All he said was that they need us to report to the center. Here is the mouth of the dry river, and that is the road we.
He crossed the stone and concrete open space thinking of greener places and times, of the smell of grass and forest air, lost to him here, gone out of his life as surely as the hopes he had harboured once that he might become a normal man. One of them was still speaking into his handheld.
As usual, too, he was clutching his helmet under one arm-perhaps he had a deep fear of earthquakes and did not trust the kinvale ceilings.