Two Brothers on a Termite Mound

They watched the plain like generals. The light went from honey to copper to blood. They never moved. Neither did we.

I had not slept properly in three days. The flight from Tokyo was twenty-six hours. The road from Arusha was something I do not have words for. By the time we reached the camp in the central Serengeti, I felt like a coin that had been dropped into the wrong jar of a child's collection — somewhere between the buttons and the sea glass.

Then the cheetahs found us. Or rather — we found them, and they did not bother to leave.

The Mound

Our guide, Joseph, brought the vehicle slowly to a stop maybe forty metres from the termite mound. There were two of them sitting on top, side by side, perfectly still. Brothers, he said. They hunt together. They die together. He said it the way you might say they share an apartment in the city. Matter of fact. As if it were the most ordinary arrangement in the world.

One of them had a small notch in his right ear. The other did not. That was how I told them apart for the next four hours.

"I have never been more aware of being a guest in someone else's house."

The Light

The thing that no one tells you about the Serengeti is the light. It is not warm. It is not golden. Those are the words people use because there are no better ones. It is something closer to the inside of a beehive. Slow. Thick. The kind of light that has weight.

For four hours, the light moved across the brothers like a hand stroking the back of a sleeping animal. It went from honey, to copper, to red, to a deep purple-bronze I do not have a name for. They did not move. They did not blink that I could see. The notched one occasionally turned his head an exact, measured fifteen degrees, as if he were looking at something only he could see.

The Going

When the dark finally came, they stood up at exactly the same moment. They did not look at each other. They did not need to. They walked down off the mound and into the long grass, and the grass closed behind them like a door closing.

Joseph started the engine. Nobody spoke for a long time. I had come here to take photographs. I think I took six.

On the drive back to camp, I realised I was crying. I do not know why. I do not think I want to know.