The Trent Affair

An incident that helped lead to the Civil War.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

The Bone-Buried Land

The vagabond stepped into the sea off the bone-buried land. The coastline was soil, not sand. And it was untillable, if anyone wanted to. Thousands died here years ago for reasons not known to books and thus not known to man. This was his first visit to Western Samoa. Arnold had been adopted and brought to the states as an infant. He grew up restless and by his teenage years he was amusing himself with the occasional misdemeanor, tagging the side of the dollar movie theater or sneaking into houses. He stopped when he was caught and did a weekend in a police station jail cell. On his eighteenth birthday he was told of his adoption and soon after he bought a plane ticket to the land of his people. Standing now on their coastline, he felt a great connection to be there with them, the ones who died here. It was sunny and humid and a great fever suddenly took hold of him. He slowly walked off the site, letting the waves peck at his ankles, full-face into the wind. For all the problems it would cause, it felt like a home.

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