I find myself on a patio of his design looking in at a patriarch lying dead. Circling mourners shatter the air with anguished wails. His body is laid on a leafy litter, his head is pillowed on a bananas stalk, and his arms are folded across his chest. His shell ornaments and plumed headdress are placed at his side. As relatives gather, women in an inner circle, men in the background, they make known the grief with shrieking sobs. All day and far into this night they howl. She was in the corner, eyes glazed over black. She had killed him with a sharp stiletto. I’m seeing this through the window in the wall. He had concentrated all his hopes and desires into this one adventure, into this wide world, expanding outward to the unseen edges of the universe. There was no returning to base camp. I turned a cold and unprofitable face to the wards of the convalescent city.

--me