Interlude II: Response.

I don't want to say, like, I'm happy everything happened, but they all happened, so I just Have to take it as, you know"this is my starting off point" And what matters is how I deal with that, how I respond The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals And also, when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites Which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors At last, the great day came, and Tortoise was the first to arrive at the meeting place When all the birds had gathered together, they set off in a body Tortoise was very happy and voluble as he flew among the birds And he was soon chosen as the one to speak for the party, because he was a great orator