What’s Up With the Ending?

The very last image in the novel is described as Peekay leaves the miners' bar after kicking butt and taking names. It's the image of those old loneliness birds—the ones that showed up to lay their eggs inside of Peekay when Granpa Chook died—finally flying away:

I felt clean, all the bone-beaked loneliness birds banished, their rocky nests turned to river stones. Cool, clear water bubbled over them, streams in the desert. (24.104)

Their eggs were like heavy rocks in Peekay's chest when he was sad, but now they turn into river stones, just like the ones he had to use to cross the river in the dream that Inkosi-Inkosikazi gave him. And instead of being dry and thirsty stones, refreshing water begins to run over them. So that gives us the idea that something (maybe love!) will be able to grow in Peekay's heart, too.

See how all those images from way back at the beginning of the novel are just tied together? Pretty cool, right? It's like the author knew what he was doing or something.