Two weeks later, as Jonah lay in a pool of spreading blood, the charred smell of his mutilated flesh heavy and rancid in his nostrils, his brother’s words would come back to him, flowing lazily through his mind like the misty wisps of a forgotten dream. You’re choosing a path. Let’s talk later. But there would be no talking to his brother later. His brother was dead. The screaming dimmed enough for Jonah to register the high-pitched expulsion of air rasping from his smoke-drenched lungs. He was whistling again. Only this time, there was no tune.
