Thousand: Fifty-Three

the others. And it’s not like he’s a metronome, measuring each grain its own morsel of time in which to be ruminated upon. No, he may pick up only one at a time, he may give each some consideration, but that does not mean he spends an equal amount of time contemplating every grain. Most of them go in, pop pop pop, the tiny ends of the sticks nicking into the bowl, snatching up the eyed grain, and with an almost invisibly quick flip sending them to a ready tongue. The monk will save a batch there, then rest his