Anthropology

My colleagues and I are seated around a picnic table at the edge of a farm field in the countryside. Below us, beneath some trees, is a small stream, and beside its muddy banks the neglected grave site of a German Catholic priest. I listen to the end of the presentation that precedes mine, and am about to preface my remarks with a sarcastic aside to the effect that, in our field, everything we study must be justified retrospectively by the influence it had on Bob Dylan, when two rafts come into view heading downstream. Both are jammed with trussed animals, among which we are astonished to see two live jaguars. Before we have time to react the poisoned darts come flying through the air.