Suminagashi

The water is in a round enamel pan with a chip out of the rim, on a card table with one leg shimmed with a folded matchbook and a work light clamped to the edge. Dust floats on the water. A sheet of washi lies under a river stone. Three bottles stand with their corks out: black, indigo, vermilion.

You dip a brush in the black and rest it on the water. The black goes out from the tip in a ring and keeps going while the brush stays. You touch the indigo to the middle, and it makes a ring inside the ring. You put the vermilion in near the left edge.

You draw a bamboo comb through once. The rings drag into a current that goes on moving after the comb is out.

You lay the washi on the water. It darkens from the middle out, and the edges go last, about five seconds in. You lift it by two corners, and the rings come up on the paper, still wet.

It is backward. The vermilion you put in at the left edge is at the right.