When you pray you burn a sacrifice. It’s the oldest human tradition that isn’t a matter of pure survival, except of course it is a matter of survival, and of keeping something pure. Amy crouches in her cold jacket on the porch she has to leave soon and turns it in her fingers: white paper, black ash, red ember, trace of smoke twisting up to disappear. The buzz has her head a little spinny. She doesn’t pray often, but some days you have to give something up to the sky. There it goes. Watch it rise. A minute of your life.