There was dirt mixed with the straw and I could feel it all over me. It was in my mouth, ears, and hair. The straw beneath was excellent insulation and my back was already enjoying the warmth. It felt so good. My topside was warmer than before, but not as warm as my back. But the warmth I felt on my back made up for the rest. I laid there giving thanks to God. It felt so good to relax and enjoy my blissful cocoon. I was already halfway to my long awaited dreamland. That’s when I felt something bite my foot. My leg reacted automatically with a kicking reflex. I felt a small creature being thrown off. It bounded back chewing within inches of my ears and I knew that it would bite. Though I was bigger, I feared it taking a bite out of my ear. My heart was pounding strong as it circled me. The sound of its steps and the weight I felt when kicked it, sizes it about that of a two pound cat. I had heard rats got that large in Mexico. If I had invaded its nest, it had reason to be angry. After a half-hour, I heard it scamper up what sounded like a long pipe and then it was gone.

Now there was finally peace and I could relax again. My mind began drifting into fantasia and then I came back to reality with the sounds of dogs barking. It took me awhile to remember where I was and why I was there. It must be a search team. The dogs sounded close. I really didn’t want to leave my warm bed. But if I didn’t, the search team may go all night looking for me.

I carefully laid back the layers of straw so I could reposition them if I needed to return. An ice-cold wall of air met me. The straw created such a tight impression around me that it was difficult to get out. After carefully moving into the window, I jumped to the ground.

I heard search dogs barking nearby and there was another search-light. It was moving. I answered with a loud yell “here, here.” No answer. The light was still moving and the dogs still barking, but nobody responded. I repeated the call for help a second time, but less eagerly. I was aware that often a stationary light will appear to move. Actually its the eye’s movement that creates an illusion of objects moving and that’s what was happening to me. Again, it was the tops of Guachochi’s streetlights sticking above the backside of the far hill, but didn’t figure it out till the next day. The moving searchlight was an illusion. The dogs were in Guachochi across the gorge barking from their yards, but sounded as if they were within a hundred yards.

I began to tremble and again climbed back up into the window. I slipped into my cocoon and attempted to reclosed the straw lid. The dirt mixed in the straw got into my eyes and it hurt. I needed water to clean my eye out. But there was none. I couldn’t even rub them because my hands were dirty and my face was gritty. Any such physical effort would only grind in more dirt and complicate matters. I used a technique I learned in the Boy Scouts to remove dirt from my eye. I carefully grabbed my upper eyelid’s lashes and used them to pull the eyelid out and over the upper part of the lower lid. Then I moved my eye around in a large circle. This did the trick.

Unfortunately the replacement of my upper straw cover wasn’t as efficient as it was initially. Though my back warmed again, my front still felt the cold. I continued to fuss with it trying to get the straw in the right places, but without success. My location was directly in front of the window. This location was the most susceptible to waves of cold air coming through the window and chilling my top half. I was still trembling again and needed to move.

I decided that I needed to build another cocoon a couple feet further from the wall to get out from under the window where the cold air was blowing. Once again, I struggled up and began to relocate my nest. The straw wasn’t as good there and made an inferior cocoon. However, since the outside air wasn’t blowing directly on it, it was an improvement. The cover never matched up with my original before I had to get out. I continually moved straw from below me to fill voids that allowed cold air to filter through. Finally I found the rest I had been waiting so patiently for and my consciousness found a place between awake and sleep for few brief moments.

Then I heard a familiar furry object sliding  back down the pipe, but now there were two. The critters were chewing all around me. One worked the area around my head, the other around my feet. I felt their comtempt from my invasion. For an extended period of time I expected to have my ear eaten. My thoughts blurred in and out of consciousness.

After a lapse of indeterminable time, I heard loud hollow footsteps stamping across the front porch. Someone tried each of the doors. Then thump, thump from the sound of someone placing their shoulder against the door. My heart raced and beat hard. Someone was here and trying to get in. I felt fear of being discovered or being attacked. I kept quiet. Whoever came climbed the ladder into the attic and soon became silent. It sounds as if someone was staying the night. Half-hour later that person came back down the latter and walked off the porch. Shortly after, I heared the sound of someone puking in the front yard and then there was silence.

Meanwhile inside, my critter friends were still trying to intimidate me. Their nuisance seemed insignificant after my last visitor. They were burrowing wholes in my straw bed and allowing the cold to penetrate. Pretty smart. I continued to use my hand to search my cocoon for the latest critter hole to stuff.

As I’d start to doze, my body temperature would lower and then I’d start shaking again. This was a cycle that repeated itself all through the night. I was cold on my top and you’ll never know how much I wanted to roll over to let the straw warm my chest. However, moving would have destroyed all the effort I had in covering my upper half in straw.

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