Up in the sky, the baby and the mother found each other after much searching, and only then did the mother’s tear rain cease. When at last the sun emerged and the waters receded back to the oceans, the creatures returned to their ruined homes strengthened by their friendships. They built new societies across the drying lands. But even as many years passed, the creatures did not forget the brave acts of the alpaca brothers who had saved animalkind.

Gina told her son that one message of the story was that it was the alpacas’ duty to guide others through this world awash in grief.

Alfonzo realized after his mother died that all her stories came from a book of mythology of the Andes. He’d always thought she had brought them with her in her memory from childhood. He realized the Andes were in many ways as much a dream to her as they were to him.

These stories continued to pull. He analyzed them. He wrote glosses for his dissertation.

He was in his childhood bedroom under the green comforter. In this dream, he had fleas. He had mange. An itch on his knees caused him to thrash and cry out.

He was in his apartment. Someone was outside pushing every buzzer, one after another. From the second floor, his neighbor honked, “Shut up.” The front door to his building slammed, and Alfonzo woke to Monday. Too early to rise, too impossible to return to deep sleep. He tried to doze, but the neighborhood would have none of it.

The ceiling squeaked in time to his upstairs neighbor’s jumping jacks. The goat kids from 3A were taking turns doing flips off the basement’s metal trapdoor. There was no point yelling, as it was their before-school ritual. He listened to their mother clatter downstairs and scold them off. He could hear her bleats grow softer as the family disappeared down the block. After that drama resolved, the mechanics across the street began revving the scooters they were mechanic-ing. Then the wind blew over a trash can. The fall weather had been schizoid. Yesterday had been cold, but today it was likely to break ninety degrees. The morning radio said there was a hurricane watch.

Alfonzo crawled from his straw to make coffee and prepare. He’d taken the morning off from work in order to go meet his esteemed adviser, Dr. Oswald Vinograd. They had an appointment to talk about the dissertation.

At the Hunter campus security desk, a scrum of animals pressed impatiently for clearance. The main guard was a hawk who took the job too seriously. Beside him was a goat named Bluebell with whom Alfonzo had become friendly over all his comings and goings. He switched to her line to check his ID. The hawk glowered from his official perch.

“You look like garbage,” Bluebell observed. She meant it in a sweet way.

“It’s my day of reckoning.”