I had a dream last night that I was laying in the trailer deep in the forest again.
Rat shit everywhere. I remember that fight.

We had garbage cans. Connected a piece of string across the top with a soda can suspended in the middle, precious peanut butter smeared all over one side. The rats came, walked the high wire, slipped on the can and fell into the bottom of the can. We emptied it out every morning outside, sealed all openings that they could use to get back in. Two or three of them each morning.

Rat pellets covered the countertops in the morning and we'd use antibacterial soap, burned the rags we used when they were covered.

Eventually the only rats left in the trailer were those that were fast enough to jump all the way out of the garbage can. Had to fill the bottom of it with water so they couldn't the momentum. Then all that were left were the ones that were smart enough not to go near the can.

I woke up once in the middle of the night with one sitting on the windowsill, its silhouette staring down at me as I slept.

Towards the end of my test in the woods, I had an accident and slammed a maul into my shin. The pointy end. Hurt like hell for months after that, and when I came back to the city.

That was all real. But in my dream, I went to a doctor after coming back. I thought my leg might have been fractured.

He looked at my leg and told me that there wasn't a break, but there was a black spot. He told me it was the bubonic plague. That I'd been bitten by one of the rats in my sleep, and was living with the plague ever since. Then I woke up.

Thought about it. Been slightly tired out for about a year, too much of a coffee resistance built up for caffeine to do any good anymore. Vitamin B pills doesn't work either. Thinking of getting checked for Lyme disease.