Lamentations

Illustrations by Holly Stapleton

It was March when I received the news that Harold had died in one of his caves. I hadn’t expected him to still be doing fieldwork himself; having watched him make a nest of his laurels, I admit that I saw him as one of those shrewd birds that thieves other’s eggs. The last time we’d met was three years before, in Paris. He’d come from a conference in Lyon and was driving a rented Mini that made a caricature of the stately form he’d acquired in his late years—at any moment...