Africa. The safari. The fire. Banga-just-Bob. The excitement of my fellow travelers, the exotic mix of meats. I wash my dinner down with large mouthfuls of the local brew, a brackish mixture of throat-stripping alcohol and something that smells like bark. It tastes awful, but the result isn’t unpleasant. Plus it has the added benefit of dulling the effect of my mother’s sudden ethereal appearance. Or maybe it’s that I’m finally numbed to seeing her like this, alive, well, and warning me against danger. Only this time she says, “Look in the box.” “Why, Mom? What’s in there?” She brushes her hand across my forehead, pushing my hair out of my eyes like she used to do when I was home sick from school. “The answers, of course.” The answers to what? I want to scream, but I can’t. I can’t scream at my mother. I don’t have the energy, only the alcoholic bark flowing through my veins, evening me out, making me care less than I should.
