That drug induced dream of a calm African morning haunted me. I remember describing it to Debra. She was there waiting for me to wake up after surgery that mostly repaired a detached retina. It was as if my anesthetized brain, which is normally lost in unwinnable battles to organize chaos, had somehow managed to take a snapshot with indelible and insurmountable pastels—a picture that my unphotographic memory could never forget. No sooner was I home, than the first paragraph of Bentari was on paper. (Read it below, my 4/16/10 blog entry.) It is unchanged from the first pen strokes as I jumped off toward unknown places that can only be discovered in a new writing adventure. Within days, the characters were born. Before a month had flown by, the plot hatched. And for the next fourteen years, that still picture, the teeming forest, the Mbara people and German antagonists all gushed and dribbled from my brain and soul onto notepad paper and computer drives until half my story was told. And that is when Debra told me that the book was done. As usual, she was right.