#is gonna be my tag for this

My earliest memories are of the wall; rushing toward it so I could crane my neck and stare along its height, clear up to where it scraped at the sky. Those memories carry with them the thrill of something — not forbidden, but not quite allowed. Maybe it was because the wall stood just past the curve of our town, too far for someone as young as I must have been to venture out alone. But I was never punished for going, even during the dry season when we could hear the snarls of young lions at night.

“Was your friend the wall in good spirits today?” Mama would ask when I tottered home, and I would sit at her feet and beg for the story: of the long-ago city whose wall now stood so lonely and quiet, its only survivor. And Mama would huff and tell it again, of the clever queens and kind-hearted kings who were chosen by the gods and who lived to help their people, whose healers were known far and wide. “Not God, of course,” she would add, smiling, “These were the trickster gods of old. Very capricious.

"Is that why the city died?” I asked once, helping her with the shucking. “Because their gods turned against them? Gods are supposed to punish us, aren’t they?”

Mama shrugged and reached for another bowl, her hands flashing quick and sure. “It’s possible,” she said, “But that is not part of the story.”

“Is that why the city died?” I asked another time, when I was older and, I thought — foolishly — wiser. “Because they helped their people? Kings and queens aren’t supposed to help anyone, are they?”

Mama sighed and took up the basket, turning back toward home. “Perhaps,” she said, “But that is not part of the story.”

“Is that why the city died?” I asked for the last time, pressing the cloth to Mama’s too-hot face. “Because their healers could not save them? Healers are supposed to—”

Mama laughed, a sweet soft thing, and patted my cheek. “Maybe,” she said, “But that is not part of the story. All things die; me and you, this house and this town, all the lions that snarl and all the trees that grow. Your friend the wall will die too, and go back to dust. What do we care why it happens? The story is our life.” She took my hand, a grip so strong for someone so weak. “Do not concern yourself with why things die, my beautiful boy. Think only of why things live. Why you live, and what you will do with your living.”

- Being the Chronicle of Captain Oluwande “Boatless” Boodhari, Pirate and Prince, 1762