From The Other Side of Ourselves, © 2011 Rob Taylor, published by Cormorant Books Inc., Toronto. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

We were led into the Condemned Men’s Celland as the guide moved to seal the doora woman in the group screamed and ranout into the light of the courtyard shoutingthat she’d felt something in there flyingback and forth between the stone wallsand sure enough when we quieted downwe could hear its faint cries and senseits frantic little bird heart rattling in its cage of bonesso we all stood still in the musty darknessas the guide described the last daysof rebellious slaves—how the soldierswould put five or six of them in and not openthe door again until they were all deadand I thought for a moment of that last manwaiting there with the bodies of his friends(or, more terribly, strangers) arrangedin a row beside him—waiting—but soon the guide reopened the doorand we stepped out carefully,checking the soles of our shoesfor feathers, except one manwho waited motionlesslyuntil he could hear the bird well enoughto find it and cup it in his hands,carry it out into the courtyard and send itscrambling into the skyand the next night over Chinese fooda friend asked me what I thought ofThe Slave Castle of Elminaand I shudder now becauseall I could describe (before returningto egg noodles and the clinkingof silverware on porcelain plates)was the bird, the man’s soft hands,the woman screaming out into the sun.—Elmina, Central Region, Ghana