fairy tale. She felt she must rest, and lay down on the rattan sofa . . . tinkle, tinkle . . . tinkle, tinkle . . . borne away on the vigorous pace of time, she set out on a dream voyage difficult for the living to embark on. The weight of the world she entrusted to that little black stone and that child. She herself, without sorrows or cares, traveled far away.

One day the world came too late to call her.