8
GRASS AND GROUNDHOGS
Yeolani woke face up and noted it was daylight. He felt wretched, but if that was because of the explosion or the slowly spinning world, he couldn't tell. He looked up at the sky, wondering at the blue above him, the few clouds, and the fact that he still lived. He could not wrap his head around the recognition that he was well on his way to floating down the river toward the sea, and he had better swim to shore.
His limbs ached and felt sluggish, but he managed to roll over and slogged his way toward the bank; east or west, he didn't care. When his knees finally scraped on the sandy bottom, he crawled up the beach and collapsed with his feet still in the water while the rest of him baked in the sun. Yeolani didn't feel so ill once he was out of the water, and he
