The Ritual

Luke can hear the voices of two young men and a young woman speaking a foreign language. He realizes he is lying in a bed, but his eyes are crusted over and won’t open. Later, he hears an elderly voice and feels a wrinkled hand touch his cheek.

After sleeping for a while, he wakes up from thirst. He isn’t afraid because he thinks he has been rescued. With painful effort, he is able to open his eyes and sees his bandage. The bed he is in smells terrible, is filled with lice, and he has urinated on himself. Moving the bandage, he looks at the eiderdown over him and the coffin-like box bed. There is a jug and cup of water on a table next to the bed; he is able to quench his thirst. This action exhausts him. Luke cries, thinking he has been saved, and falls asleep again.

Luke dreams about an old man and woman touching him in a metal tub and speaking in a foreign language. Above the ceiling, there is a rapping noise, and the old people move away from him.