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why they acted this way.
    The answer was simple:
    They are not my kin.
    They are invaders.
1895.
    He followed the long, twisting gangplank that looped around the hulk, showing him the rotting and discoloured frame of the ship. Below him, the water was still, and pitch black, and emanated a menace that caused Twain’s old legs to tremble whenever the planks he stepped on groaned beneath his weight. Half way around the hulk, Twain knew that he did not want to continue, but his feet would not stop, and he found himself muttering in disgust to them and making his way onto the deck.
    The deck was ragged, empty, and filled with invisible spirits: the till turned left and right, spun by the hands of an unseen and pointless sailor; above, the remains of the rigging flapped, trailing through the air as decayed streamers and confetti; while the cabin door to the captain’s quarters was twisted off its frame, and hanging on one hinge, the glass window shattered, leaving jagged points into the middle. Twain walked on rotting planks and passed broken railings that were circled with rusted chains.
    It was a parade of death, cheering him towards the hulk’s rotting belly with relentless determination.
    The smell of unwashed bodies, urine and feces overwhelmed him when he stepped onto the creaking stairs that led into the ship’s belly. Had he been anywhere else, he was sure he would have fallen, or even vomited, so tangible was the odour; but instead he continued down the stairs, one step at a time.
    At the bottom of the stairs, the smell grew stronger, and the air had a heavy quality to it, but the belly of the hulk itself was empty. He had expected to see hundreds of men and women, sick, dying, and generally pitiful, huddled together, but instead he found only a thin pool of black sea water and the disintegrating ribs of the ship.
    And, in the far corner of the hulk, the shadow of a man.
    Twain’s feet splashed noiselessly through the black water, and the silence around him grew while the oppressive odour slipped away. He was not sure what was worse, as the silence filled his head like wet cotton, and weighed down his senses until the shadow revealed itself to be a black skinned man.
    He was darker that any black man Twain had seen before; black like the water he stood in, he was naked and across his skin had been painted white bones. Yet, as Twain gazed at the bones, the paint became tangible, turning the bones solid. In response to his awareness, they began to move, shifting and twitching and cracking slightly while the man’s black flesh remained still.
    Twain’s gaze was pulled away from the bones when a buttery yellow light filled the hull, illuminating a painting on the back wall. It had four rectangle panels, each panel located beneath the proceeding one.
    In the first panel were two men and two women, one black and one white of each gender. The two women held babies, and wore white gowns with hoods, while the men wore trousers and shirts and had a dog beside them. The second showed an English Naval Officer (Twain did not know who) shaking hands with an Aboriginal Elder. The third panel showed an Aboriginal man being hung for killing a white man, while the fourth panel, identical to the third, showed a white man being hung for killing an Aborigine. It was, Twain knew, a message of equality, but it felt cold, and hollow for reasons he was unable to voice.
    Finally, turning to the black man—an Aborigine—he said, “Is this your painting?”
    “No,” he replied, the skull painted across his face moving in response, while his thick lips remained still and pressed tightly together. “It was painted by an Englishman for Englishmen, as you can clearly see.”
    More confidently then he felt, Twain said, “It doesn’t have ‘English’ in big lights now, does it?”
    “Look at their clothes, Mark Twain.”
    Unnerved by the use of his name, Twain returned his gaze to the painting: in the first panel, as he had noted, all the