For the past three nights, Atlas Adeyemi noticed that the moon had been transforming and shifting uneasily in the sky. Ordinarily, a change in the colour and appearance of the moon wouldn’t bother people in his part of the world.

The salt breeze reached the cane fields before the sun did. By the time Atlas Ambrose stepped off the minibus at the stelling, the light had turned the river a copper green.

Why this Amma is acting like this and all only I don’t understand. She is making her eyes go round round like one fan. But who will tell her to relax little? Ha?

Maa would tell you an entirely-too-long story about the night of my birth, shuddering as she narrated the way my wriggling, wet body shot out of her and landed on the floor with a wet thwack.

He smiles at Sandhya and looks away. It’s another new, mysterious habit of his. He coughs discreetly into his elbow. There’s a curtain of acrid smoke suspended in the room, drifting in from his open kitchen where the parathas were fried.