They say that God is merciful, and His mercy is like agony because we are inverted by sin. I know all the arguments, and each more empty than the last. The world is what we make. This Scipio does not look like my son, except in so far as all dead children must share a resemblance in the eye of any parent. He is paler, more northern. Less African. And he has died in a most unnatural way. There is no blood to speak of, and none of the other bodily expulsions seen upon death. The cleanest death I have ever seen or heard of, that should be one of the messiest. Sterile as honey.