Hand

I dreamt last night that I stood with Bob. We looked out over a vast field of the white fungi. The fungi had turned black with rot, and small creatures, beetles perhaps, climbed over them. Bob turned to me, and I saw that something had crawled from his eye. It looked like a pale maggot. It wriggled, its lower body still embedded in the jelly of Bob's eyeball. Where the maggot's head should be was a flat black disk. Bob opened his mouth; a beetle scuttled from it and down his neck. He told me I must live. That death for me would sound the end. That as things stood, the wheel would turn, and what had been could come again. With my death, the wheel would break. He said he could help me no more than he had. Now, it rested on me. He reached out to me. His hand was filthy, the nails thick and yellow. His fingers trembled as his hand approached my face.

My eyes snapped open. It was just before dawn. Close by, I heard something move. I packed up and walked on.