Around him, the room rocks gently, as if during his months at sea, dry land had taken up rippling in waves, while the water had stilled. Clenching his teeth to stop the chattering, he stares at the shards of light that splinter a small square of night framed in the window. He has not seen the stars since he was forced into the dark belly of that first ship; now he sees that the constellations he once knew as well as the patterns on his own hands have stretched and scattered into chaos. Everything else is different here, he thinks, why not the stars too? During the day, there is no sky overhead, only a low gray gloom. When this grayness grows thick enough to rain, it does not spit water, but cold, silent salt—enough to blanket the earth in white, but when it touches his tongue, it disappears without a taste, leaving only a cold burning behind. There are no leaves on the gray, jagged trees, and no birds to roost in them: the only birds are the wheeling gray-and-white gulls who cry with the voices of lost souls.
