He was never dead. He was only upstairs. Orunmila closes his eyes and lets it be said that he has died. His four disciples lay a white cloth on a mat with nothing under it, sit down around it, and say nothing. The road fills with people who have come to grieve. Sango comes. Ogun comes in behind him. They have not come to mourn. They stand over the covered cloth and ask for the money he owed them. And Esu is in the barber's chair, half his head already cut, when the word reaches him. He does not ask what he is owed. He leaves the chair with his hair shorn on one side, runs the whole road, and asks only to follow his master out of the world that same hour. He wears that half-cut head to this day. It is the mark of the one who passed the test. Then the ladder moves, and Orunmila climbs down. The Odu says it plainly, and it is a method, not a moral: let us close our eyes and say that we have died, then we will truly know those who love us. A painted graphic novel for adult readers, from the Odu Ogbe Ate.