SHE KNEW HIS NAME WAS TOHAMS STONE

A cross next to the name she took as a sign the patient had succumbed. She found eleven notebooks filled with an economical handwriting with slashing downstrokes, the text dancing just above the lines and obeying no margin save for the edge of the page. For an outwardly silent man, his writing reflected as unexpected volubility. Eventually she found a clean undershirt and shorts. What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books? Turning him first this way and then that, she changed the sheets beneath him and then dressed him. She knew his name was Thomas Stone because it was inscribed inside the surgical textbook he'd placed at his bedside. In the book she found little about fever with rash, and nothing about seasickness.