Explore "Black Light" by Talbot Mundy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Joe was never able entirely to reconstruct in his memory the stages of recovering consciousness. Some dreams appeared more real than reality, and some reality was much more baffling than the dreams. It was not long before he realized he was in a room within the temple; on the other hand, it was a long time before he understood he had been knifed between the shoulders, and when he did understand it and tried to remember the details, he lost at once all semblance of understanding in a maze of mental pictures of the ayah's face, and Rita's, mixed up with the splashes of furious color.
He very soon recognized Rita, and Annie Weems, but they would not talk to him or let him talk to them. They cared for him as he never had been cared for, but they were as strict with him as if he were in training for a Simon Stylites Marathon--no speech--no movement, except when with their united strength they raised him to change the bed-linen and so on.