His mother tied one on every Duanwu. Five strands — green, red, yellow, white, black — on the left wrist.
The rule is that it goes on at the festival and comes off at the first rain, and you throw it in the river and the water takes it.
He wore one for more than thirty years. After she died he braided them himself, and never as well as she did: at the start of hers there is a knot that runs backwards, and he spent twenty years failing to learn it. He ties a plain one and makes do.
The year before last, the first rain after Duanwu came in the afternoon and came down hard. He untied the cord as usual, walked to the river and threw it in.
It was heavy enough on the way back that he could not see, and he got under a bridge to wait it out.
The water came up and brought things down with it. Plastic bags, branches, a single shoe.
A five-colour cord caught on a stone by his foot.
Green, red, yellow, white, black. Five strands.
At the start of it there is a knot that runs backwards.
The cord is dry.