Treasured Island
Have I woken? Hard to tell. I roll over and find memories still lying next to me. The worst and best of them have yet to rouse, I take a few moments without them and try and just feel reality.
Pulling myself up from a puddle, sense trickles through my body. But my head is a storm cloud, my ears and nose battoned shut, thunder coughs from my chest. I wish to rise but a cold only lets you sink. Sickness was not what I agreed to. Remorse, yes. Guilt, sure. Shame, why not.
Work feels the same as I do. Not much difference between the two now. "It's okay, we'll get someone else." Let them take these microscopic plunderers who've looted my strength instead.
I spent the day in fever. Outside burned, inside burned. Nothing to do but let it run its course. I read books on pirates, watch the seven seas slip past the black box, and I wake in the shallows.
Friends on the beach say there's treasure to be found. What's strange is the sand is but doubloons, pieces of eight and all that glitters in gold. I ask the bones for a map, they don't reply. I ask the crabs and seabirds, they scuttle and cry "Blast ye coward!"
I wake once more, swimming in sweat. Fever burnt the directions. All I've left is the spot that X marks. I sit at the desk, turn through the keys and start digging.
