Bad Research and High Fever

Shivering pain,
it started in my eyes,
it hurt me so bad
to even look from side to side.

I was in the back of a truck
with Marco, he was a friend,
he knew somehow I was sick.
And I needed to be somewhere safe.

The ride.
It couldn’t of felt longer,
The tarp kept the sun out,
we had blankets to lie on,
Food rations as well.

But sunlight or not
I was running a fever,
Burning in my clothes.

We did stop though,
In the village we were destined to,
On the way south.

Though i can’t recall the name.
We were trading some food supply for a few stranded allies,
one of which who had lost half a leg.

Marco left me to rest
in the back of our truck,
as he and other members of our convoy went to work.

The change of motion left me awake, stirring in this dreadful nausea,
moaning and pleading with myself,

I decided to find relief.
Eventually I left the truck
To dry my cold sweat in the morning sun.

Immediately I felt regret on leaving the dimmed shelter,
fresh light burned my sore eyes,
It sent my head in terrible fits of pain.

I did notice an oak tree,
I went to the shade of it.

When some unclear moment had passed
My head turned to see
I had laid to rest in a yard.
It appeared to belong to a little farmhouse.

Seated outside was a man.
My eye contact was enough to provoke him to get up and approach where I lay.

“Vous n’êtes pas bien”, He said.
I didn’t speak French
But he remained beside me.

“Mose? Mose, what are you doing here? Everything alright?”

Marco was trotting over.
His boots made heavy sounds on the blue grass.
When he was near,
He kneeled to me.

“I just needed some air”,
It was hard to let those words out
While keeping my stomach contents in.

The old man started speaking,
Marco conversed with him,
He could do this,
Being French himself.

I couldn’t grasp any of it,
the phonetics only ran through my ears and displayed jibberish.

I was unnaturally hot,
I was burning up dammit.

The only cool I felt was uncomfortable
like ice on skin,
but on the inside.
shivering throughout my body slapping my brain towards the end of each creep.

I knew that somehow…
It was all of their cold dead hands,
coming through the ground.
Grasping at me to pull me under,
I would never make it home
They would get me back.

But I rose, well, I was lifted,
by my friend and the old man.
Marco slung my arm around his head.
He begun walking me towards the house.

My head resting on Marcos shoulder Gave me a full breath of his nicotine stained jacket,
The overwhelming smell is what did it, I puked all over Marcos boots.

“Ugh, tabarnak.”
He groaned, but continued to speak,

” You can rest here and I will retrieve you soon. Pray we aren’t here long, we have a ways to travel. “

They brought me through the house
And into a wooden room
with a single bed and quilt.
The old man put the quilt on me,
And they left.

Oh and then the crawling returned.

I wanted to scream,
I believe I was about to
until the door opened.
A beautiful young lady entered.
so unimaginably blonde I thought
I may be delirious.
( I was )
No angels would visit me.

But she was there

I half pondered that maybe Marco had brought me a whore.
But it couldn’t be,
by the blue in her eyes
the dimples on her cheeks,
there was no way that any sort of god could let a woman so beautiful
let any man
Lay his hands on her
Without the approval
Of her love.

She carried a porcelain bowl
And set it by the bed.
I saw her reach in
and produce a cloth,
She strained it,
letting the water fall
Back into the bowl.

The splashing cut into my mind
the way the ticking of a clock can sound like an axe
driving through the front door of your sanity.

She must of saw pain in my face as she shushed me,
Although I’m not sure
if I made a sound.

She laid the wet cloth on my forehead,
then doused my cheeks
and my chest.

Her voice was so pleasant
that it didn’t hurt my head.
I did not ache.

And I only heard so little
of what she was saying
When She sang the song.

“I gave the horse the last of the water,

The morning could not come too soon.

At last I’ll meet the holy reaper,

and leave upon a dying moon.”

I thought to myself,

“Why would she be singing a song like that?”

But ultimately it was unimportant

as that was my last memory of her.
I fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was a mighty jolt that lifted my body and threw me back down just as quick.

I was back in the truck,
And it was night.
Marco was beside
He placed a hand on my shoulder
As I sat up

“You slept so long, How are you feeling?”

I told him I didn’t feel bad.
I didn’t.

He told me that
we were far enough south now.
I still felt weak, so this was fine.

I noticed how tired Marcos eyes looked tonight,
I felt for him,
I felt thankful for him.

“The man who lost a leg, what is his condition?”.

“He has died, I will take him home to his father.” Marco reported.

I saw the crate,
in the truck with us.
The man inside was worse off,
Worse than I’d ever been.

For dinner,
there was a few cans of hash.
And I smoked a cigarette
My first in days.

And I was thankful.