November 2023 President Joe Biden: ‘I think what happens in the next two, three years is going to determine what the world looks like for the next five or six decades.’ In the back of the attic, where the light doesn't reach, my searching hand touches something. It feels like canvas. A bag? And then I catch the smell of it, dusty and resinous, and immediately I'm transported back forty years, back to Sudan. With some difficulty I pull the thing out into the light. It's the red canvas holdall that I took with me for all those years ago. Somehow it ended up here in my mother's loft, stuffed behind the old piano stool and the pink blanket box that, once upon a time, I could fit inside. The bag's zip fastening is corroded shut, but there are things inside and I am immediately impatient to know what they are.
The tree trunk drum makes a return, with a carving depiction to boot!