The ocean was still. So impeccably still it felt unnatural. The boat approached without wind. Its cruises bagged in silence. Its housing glistered with living symbols that rearranged themselves constantly, as if the vessel were writing its own preface over and over. Layla, Omar, Soraya, and the child watched from the tabernacle way. The night around them had settled into an insolvable twilight — a mix of dusk and dawn that refused to come moreover. None of them spoke. There was nothing to say.