A brickyard in Dhaka, Bangladeshi. This one is for Xiao Tao.

We sit, one beside the other, legs flailing over the badly aligned bricks, just you and I. A dense silence sits between us as realisation dawns and dusk goes about its work. I cannot break this silence, this contentment, and so I wait. In the distance, as the humid musky air starts to prepare for yet another night of silent strife, children call out. They are brown, lanky, and we are yellow, lucid. I can smell the mud in the bricks and in this enclosure, I feel free. My eyes close, and for a moment, everything invades me. The place, the people, and finally, hope. Two more seconds of silence; a crow calls out. The childrens' feet shuffle- it is a melody of methods, of simple mirth derived from simple pleasure. Darkness has no hold on the light it cannot see. The circle of five figures transform into a crooked line, and the group of straggly-haired innocents gradually approach us. The tip tap-tapping of our feet on the wall blend in perfectly with their laughter. I look at you, and your eyes are far, far away. A foolishly courageous ant tries to bypass me, and I flick it. It doesn't like that it's thoroughfare has been interrupted. I tell him, not now, shhh. All at once, the children have climbed on each others shoulders and are teetering dangerously on the thin brick wall. I look at the cracks in the cement, and the uneven icing atop the wall. We suck in at the same time. The youngest boy moves along the wall, miraculously, with a modest, inate skill. He trots, barefoot, his worn khakis crumpled upward as if they are afraid to impede what little freedom he has. Then with little warning, he breaks into a run. You are stunned. Everything, suddenly, seems to depend on this one inconsequential attempt. Everything we've done, everything we try to do, everything we want for these people, this place, these lives. As he leaps, our hands meet and your knuckles are white. The tip tap-tapping stops. Everything in my viscera churns, my heart is too engrossed in watching him to remember to beat. The child lands, his hair falling forward, and he is perched like a cat atop that high, unstable wall. He looks up and sees us just as we reopen the door to real time. Your knuckles relieve my wrist and circulation starts again. He smiles and waves. Mechanically, we wave back. 3 beats. Then it is as if the weight of all your thoughts come crashing down and it is you who breaks the silence. "He made it." There is surprise in your voice, but more than that, there is a relieved sense of hope, quietly, contentedly, burning steadily. The horizon dims, beckoning the end of the day and a cutting kind of cold sweeps past in the wind, but we are unfazed. We leap off the wall and the fall jolts us slightly. We remove as much of the red dust from our clothes as we can. It's time to go back to the house. And anyway, we left the kettle on.

Xiao Tao! I miss you. A lot.