In the halls of Mandai Crematorium, the animals rise. The monkeys – they move like cloud cover, silent and fast. You never know they are there, until you see that the oranges left out have been eaten. They don't mean to be seen. They just take the fruit back to their far off canopies and sweeten their tongues. The fish are not so lucky. There is no moving like cloud cover, only the four walls of the pond. But the fish know what to do. They move below our feet, their white backs furling and unfurling, whiskers and fins cutting grooves in the water. Swirling and swirling, a world out of reach, an impenetrable layer of rippling glass. Everyone who walks by them stops. We throw bread into the pond, and it sinks below the surface.

In the walls of Mandai Crematorium, the dead rest. Incense rises into far off canopies, and oranges lie on concrete floors, never reaching the white bones behind the stone. But the dead know what to do. Inside the walls, the ashes swirl.