I slept through the week with a fever of unclear origin. I dreamed of various things. Sounds, too. I dreamed that someone was pressing me, asking why I keep digging around in indeterminate pitches, like a brat in a sandbox. They hurled rhetorical questions at me: how much longer, am I really that stupid, do I truly understand nothing, and so on. I shrank. I really did feel like a brat in a sandbox again. A little fool who understands nothing and ought to be ashamed. I stared at my pathetic shoes in the dirty sand. I held back tears, because that would’ve been the worst of all. I managed, but it drained all my energy, all my life force, all my imagination.

The fever has passed, and now I lie like a castaway on the shore. The sand is clean, but beyond it, a forest—hostile. For now, there is silence. For now, I sit still and wait.