The episode with the dead body kept him off the river for several days. When he recommenced his evening tours and, one day, found the courage to land on the island nearest the bank, he decided to inhabit it. He told himself that he’d had enough of urban life; the notion of doing something out of the ordinary was exciting. Those were just two of the harebrained ideas that sometimes accompanied him on his walks through the streets of his hometown, which seemed too self-obsessed, a spiral dragging him against his will to its core. But to be honest, he couldn’t identify any underlying reason for his decision to occupy that narrow, nauseating stretch of land that would surely make him feel even worse than he did in the city.

Although it was the closest island to the riverbank, thick vegetation obscured the interior. He made a clearing in the center, cut down trees whose slender trunks looked more like lengths of rope. How did that spindly wood support so many branches, heavy with leaves? He decided to pitch a red tent instead of the usual khaki variety. The tent had good seals, but he was still panicked by the idea of waking up covered in insects. Maybe if he were to sleep higher up, he’d be safe from the maggots that blundered blindly along over the ground they desecrated, yet seemed able to sense their predators. The birds had no trouble catching them: they rootled in the sand with their beaks for that inexhaustible food supply. Perhaps, because those maggots were mostly water, and so insufficiently nutritious, the birds needed to hunt for more sophisticated insects to provide a richer diet. On a certain afternoon he examined one of the maggots. He placed it on his palm, where it reared up and danced. When he squeezed it lightly, it exploded like a tiny balloon.