Kipling had it nailed. The dawn does come up like thunder in this part of the world. It is a good thing too because I was going out of my mind as the hours blended into days on this river journey. The bend of it in the snake-like eternity, absent and aloof, hating me and looking for an opening. It reminded me of my neighbor's cat when I was a kid. Even the trees started to look the same, taking on faces with peculiar names that called out from the edges of the bank like Sirens fresh with ideas of how I should rid myself of the doldrums. I made a conscious decision at that point to refrain from partaking, save the nicotine, which crackled and burned a cherry red, clinging to me like a toxic cloud in the empty spaces. The boat came to a stop and my guide informed there was no going further because of the river Kraken. I didn't even realize there was such a thing and from what he explained it sounded like they were just octopus or maybe even squid, but it being a river I doubted my logic and eventually my argument collapsed upon itself. He left me there on the bank without a word and just pointed to the east. It was raining and the sun was coming up. Nothing, not even an incessant drizzle, could mute the beauty of the dawn. There's serious mojo in a scarlet sun, warm and welcome as it chases an inky wet night. I headed east and like the topsy-turvy world Alice encountered on the other side of the looking-glass, things just got curiouser and curiouser.