I · The Mountain's Pulse
At 5,400 meters, time moves slowly.
Tashi, a stone gatherer, kneels on the frozen ground at dawn. He removes his gloves and presses his bare hands to the ice — an old ritual his grandfather taught him.
"Before you take," he says, "you ask the mountain." He waits. Listens. Then begins to dig. "The mountain doesn't give you stone. It gives you what it's ready to let go."
"Every stone is a piece of the mountain. Every line on its surface is time, made visible."