It had gotten cold. He went to lay down in bed with a pad and paper. He began to write. Although he hadn’t tried it much in bed before, he liked it mostly. His arm got tired journeying across the page like a series of switchbacks down the wall of the Grand Canyon. He wrote this down in the margin, for later:
Arm journeying across
the pg. like a
series of switch-
backs down the wall
of the Grand Canyon
His arm began to pain him. He adjusted his position in the bed. It didn’t help much with the pain. It still hurt as he wrote. He began to be distracted by his mother’s music playing in the next room.
“Could you turn that down please” he hollered across the wall to his mother. She made no reply (music too loud). He gave his arm a break to look at what he’d written. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It looked like Arabic.
He woke up gasping in a sweat.