So, when the doctor and nurses checked him over he smiled, apologised for inconveniencing them and reassured them he would walk on the beach to refresh his mind and then he was discharged.
He did go to the beach; he did refresh his mind and when he went back to his quarters he hanged himself.
Baamu died without ever again setting his eyes on Sappho; he died without seeing the babies he’d created in her womb and he died without fulfilling the hopes he’d allowed himself. Nay: he died without fulfilling the hopes he’d dared to design for himself when his path crossed Sappho’s.
The one thing Baamu took with him to the ‘Great Pie in the Sky’ was ‘Love’. Baamu died in a state of love with Sappho: it was his first, and his only, experience of reciprocal love.
When the General heard the news h
