Sometimes the Universe smiles at you. Towards late afternoon It lets you find a waterhole. It’s almost clean enough to drink from, if you scoop carefully off the surface. Around the edges you find the signs of many ungulates that came to drink, and even some predators. And you move away a bit and gather a pile of wood for your fire against the night prowlers, and prepare your lair. Then, as you finally lean back against a log with, perhaps, a little red wine you have left, the sun dies in slow splendour while a black-glad catafalque party of storks stand guard with slanted beaks in the tall acacia that had stretched its arms out over the bare area around the waterhole. And then the Universe leaves you to the ways of the African night.
