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With the press of a button,
she appears out
of darkness, sitting
with one ankle
over the other,
in a woven dress
and sandals,
traces of coca leaf
still on her lips,
her hair braided finely,
with a wrinkle in one cheek
where her shawl
touched it.
Sometime after her sacrifice,
lightning probably
burned her body,
leaving the marks.
Fifteen maybe,
well nourished, with blood
still in her heart,
she sits in an
acrylic cylinder
at a temperature of zero,
as she did for five
hundred years
in an underground
niche, after drinking
maize beer
and falling asleep,
then freezing.
A plaque states:
According to beliefs,
children do not die
but join ancestors
on the mountaintop.
“She doth not sleep,”
I thought, years later,
kneeling with my
eyes closed beside
Mother’s coffin.
“Look, Henri, isn’t she beautiful!”
my aunt exclaimed,
but I couldn’t.
I don’t need to know
what I already know.
David H. Freedman on smartphone apps and the perfected self, Mark Bowden on being in the dumb kids' class, James Parker on Glenn Beck, Isaac Chotiner on P. G. Wodehouse, and more
Browse back issues of The Atlantic that have appeared on the Web. From September 1995 to the present, the archive is essentially complete, with the exception of a few articles, the online rights to which are held exclusively by the authors.
See All Back Issues: September 1995
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Journalism's Gender Imbalance Includes Who's Quoted, Too
Obama Makes Nice with Poland
Why You Should Say 'Hello' to Strangers on the Street
Rethinking the Economics of Traffic Congestion
How to Handle a City of Tourists
New York City Ballet: A Crystal Palace 
The Speed of Light 
Synthetic Biology 
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