The tribe gathers, but no one hunts. No one speaks above a low sound, like wind through a cave mouth. They wear the color of night. They came here for one of their own, and the one they came for lies still in a long wooden box, sleeping the sleep that has no morning.
I know this sleep. I have seen it take the old, the sick, the young who ran too slow. But my tribe does not build a box for it. We do not put flowers on the still one. We weep, we sing, we leave the body for the sky and the beasts, and we walk on before the walking becomes too heavy.
These people stay. They sit in rows and stare at the box for a long time. A man in dark skins speaks and speaks, and the tribe cries, then eats small bread and drinks from little cups. They do not run from death. They sit down beside it and share a meal.
Then they carry the box out and give it to the ground. They cover it with dirt, and they mark the spot with stone, so they will always know where their grief is buried and can come back to find it.
Strange tribe.
They keep their dead like a fire they refuse to let go cold.