A Distant Light

In the year 1885, when Loong Hkam [Loong Kam] was seventeen, the valley seemed less like a place built by men than something the earth itself had folded carefully between the mountains and forgotten to disturb.

Before sunrise, it existed first as shape.

The mountains were enormous shadows pressing softly against the sky. Their lower slopes disappeared into darkness, while their upper ridges formed long uneven lines beneath the paling east. Some peaks rose bluntly. Others narrowed into elegant shoulders. Between them, saddles opened into hidden passes that led towards valleys Loong had never seen.

Mist lay over the lowest ground.

It had pooled during the night in the hollows and paddies until the valley floor seemed submerged beneath a shallow white sea. Only the highest things rose above it: the roofs of several houses, the upper branches of tamarind trees, the monastery roof, and the black backs of buffalo.

From Loong's field, the mist appeared thick enough to touch, yet when he moved through it there was nothing there but cold damp air against his face. Tiny droplets collected along his eyelashes. His hair was wet at the temples. The loose cotton of his shirt clung faintly between his shoulder blades. His bare forearms were goosefleshed from the chill.

The flooded paddy around him reached midway up his shins.

The water was so cold at first contact that each step sent a brief ache through his ankles. Beneath the surface, the mud was softer than clay and warmer than the water above it. His toes sank slowly until they reached firmer earth. When he tried to lift a foot, the mud resisted him for an instant before releasing it with a low sucking sound.

Each movement disturbed the water.

Brown clouds rose from the bottom and unfurled around his legs. Within seconds they thinned and settled again.

Young rice plants stood all around him in long imperfect rows.

Up close, they were not simply green. Some leaves were almost yellow near the tips. Others were dark jade along the central vein. The newest shoots were pale and translucent where sunlight would later pass through them. Many bent beneath the weight of dew. At the tip of one blade, a single droplet had swollen until it became almost perfectly round. Inside it, upside down and distorted, Loong could see a fragment of sky.