The man took his time. Years later, you would remember his posture as one resembling that of a person from other war-torn areas of conflict, a man residing in the spacious pause of a peace truce in Lebanon or a Ugandan enjoying the quiet following army looting. The man responded: “I am journeying away from graves.”

A number of heads nodded approvingly.

The man continued: “I am travelling, leaving behind me unburied corpses. The tombs are, you might say, those of history. That is to say, these are corpses that should be buried in the tomb of history but that are not; corpses that, at any rate, will be undug every century or so. Somalis come, “Ethiopians” go, every twenty, fifty or a hundred years or so. Waves of atmospheric spirits fill the air of any place where the dead are not buried, ghosts, ferocious as hounds, hunt together, in groups, in the dark and they frighten the inhabitants — it ill-behoves a displaced soul to search for a body in which to take residence,’ Somebody commented: “I dare say!”’ Another asked: “Whose are the unburied corpses?” Then the man smiled. He said: “Our memories, our collective or if you like, our individual pasts. We leave our bodies in order that we may travel light — we are hope personified. After all, we are the dream of a nation.”

Nuruddin Farah, Maps, loc. 283399