Touchstone 1 - Stray

the ground), I miss paper every day. My history notes didn’t last long and I don’t want to use this diary. Add today’s blocked and dripping nose and the failure of my history classes to tell me what pre-industrial women used for their periods, and I really really miss the papered society.
    So anyway, since I wasn’t feeling well, I spent the morning wandering aimlessly about, scaring the pigsies and annoying the cats. There’s a tunnel leading below the amphitheatre, deep enough that it’s too dark for me to be keen on more than standing at the entrance peering in. The cats, at least, behave just like stray cats – they watch you, and leave if you get near. Even though there’s a lot of them, they don’t seem at all interested in hurling themselves at my throat or doing other uncatty things. I wouldn’t dare try and pick one up though.
    Festering Bag of Snot
    The day’s gone very black and hot. I rescued my craft project, which fortunately was nearly dry and didn’t immediately fall to pieces when I picked it up. It doesn’t much look like felt – more like a bunch of wool pressed flat and only just clinging together – but it’s still much better than a badly woven mat of leaves. A soft, clean (faintly greenish) piece of luxury.
    My blocked nose has turned into a chesty cough. By the time the storm started rolling in I felt absolutely rotten, but made myself go hunting in the nearest gardens, bringing up as much ‘trusted’ food as possible. I won’t have to worry about water, since I still haven’t managed to block the stair to the roof. I’ve set some bowls on the stair to catch water, and positioned my bed against the wall without a window. It hasn’t quite started raining yet, but it looks like it will be bad. Like my cold.
    Friday, December 7
    Rain and Phlegm
    All day. So hard to breathe.
    Monday, December 10
    Not Drowning
    When I was in Year 10 I sat next to a guy named David in Science. We weren’t friends, didn’t socialise outside that class, but we got on well. He was funny and nice, acted the clown to hide he was shy. He moved schools the next year, and early this year I heard that he had died. He’d always had a weak heart, was occasionally sick because of it. I didn’t know what to say, what to feel.
    Mum says there’s three bad things about dying: pain and other unpleasantries, the way your friends and relatives feel after, and the fact that you don’t get to find out what happens next. Mum’s an atheist – she says she’s never met a religion that didn’t sound made up. I’m agnostic, because I like the idea of there being something more, but the possibility of it working like Mum thinks it does – that you just stop – doesn’t particularly bother me.
    I don’t remember very much about the past couple of days, but through it all was threaded this horror that no-one would know. That Mum would never know. And, yeah, that I wouldn’t find out any of the explanations behind all this.
    My family’s a healthy one. Colds occasionally, minor temperatures, chicken pox. I’ve never been to hospital. I needed one yesterday. I don’t know the name for what I had. I thought you caught colds or flu from other people, not just abruptly developed them. Whatever it was, I couldn’t breathe, could barely move. I don’t know what my temperature was, since I felt hot and cold at random, but I’m pretty sure I spent half my time hallucinating (unless there really were dragons and sea monsters spiralling across the ceiling).
    Last night was another moonfall. The inside of the building glowed, and I could see the light misting past the windows. I couldn’t tell if it was exactly the same, since I couldn’t get up to go on the roof. I didn’t feel drunk either – I was so out of it I’m hardly sure it happened – but I remember feeling warm and relaxed and not having to fight so much to breathe.
    Today I’m not exactly better, but most of the gunk clogging my lungs is gone, and the fever, and I’ve managed to get upstairs to the roof, and sit here and write this, even if it’s taken me half the day. Abandoned as it is, I’m so glad to have found this town. I feel vulnerable enough here. I wouldn’t have survived the last few days without solid shelter. I’m feeling very small at the moment, but so glad to be breathing.
    All the effort making my felt blanket, and now it really really needs a wash.
    Tuesday, December 11
    Not entertaining
    It doesn’t get light till