79 - Dug a hole for my feet.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

I was  feeling so sick  the other day that  I must
have had fevers.  At one  point, I get up and kind
of stumble outside for no reason, and head towards
this  woodlot by  the  fence at  the  back of  the
property. And I don't even  know what I'm doing. I
go  under a  tree and  start digging  a hole  with
nothing but  my hands,  clawing and  scratching. I
keep going and  going, and I get a  couple of feet
down. I take off my socks  and shoes, and I sit on
the edge  of that hole  and put  my feet in  it. I
close my eyes, and you know what, somehow I feel a
lot    better.      Relaxed,    and     I    don't
know... connected? And so I lean back on the trunk
and sort of enjoy that  for a while.  I don't know
how long.

But then, I look down at my dirty feet, and I must
be  hallucinating or  something. Because  it looks
like my feet have grown  all these tiny red roots,
and I see them winding and wiggling into the dirt.
I'm  frozen in  panic, and  that's when  I noticed
her.

There's  some woman  sitting under  the next  tree
over from me, and I  never even noticed her. She's
got her feet in a  hole just like me, and starting
at them with eyes and mouth open wide. And then we
meet  eyes  for  a moment,  silently  sharing  our
horror. And it made me wonder what was going on.

That's when I must  have blacked out, because next
thing I  know it was  night, and it's  pitch black
and I'm  cold and alone. I  get up, and I  feel my
headache coming back as  I stumble back home.  And
I'm sure not getting any better.