Archilochus Cloot

There is no hidden text on the earlier paper fragments. I am disappointed. A close and exhaustive search has revealed nothing of significance. They are the same type of paper but that is all. What was I expecting? I’m not certain. Invisable ink perhaps? Ha! It is just the child in me that is disappointed.

I have committed the fragment of poetry ( is it poetry?) to memory. It’s meaning is unclear? Does the shield have some symbolic meaning? It is hard not to want to read the fragment again and again. But I must be careful. I am being watched. I don’t want to make it easy for them.

When I am awake, the lights are turned on. There is no opportunity to hide. No dark corner to wiggle into. I have a strong feeling that I must hide ‘the urge to hide’, but I am not certain why. This feeling belongs to my instinct.

I look at the red mark on my hand. There are many questions. Many secrets.

Where do the documents come from?

Why am I being watched?

Who is watching me?

When I sleep I dream of nothing but when I wake, and the light comes on, I remember things. Small things. For example, there’s the smell of some sort of roasted meat. There’s a girls voice. There’s a sense of losing somebody in a crowd or in… a market perhaps. There is no anxiety associated with these remembered things. They feel real but they do not scare me.

Then of course ( and mentioning him makes me feel a little foolish) there’s the rabbit/man or the man/rabbit. Laughter. Rabbit laughter!

I turn onto my side. It’s hard to explain why, but I feel less watched, when I lie on my side. I am certain that it makes no difference whatsoever.