To Poop Among The Beasts

250 miles from mainland Yemen, where women are occasionally beheaded for sorcery and American drone strikes target a flourishing al-Qaeda contingent… 50 miles from Somalia, whose waters are dotted with pirate ships… on as island the size of Rhode Island, home to tarantulas, scorpions and centipedes found nowhere else on Earth… I will poop under the stars like a wild animal.

Along The Trail, Among The Dead

We left the road, picked up a trail that led us into the woods and made our way up the hill, stopping occasionally to catch our breath and admire the plants. The patchy fog, the light, the wet earth—it was all so weirdly colored, just slightly surreal.

Here and there the vertigo would catch up to me, especially on the steeper inclines, or where the sides of the path suddenly dropped off. But it would always pass, leaving me a little less sure on my feet.

Eventually, we reached a graveyard built into the steep, steep hillside. It was virtually vertical, with stairs along the side that led up and up and up. We climbed, me following slowly and unsteadily behind.

At the top there was a fence. We leaned against it, the graves in rows below us, the city of Hiroshima stretching out in all directions.