{"id":251004,"date":"2026-07-13T00:53:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/321-am-nick-pirog\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T00:53:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:53:50","slug":"321-am-nick-pirog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/321-am-nick-pirog\/","title":{"rendered":"321 Am – Nick Pirog"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I pull the shirt off my face and squint. My eyes won\u2019t focus. They zoom in and out. I shake my head and stare at my hand. In the soft twilight, I can see every line on my palm one second and a blur of pink the next. I push myself up. Lassie and I are sleeping on the sand. I\u2019d draped my T- shirt over my face so I wouldn\u2019t get sunburned. I pick up the shirt and wipe the sand off the back of my head.<\/p>\n

I reach down and feel my left leg. There is a surface cut and a deep bruise. It could have been far worse. The moose had been gentle on me. He just wanted my fish. I walk to the river and take a long pee. \u201cCaptain\u2019s Log,\u201d I say. \u201cToday is June 25th. Day four in the Alaskan outback. Day five without food. We\u2019ve traveled ten miles. Lassie still can\u2019t walk. I was almost killed by a moose. Mosquitos devour me each night. Itching is unbearable.<\/p>\n

Saw an eagle\u2026\u201d I continue to ramble and when I finally look at my watch, it is 3:06 a.m. I turn around and walk back to where Lassie is still asleep. I stop. Squint. \u201cWhat in the hell?\u201d Five feet above where Lassie and I slept, is a large pile of black pebbles. I lean down and inspect the perfect pile.<\/p>\n

They aren\u2019t pebbles. They are berries. I shake Lassie. He opens his eyes. \u201cWhere did you get these?\u201d Meow. \u201cThese, where did you get these? And how? I thought you couldn\u2019t walk.\u201d Meow. \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t get them.\u201d Did the river sweep them up? Did they fall from a tree and roll down the bank? No, they are in a perfect pile. A hundred of them. I didn\u2019t really care where they came from, only that they might be food.<\/p>\n

Meow. \u201cYou try one.\u201d Meow. \u201cSometimes I wish you were a guinea pig.\u201d Meow. \u201cBlack is not the color of death.\u201d \u201cOkay,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2014 Nick Pirog Smashwords Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.<\/p>\n

Thank you for respecting the author’s work. 1kitap1.com\/en 1kitap1.com\/en Chapter 1 June 18th Alexandria, Virginia It had become part of my routine. Sometimes it was only a glance, other times I would pick it up, walk around the room with it, spend a couple minutes toying with the notion of opening it.<\/p>\n

But when you are only awake for sixty minutes a day, those couple minutes are a precious commodity. Those are two minutes I\u2019m not kissing Ingrid, or rubbing Lassie\u2019s belly, or playing cards with my father, or making trades, or running, or showering. Two minutes I\u2019m not living my life. But I could never bear to open it. I could only postulate the words and images that lived inside the red folder. \u201cHoney, we need to go. It\u2019s a twenty minute drive to the airport,\u201d Ingrid shouts from the living room.<\/p>\n

I gaze down at my cell phone. 3:32 a.m. The Potomac Airfield is located ten miles away, on the other side of the river. It would be much easier for everyone if we arrived before 4 a.m., though I am certain Ingrid made arrangements for a wheelchair to be waiting. Just in case. \u201cI\u2019m coming,\u201d I yell, my eyes still locked on the folder lying on the middle shelf of the four-foot tall safe in my closet. It had been eight months since the President of the United States handed me the red folder.<\/p>\n

When he handed it to me, he said, \u201cI have to warn you, there are things in there you can\u2019t unsee.\u201d He read it. He knew. Knew what my mother had done to me. But it wasn\u2019t my mother who concerned me. It was my father. If what Director LeHigh had said was true \u2014 that my mother was an acclaimed CIA torture specialist and the reason I was only awake from 3 a.m.<\/p>\n

to 4 a.m. each night wasn\u2019t because I had some one-in-a-trillion sleep disorder named after me (I\u2019m Henry Bins and I have Henry Bins) but because she had conditioned me through sleep amplification \u2014 then where was my father when this was all happening?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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