If we recognize that travel is often as much about the suspension of reality as a mind-expanding encounter with geographic difference, then perhaps we can imagine a form of travel that fulfills its ethical promise.

Time and the salty Caribbean surf pierced the armor of the weary American army tank half-sunk in the beach. The turret of the once-menacing machine slumped despairingly northward like an exhausted ship-wrecked sailor waiting to be rescued. The rusty veteran, a spear of early 20th century military strategy, appears almost quaint in an era of drone strikes, contracted assassinations, and the pacification of human terrain. But there is nothing quaint about colonialism. Nor should the apparent singularity of each new geopolitical engagement obscure the souvenirs of empire scattered around the globe. Unsure of what one is supposed to do when one finds a lost tank, I simply sat with my accomplice as the sun painted us yellow. Together we looked to the north hoping that time and the salty Caribbean surf would carry us both away.