The pigs cleaned ribs and scattered bones. As we watched, the pigs found a bone with blackened flesh on it. The pigs fought over the rotting meat.
I saw a pig uncover the remains of a small hand, perhaps a child's hand. I threw a rock at the pig and I took a step toward the hand. The dirt collapsed under my foot and I went in almost to my knee. The smell coming out of the hole drove me back.
Two Singhalese gravediggers walked over and watched us, so I made like a tourist. I picked up a skull and posed against a tombstone as the taxi driver took my picture. The skull had no jaw, and the pigs had broken away the palate and maxilla. The tissue-paper-thin bone of the skull makes me believe it came from someone old. The grave-diggers laughed and joked as we left. The taxi driver told me they think tourists are crazy.
Now the Tamils and Muslims are preparing for the war. Everyone wants to learn karate. Some mornings I teach karate to Tamil and Muslim teenagers. I give them beginner lessons in killing with their hands and bricks and rocks, umbrellas and pipes. I bought rice sickles for one family. I tell people how to defend their street with gasoline and broken glass, how to defend against gasoline bombs.
Enough horror stories. Read the book when I write it.