The anteater grew accustomed to me. I dared offer it nothing, no treats or bribes, and indeed I would have had no idea what it might enjoy through that long, arched muzzle with its absurdly tiny mouth. Sometimes it paused in its peregrinations and observed me, opaque and strange, and then went on its way with the same dissatisfied head shake I had first observed. If I had operated on my own artistic terms entirely, I think I might have combined them, those two: the silent man who held my life in his palm and thought to drag an ancient empire to the altar of history in the span of his own; and the timeless beast, alien eyes so full of incomprehensible frustration.