zero

a fresh, handmade sheet of paper - made just last week from dried leaf fibres crushed into a sloppy paste. you squished it between two blocks, bleeding the water out until it would hold together permanently;

a folding mirror, rusted lightly on the hinges and edges from being used one too many times in the thick steam of a shower. you oiled the oxidised surface and polished the glass, hoping it would keep you from having to buy a new one for at least a couple more months;

the knife carried on your body every day for as long as you can remember being here still hangs at your waist, its sheath fixed to your shorts with old safety pins. left unsharpened for a few days, it will cause a hint more pain;

all lay on the improvised slab - ingredients for a ritual shattered and stuck back together over time, repeated in a feedback loop of memory.

what will it do this time? you ask, creating an answer that will surely be lost on any ears, meditating on the answer as your hands scoop out a couple pinches of dried herbs into your pipe

cannabis flower grown under your watchful eye, you destroy and relocate your growing spots every season just to be safe; blue lotus harvested from the sunny groves, the land here is perfect for it, the hellfire waters nourishing night-sky petals; damiana from the native wild gardens around camp, they usually remove what they can see but you know where to look for the sacred flowers kept just out of reach

they think they can cleanse the corruption from this land but you know they just push it underground. you can see it when you study, you wouldn't be needed otherwise

holding your lighter to the bowl, you drink deeply of the smoke, for an instant the stem becomes your proboscis, the smoke - divine nectar born from the union of the elements, and you clip your lighter back into its holster on your belt. exhale, and anything you don't want is washed away. the shrine is prepared, the barrier is set.

it doesn't matter what order it begins in, it matters to start, put the ingredients together, put ink to paper,

it rips through hardened, hairy flesh, (the rift of trees split open by the rupturing earth),
squeezing and coaxing out the nectar of the gods from the canals in which it lies, (the sap leaks out of bark and is fed upon by the creatures of night)
it bleeds out as much pain as its body will give, revel in the relief of giving life to something greater,
and rejoins the earth once more (a sad creature under god's great light)it coats the paper, hard outer shell of its chrysalis, in ointment and presses it to the wounds, separates the delicate fluid insides from the corruption of the outer world, (press in and hear the nerves sing in agony as the bleeding is sealed,
eat from the pain until the plate is empty)

it basks in the halo of burning moonlight ghost of a ritual, tucks the suffering tight against its body.
it finishes the same way it started, nourishing itself from its pipe, and sealing this pocket of space away, never to be known again

the lowly insect lights an oil lamp to guide its way back to civilization, another creature skittering back to its home before something more worthy snatches it up.

it coils into its next cocoon in preparation
when the sun scorches its simmering flesh once again, it will burn its shell and bathe in the light of a new day.