Sunday, April 10, 2016

Restless, Desperate, and Committed

Thoreau has discovered more villagers,
who sadly have been converted to the status of A.C.M.
Boredom gnaws at me. I know, I know, with as much work as I've to do, who could possibly become bored?

Yet so it is. All my work is in accruing resources, and so this I have done for weeks upon weeks, months upon... how much time has elapsed? There are no weekdays, no weekends, no holidays here, and so the days bleed into each other. When I'm mining dozens of meters down, closer and closer to the impenetrable bedrock, several days might slip by without my awareness. I occupy my imagination with the slaying of fell beasties, the relentless defense against Explodicons and A.C.M.s as I plunder the earth for precious resources. "Precious," I say, though I amass scores of gold bars without a single assayer to quote me a price in American dollars. What worth are these to me, then?

The only evidence of the passage of time is when I emerge, at last, to discover every last seedling in my garden has long reached the fullness of adulthood.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Knowledge Increases

A girl's best friend, it's said,
yet there are no women in this world.
Work is going well enough, I should think. This is one of the happiest sights one can see, very far below the earth. Diamonds are a rare commodity indeed, but when you find a small lode of them, it almost makes all the effort worthwhile.

Emeralds are even rarer, with only one or maybe two being embedded in any area, and those nearly as far down as one may mine. They haven't much use except for trading with villagers, and villagers do have many useful items... but one must find a concerned villager in the first place. There are none in the desert.

That is to say, someone surely built the temple in which I now dwell. Surely several someones quarried the sandstone, following the directions of other someones who laid out the plans and assessed the territory, and several more someones financed the entire venture (or at least paid the cruel taskmasters who abused a couple dozen more someones into compliance). And perhaps they all died generations before I sailed up to this section of the continent, leaving only their suspicious temple with the carvings of Explodicons, this epicenter to attract horrific monsters.

Monday, April 4, 2016

The Night-Mare

Around this time I had another bad dream. It is simplistic to say like this, yet that's all there is to it. It was a horrific vision, one which aggregated recent events and introduced a new interpretation or variation to them. I question whether it means anything, of course, except that it did signify my insecurity.

In this dream, I was riding Chestnut much as I'd done in days just before. This dream exulted in the horse-riding experience, engaging all my senses in this activity. I thrilled to feel Chestnut's powerful muscles tensing and shuddering beneath me, to lean forward and feel the wind strike me in a mild barrage, making me feel all the more powerful for it. As we rode over the fields, by crystal ponds in wooded groves, I inhaled the pollen of trees and flowers and the sweet aroma of grasses; when we pounded up the damp beach, I smelled the tang of kelp and fish and salt water (so it seemed to me). None of this was overwhelming or offensive in the least: rather, it underscored the teeming life all about us, various forms of plant and animal life, all thriving and working together for the greater good. It was a magnificent sensation.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

To Pass the Endless Days

By the skylight in the temple,
we may safely see that night has fallen.
Now I must endeavor to go back to the days prior, before I got lost in the mountains and the swamp. I've picked up in the middle of my desperate flight... but now I will try to bridge the gap between where my narrative dropped off so long ago and where I find myself.

I have the luxury, for a while, to pause and attempt to recall that passage, now that I've commandeered (for the time being) this little shack in the swamp. Back to the wall, torches blazing, sword at the ready, very cautiously do I now take up quill and review the last entries to resume.