I wake up.

Again.

Is it for the four-thousandth time? Or forty-thousandth? 400-thousandth? Maybe only four hundredth. I expected one day to crawl into bed to sleep perpetually and join my brothers who fell to sleep so long ago and sleep still, undisturbed.

They are not even a memory anymore. I cannot convince myself they were ever real, and that their faces and voices were but passing dreams of myself in multitudes and differing shades.

I walk from my bed to a small stand dimly lit by the filtering daylight seeping through the cracks above. I pour yesterday’s water into a wood bowl filled with dried oats. I remember now that I am at the Oatfields. This should be my fourth or fifth morning here. I must record my memories better here. I left my books … where was it?

I watch as the oats soak.

I hear no birds above. I recall there being birds at the Oatfields, but I noticed their absence at my arrival here some days ago.

The Holt. I had left my books at the Holt. I remember now. Perhaps I can make more here. I recall no good materials here, but a newer and wider search may fruit results. I forget expectation and its promises made; hope has lost its familiarity. I will make some record today, somehow. It will be “day one.” I try to count how many “day ones” I have before imprinted on paper, on stone, in clay. I chuckle.

My oats are ready.

I gaze toward the skylight. I carved it once to allow sun into my hovel, but no light comes through. It must be this sun has since changed its course. I need more light in here. How long ago that was I have forgotten.