We arrived at the panda reserve just after it opened.

The paths were nearly empty.

Without a map, we picked a trail at random and disappeared into the bamboo.

The first panda sat alone beneath a tree.

It didn’t acknowledge us.

It stripped bamboo with practiced efficiency, dropping husks into a growing pile around its feet.

We stood only a few yards away with no one between us.

I raised my camera.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Around the next bend, a group of juvenile pandas wrestled across the grass while visitors laughed from behind the glass. Farther on, red pandas darted between their keepers’ legs, impatient for breakfast.

Then we reached the nursery.

The babies weren’t tumbling over one another like the brochures promised.

They were asleep.

Each lay sprawled in a different direction, paws hanging over logs or faces buried in fur. A photographer wandered among them taking publicity photos while the rest of us watched from outside the enclosure.

There was no shot here. Nothing that made sense. Still, I tried.

I raised my camera.

Click.

Click.

The screen went black. The battery empty.

I frowned, pulled another from my backpack, and snapped it into place.

The camera came back to life.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Five minutes later, it died again.

I stared at the blinking battery icon while the pandas continued sleeping with complete indifference.

By then the crowds had caught us. People filled the path behind us, pointing over shoulders and squeezing toward the fence.

Dani had long since stopped watching my battle. She was watching the pandas. I was watching my camera.

I swapped in a third battery.

My finger hovered over the shutter.

“No.”

I moved it to the side.

“Not unless something actually changes.”

I waited.

Nothing changed.

The pandas kept eating.

The babies kept sleeping.

My battery finally lasted.