Salt

It doesn't say who she looked back for. Lot's wife. A young man she had a soft spot for, maybe. An old friend in the trade. Someone she passed the time of day with at the well. No one who deserved to live, we know that -- we have it on unassailable authority.

We may dread a life with no decisive moments. But do we dread it more than a life in which a backward glance at some love -- any love -- is so worthless, that following it is annihilation? In which the history is written so that Lot's wife's young man can never be known, and her love is nothing but salt?

To believe in decisive moments, you must believe that there are other moments than this. And if someone can be on the right side of a decisive moment, someone can be on the wrong side. I think I will stay here, with Chenrezig, white as salt, the jewel glowing between two of his hands, the crystal rosary flickering in the still fingers of his third, the lotus opening in his fourth. Chenrezig would have looked back, too. In fact it is Chenrezig who looked back. No wonder his face is so pale.