It was a dying year of loss and gain, a counting of grains and sands of time. The earth stubbed out its ash on a dirty tray. The sea sang of pestilence. The air weaved like a cocoon. Who knew

The sun was falling behind the horizon. The vultures kept flying over the huge dirt that littered Douglas Road in Owerri. The putrid smell hung on the air like hydrogen bonded with oxygen in water. The flashy Mercedes wheeled towards

The Black Eagle hovered above an arid landscape, mostly flat with the occasional undulation like some vast ripple over a red-brown plain dotted with ragged greenery. Away to the south-west the girls could just make out a milling group of