Dave Kowalski was fifty-eight years old and retired from the steel mill in 2019, when the mill closed and three thousand people lost their jobs and Pittsburgh lost another piece of itself. Dave had worked the mill for thirty-two years, and when it closed, he had gone home and sat in his basement and stared at the wall for three weeks. His wife had been sick during those three weeks, sick in a way that made the house smell like medicine and sadness, and when she died, Dave had gone home and sat in his basement and stared at the wall for another three weeks.

Then he had remembered the shrine.

His wife had built it. She had found the five objects at a flea market in Oakland, Pittsburgh, and brought them home and arranged them on a shelf in the basement and told Dave they were special. Dave had laughed. She had not laughed. She had told him that the objects had called to her, that she had felt a pull toward them at the flea market, like they were waiting for her to find them. She had spent an hour that day walking through the stalls, her hand brushing over old tools and faded photographs and rusted jewelry boxes, until her fingers closed around the smooth river stone and she had stopped walking entirely. The vendor had asked her how much. She had paid five dollars. Dave had found the other four objects in different stalls that same day, as if the flea market had known what she was looking for and had arranged them deliberately.

After she died, Dave started tending the shrine. Every morning at 7:15, he lit the incense. Every morning he spoke to the five objects on the shelf. He told them about his day. He told them about the weather. He told them about the noodle shop next door and how the owner's son was going to college in September. He told them about his wife, who had died three years ago, and how she had been half Chinese and how they had met at a cultural festival in Pittsburgh's South Side and how she had loved the smell of incense and how she had suggested he build the shrine after she got sick, as if building a shrine could cure cancer.

The five objects were: a small metal tower, a cracked bell, a dented gourd, a chipped axe handle, and a smooth river stone. Dave did not know their names. He did not know they were artifacts. He did not know they were five prisons for beings of celestial power. He knew them as the tower, the bell, the gourd, the axe, and the stone, and he knew that his wife had loved them, and that was enough.

The objects did not respond.

Or maybe they did. Dave was too lonely to tell the difference.

Dr. Sarah Park at the VA had been seeing Dave for six months, ever since his wife died and Dave had started talking to the objects in the basement. Dr. Park had diagnosed him with complicated grief, which was a fancy way of saying he was grieving in a way that was not normal. Normal grief involved crying and sleeping and eating and going to work and eventually moving on. Dave's grief involved building a shrine in his basement and talking to five objects every morning and burning incense and telling the objects about his day. Dr. Park had noticed that Dave's voice changed when he talked about his wife. It softened, like a door opening in a wall she had not known was there. She had not mentioned this in her notes, but she had thought about it.

Dr. Park had suggested medication. Dave had refused. He said the shrine helped him. Dr. Park had said the shrine was a coping mechanism, which was a fancy way of saying it was a way of avoiding the pain. Dave had said avoiding the pain was better than feeling it. Dr. Park had not known what to say to that. She had not said anything. She had just written it down in her notebook and moved on to the next question.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies department had been visiting Dave for three weeks, ever since one of their graduate students had noticed the shrine through the basement window and decided to document it. They came every Tuesday afternoon, three students with clipboards and recording devices and polite questions. They interviewed Dave about the shrine, about the five objects, about the cultural significance of immigrant shrines in Pittsburgh. They asked him about his wife and how she had built the shrine and what the five objects meant to him and whether he believed they had any special power.

Dave told them everything. He told them about the tower and the bell and the gourd and the axe and the stone. He told them about his wife and how she had built the shrine and how she had loved the smell of incense and how she had died three years ago and how he still missed her every day. He told them about the celestial war between Eastern and Western pantheons, which his wife had told him about before she died, a story she had made up to make the loneliness feel like something bigger. He told them about the five artifacts and their celestial powers, about the three-headed six-armed divine form, about the Thunder God's army and the way the artifacts demanded sacrifice.

The students took notes. They asked polite questions. One of them asked if Dave was okay. Dave said he was fine. He was fine. He tended the shrine. He burned the incense. He talked to the objects.

That night, Dave sat in his basement and tended the shrine. The incense smoke curled upward, thin and grey, dissolving into the fog that seeped through the cracks in the ceiling. The five objects sat on the shelf behind him, dark and silent and spent. Dave did not know they had once been gods. He did not know they had once been artifacts of celestial power. He did not know they had once been prisons for beings of celestial power. He did not know that the flea market vendor had known what he was buying, or that the other four objects had appeared in different stalls that same day, or that the five dollars he had paid for the river stone had been the cheapest thing he had ever bought that had mattered the most.

He knew them as the tower and the bell and the gourd and the axe and the stone, and he knew that his wife had loved them, and that was enough.

He lit the incense. He spoke to the objects. He told them about his day. He told them about the weather. He told them about the noodle shop. He told them about his wife.

The objects did not respond.

Or maybe they did. Dave was too lonely to tell the difference.

The question was whether it mattered.

Dave sat in his basement, the incense smoke curling upward, the five objects on the shelf, the fog pouring through the cracks in the ceiling. He told the objects about his day. They did not respond. Or maybe they did. The question was whether it mattered.

天高任鸟飞，海阔凭鱼跃。The question was whether it mattered. Dave sat in his basement, the incense smoke curling upward, the five objects on the shelf, the fog pouring through the cracks in the ceiling. He told the objects about his day. They did not respond. Or maybe they did. The question was whether it mattered.

Copyright GEMMA-SEED Project. OTMES-v2: O-M9-T2023-PIT-N2-T9-S3-K1-V032-I05-C05-S03-R01-T9-M5-M3-M4-E08.5