Starvation and the empty pit

1 The narrator's rag-bound hand lies limp on a bare pantry shelf beside empty biscuit-tins

2 On the twelfth day without water, the starving narrator works the creaking pump

3 The starving narrator creeps up the rubble, but the gap in the red weed is already empty

4 Through the peephole, the great pit at Sheen lies empty and silent in bright daylight

5 After fifteen days buried, the starved narrator presses his dust-caked face into the gap

6 After fifteen days buried in the ruined house, the starved narrator pushes out through the red weed.

7 On the fifteenth day, the starved narrator claws his way up the rubble slope

8 The starved narrator stands on the rubble mound that buried his refuge.

9 Free after fifteen days, the narrator stands on the rubble mound among the red weed