THE RAIN FELL fast. The river rushed and hissed. It licked up and swallowed the island, while I waited alone on the lessening bank with my sheaves of corn in a heap. From the shadows of the opposite shore the boat crosses with a woman at the helm. I cry to her, 'Come to my island coiled round with hungry water, and take away my year's harvest.' She comes, and takes all that I have to the last grain; I ask her to take me. But she says, 'No'-the boat is laden with my gift and no room is left for me.
