Gabriel tried not to think about David, or his brother, or his parents as he walked through the fog. What was left for him in Beijing? Clothes perpetually stained by smog, smoky sheets, dishes spotted with soap drying on a dish towel by the sink, and yes, photos of David, but otherwise nothing he needed to return to. The only place he could think of going now was the temple they’d once planned to visit. He placed the mask of an air station over his mouth and inhaled deeply. There was no stench of urine, only the musty smell of other users’ breaths, and he stood there inhaling as he scrolled for directions to Longhua Temple. Breathe, he told himself, before continuing toward the subway station and onto a train which rocked passengers back and forth as they held on to the overhead rail, trying to compete for air.

Longhua station was filled with destruction. Around the old temple, jackhammers tore up the road and the buildings had been reduced to rubble. There were rusted I-beams, scaffolding, and plywood fences hastily erected. Amid all this stood the small enclosed oasis of the old Buddhist temple. Gabriel paid the entry fee and accepted the two sticks of incense from the attendant. There were pyres within the courtyard, filled with the ashes of previous visitors’ prayers, and he placed his incense by the smoldering sticks in the burning well where all blessings were delivered. What prayers did he have anymore? What blessings?

Along the awnings of the pavilions, a hundred red paper lanterns swung in the smog that blew through the monastery. Gabriel searched the courtyard for a Bodhi tree but found only open temple doors. Within the first building was a shrine of the Buddha, the enormous golden statue sitting serenely. In another was Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, with her thousand hands, an eye within each palm. And in yet another, the Gods of the Four Directions guarded a ceiling painted with an infinite lotus flower, a vision of the spiraling universe glimpsed upon death. All of it was too enormous for Gabriel, too otherworldly, and he stepped with confusion through a room that housed five hundred golden statues of Buddha, their faces full of mirth.