Neal is an American expatriate who runs a lodge in Tanzania. He sits with Roland, a friend from the village, and mourns Roland’s wife, Femi. They get drunk together in her memory, before hearing something outside and going to snuff it out. Neal suspects that it is a pack of wildebeests and warns Roland against going outside, but Roland takes his gun and Neal is forced to follow with his own. As they wander through the darkness, Neal remembers Femi. He’d loved her, despite the impossibility of the situation. Whenever Roland was away for work, he’d find a way to see her. The day that she’d died, Roland had been out on a trip and Neal had taken her out on a hot-air balloon. He tried to make a move, but it failed, and she decided to walk home, where she was attacked by hyenas and killed. From the wilderness, Neal and Roland look back at the house and realize something’s wrong. In the house sits Roland and Femi’s baby, Nyah, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Halima. They rush back, and Mrs. Halima tells them that a hyena entered the house to try to get the last remains of Femi. Neal enters the kitchen, alone, and is horrified by the remains of Femi’s body. He fills the coffin up with flour, sees the hyena depart from the other side of the window, and realizes that he’ll never forget Femi’s wonderful, lost laugh for as long as he lives.