Ships in High Transit: Virginia Quarterly Review

Stupid Japanese tourist. During breakfast, on the open-air patio that faced the plains of Lake Nakuru National Park, he saw the gang of baboons, saw the two large males, fulfilling with every grunt and chest bang every human cliché about male brutality. Here is an aspect of reality as consensus: the man has spent his entire life watching nature documentaries. He said this to Matano, with much excitement, over and over again, on the van to Nakuru last week. How can he remind his adrenalin that these beasts can kill, when he knows them only as television actors?

Originally published in the Virginia Quaterly Review Winter 2006. Click here to read the rest of the story.