Shadows on Water

Gathered on a wide pier jutting into the lake are your father's widow, Hui, your half brother, Ping, and various uncles and aunts you haven't met for years. The widow Hui stands taller than the others, gaunt and dignified, a little way apart. She is holding some of your father's old things, a scroll and a bronze cup. She has not yet cast them into the lake, as is required in the rites for drowning victims. You step beside her, and throw in the old flute which you had brought. He lies somewhere in this lake, perhaps his things will find their way back to him.

The atmosphere is mournful of course, but especially heavy. The mourners believe, in their superstitious way, that a man who died as your father did can never find his way to the afterlife of the ancestors, and is condemned to wander the black bottom of the lake, like some ridiculous sea monster.