Thousand: Seven Hundred Sixty-Nine

with the ancestors now. When the friend lowers her voice and adds, “That means they’re all dead. That’s the way she talks,” the tour guide rolls her eyes but takes the cigarettes because they work and if she has to listen to the mumbo-jumbo in order to get the goods, well, whatever. She’s heard worse nonsense. She closes her eyes and lets slowly out through her nose the smoke that lingered in her lungs. The smell reminds her of a bog. Considering that it’s smoke isn’t it a little weird there’s such a thick feel of damp to it? She’s