Musil looked left, looked right, didn’t see him. He spun around, searching the avenue. Didn’t see him. Then he noticed the pedestrians gathered in front of a stopped car about ten yards down the street. Ten or fifteen of them. His eyes homed in on a woman with wide, panicky eyes and her hands on her head...

He pushed through the crowd toward the knot of pedestrians and into it, then saw Ki on his back a few feet away. There was blood all over his face and clothes. His head and limbs were bent where they shouldn’t have been. One guy with a phone to his ear was shouting for someone to send an ambulance.

Musil waded forward and reached Ki and knelt. He registered that his glasses were gone and insanely looked around for them, his eyes scouring the blacktop. Then he got a grip and forgot them.

Ki was bleeding from his ears and nose and mouth. His jacket was twisted around his chest.

Musil leaned over him.

“Ki,” he said. “It’s Jot. I’m with you.”

Ki stared upward. Musil fought the urge to lift his head off the ground. Moving it might do more harm than good.

Then, sirens. The high-low of police cars. The piercing wail of ambulances.

Musil bent closer.

“You’ll be OK,” he said. “Hang on. They’ll get you to a hospital.”

Ki stared. His eyes wide open but unfocused. Musil wasn’t sure he could see him. Or that he knew what he was seeing if he could. He seemed to be in shock.

Then his hand came up. A flap of skin hanging from the back of it. Musil glimpsed something white through the peeled, torn flesh. Bone, tendon, he didn’t know. He didn’t know. Tears sprang from his eyes and ran hotly down his cheeks.

“Ki.”

The hand fell onto Musil’s wrist and clenched it.

“Ki...”

He arched convulsively off the street. His back bowed. His mouth opened and closed, opened, closed. A thin, rattling breath escaped it.

Musil swiped moisture from his eyes with his free hand. Then bent lower, so his lips were almost brushing Ki’s ear. He gathered himself.

“Dear friend, my dear friend...find peace,” he said, his voice a trembling whisper. His eyes clouding up again, then overflowing, the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Anguish shall be dispelled from your body... Rise above the limits of time... Rise in the company of the blessed... Waheguru, Waheguru, Waheguru...”

Ki’s fingers went slack.