He watched the electric light toiling on the water as he smoked his way through every cigarette he could lay his hands on, including the remains of a packet that he discovered behind the old moth-eaten divan in the downstairs room. The tobacco was so dry he had to hold the cigarette at an angle to stop it falling out. It tasted like ashes. As the river softened from gleaming obsidian to the warm embers of early morning, Makana had lost count of the number of times he had gone over the events of that night ten years ago in his head. Why had he made the decision to take them with him when he ran? Some protective instinct? He remembered running, though. Running down the long arc of the bridge. Running into darkness and the desert beyond where nothing but blackness awaited him. Muna and Nasra had left him with an empty void where his heart was. How do you recover from that? He had never seen their bodies, never buried them, and never truly forgiven himself. Was this what Damazeen was offering?
