Newest addition to the writing prompt I did with the holes a couple of weeks ago:

I wake with the sun and remember what I was doing, the confusion of the night lifts with the return of day. At first I was scared of how often I forgot where I was. Now, sometimes I think it’s a blessing to forget.

I had understood that they were going to do it. Knock me out, take part of my liver, stitch me up and wake me when it was over. I knew it would be painful. But I was supposed to get $40,000 for it. Do you know how much money that is? How much food that can buy? Heat, water, food. If I just did it, then we’d be set. With Dad dead, I’m the one to do it. I am the man. Take care of your mother and sister he had said. I can’t make enough at the meat factory and they just laid Mom off. They probably kept me since they can pay me less. Woo for child labor.

            I just thought the liver people would snip off the part they wanted and pay me and send me home. Now, here I am with less than half a liver, digging holes for crazy people. Murders, probably. I look over at my shovel from where I’m lying in the narrow strip between two holes. Would one of these holes be my grave? What’ll happen when I get to the edge of the clearing? He’d said dig six foot by six foot holes spaced three feet apart until the entire field was full. The field is barely the size of a soccer pitch. What happens when I’m done?

            I stand and immediately fall back on my ass, leaning into the nearest hole, barfing. I put my fingers on the scar. How long has it been? I sit up and count the holes. Sixty-six. Sixty-six holes divided by two holes a day plus the three weeks (give or take) I was at the chop shop, “the hospital” where they took out sixty percent of my liver and didn’t pay me a dime or send me home. That means fifty-four days. At least. Fifty-four days I’ve been gone and Mila and Mom have been without money. Sixty-three days after my seventeenth birthday. If it really was three weeks before they brought me to the holes. I’d gone into the surgery without Mom knowing six days after my birthday. Six days after she cried because we couldn’t afford dinner and a cake and a gift and all we had was canned corn, bread and butter and a beautiful chocolate torte without the nuts—too expensive—for my birthday.

            I grab my shovel and thrust the tip into the ground, pulling myself up on the handle, supporting myself to stand. I went to Kosovo to sell my liver piece, but I’ve no idea where I am now. I could be in any field in any country. The air is crisp, fall is coming, and it smells like dirt, soil. Holes. My gnarly, black hair flops to the top of my ears, dirt lives under my fingernails and probably in every crevice of my body and bones jut out everywhere, stretching my skin. No one would recognize me now without my usual buzz cut, scrubbed raw skin and muscles.

            I start digging.

Someone is watching. There is always someone watching. I tried to run twice and gotten whipped like a racehorse in a close race: swift, hard and with a mean sense of urgency. Breakfast comes when the sun looms over the trees.