Excerpt:

Agu waited. The iridescent green beetle lumbered across the worn sandstone floor, struggling at each crack and crevasse between the stones. At last, satisfied that the beetle was safely out of harm’s way, Agu resumed pulling his cart of firewood down the long colonnaded walkway, the wheels making successive tak tak tak noises. It was not forbidden to step on a beetle, Master Goma taught, but rather, bad luck. The master would say that the injustice would return the next day in karmatic ways. Agu imagined the giant beetle spirit crashing over the mountain and stepping on him.