The stream was still swollen, although becoming calmer than in the first early spring rush of water and melting snow. I squatted by it, watching it strike the stones and bounce away, rushing, not like the easy flow that would come later, and I saw that already there were some water-striders, just a few, stroking around the quieter eddies at the sides of the stream, not yet venturing out to the middle where the water was too strong and would carry them off against their flick-flick strength. The water was very cold; I kicked off my sneakers and rolled off my socks, hitched my jeans around my knees and waded into the stream. For a few moments the water whirling around my ankles was cold and good, then suddenly it was nothing and frightening. My feet were numb; I could not feel them attached to me. I pulled them out of the stream, put back the socks and sneakers, and hurried back to the cabin where I made tea and sat at the kitchen table, feeling the prickles of sensation returning like tiny electric shocks. I rubbed my feet with a rough towel, and later built a fire and put them up so that they got too hot then, and they seemed to be all right.

I was very tired, from the walking I thought, and went to bed early, shortly after dusk. But when I woke up it was very late the next day, the sun was high, another clear bright day without rain clouds, and I felt hot and weak and still tired. I lay there for a long time before I made myself get up to get tea, which I had in the dark comfort of the living room, not wanting to sit up straight in the kitchen and yet not wanting to give in entirely to going back to bed.

I made a second, stronger cup of tea, but then when I got up to wash out the cup I found that my legs would not move the way I ordered them, they were trembling and threatened to go out from under me.

I had to hold onto the cupboard with one hand while I washed out the cup with the other. I knew it was necessary to get to the bed, but it was a long trip through the living room, having to sit down once suddenly on a chair, resting, then hauling myself back up, pulling my way into the bedroom, falling onto the bed and, after a while, cold, clutching a blanket and pulling it around me, finally falling into a dizzying sleep full of twitchings and forgotten nightmares, a surface sleep of heat and cold.