The earth speaks many stories, recites them in tones which waver, points out to the skies on fire and then in an arc sweeps its giant arms which are nothing but trunks of giant trees, brown and gnarled, resting its index finger, which is but the wind, in the direction of the man who walks alone on the edge of the delta of the black waters where the mangroves invite him into its lush but thorny folds and the waters, the black delta waters, lap on to the land's edge and seek to pull him in. Says the earth, speaking now of the man:


He walks...there...he walks under shadows so dark and wide that it stretches over and beyond even me. He walks lugging himself, his footsteps tottering, body dragging body, his face so gaunt that the scars of his bones speak; his eyes so dead like the eyes of fish who die without water, the sorrow of which only the fish can know; his eyes so dead that they see nothing, not even the soft soil on which he walks; his tongue parched but not darting because he does not want water; his...his...and so on and so on. He walks, this man, who has ruins where a heart must be and these ruins have walls which are halved by time and chipped at their edges and algae, moss, and ferns have run over these walls and within, there is nothing but the flutter of ghost rats and the sad remembrance of vultures who have left for these ruins have been exhausted of everything, including history.


But don't pity him. Don't pity him for he has invited his fate. This was not what his destiny was but man that he was, he overrode the gods and where the heart, like a royal steed should have galloped in stately grace, he let love take over and when he did that, it is well known among the scribes of heaven, his fate would be no match to the course that love would set for him and in his case, it was towards ruination.