Laurent walks back down the main street, towards the sea. Lamps glimmer through cracks in shutters and the road is quiet except for the occasional scrabbling of a rat or some other animal. In the distance he can hear the faint sounds of drums and horns, carried on the wind. The Rara procession must still be winding its way through some distant part of Dame Marie. Taking a deep breath, Laurent finds the air is not quite so hot and sticky as usual, a light, cool breeze blows, carrying the salty tang of the sea and clearing out some of the stink from the gutters. Near Pointe Pierre a faint fishy smell lingers. He thinks he sees someone underneath the old mapou tree, a thin, shrivelled face with the pale skin pulled tight across, eyes dark and shadowed, like a skull, leering. But when he looks closer there's no one there.
He returns to his shack, on the outskirts of Pointe Pierre. His father half sitting on the edge of his cot, half-drunk bottle in his hand, seemingly fast asleep. Laurent curls up on his own roughly stuffed mattress and tries to sleep. His dreams haunted by pallid, looming faces with hints of squirming shapes deep in the black pits where eyes should be.
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When Laurent wakes to the sound of a particular incessant rooster, the sun is already up, the day is starting to warm up and he feels sweaty in the single room. Looking around his father has already gone. He checks his feet for chigres and then peers out the door. There are already several of the hollowed-out ceiba-tree fishing boats bobbing in the water.
