My Decision Is Made For Me

Thoreau is cultivating his pigs, to prepare a large to-go lunch.

Diligent Reader, may I address you casually, do you recall the last time I fled a place? Do you remember what was going on when I finally decided it was time to pack up and leave? Let me remind you.

I had been on Ellery Island, you will no doubt remember, when I had been tergiversating over this exact same situation. I was growing weary of the one location and needed to expand and challenge myself, so better to invigorate my faculty with new air and revitalized blood. While I entertained these discussions, the monsters on that patch of land began manifesting an alarming new strategy, taking me completely unawares and nearly terminating my existence once again. (When will be the last time, I wonder?)

The obvious conclusion to be drawn, thus, is that the monsters are somehow attuned to my thoughts. Just as the critters and small birds of Concord had sensed my good nature and befriended me in displays of unity and support to guests, so too do these aberrations of nightmare sniff the changed breeze when my thoughts drift and shift. For no sooner had I merely begun to entertain the possibility of leaving the villagers' cabin than they stepped up their offense. This morning I spotted no fewer than three witches milling about behind my quarters. I pounced upon them easily enough, only to be flanked by Explodicons that emerged from I know not where. While I could knock these back to a safer, more manageable distance, abruptly my vision began to jar and rattle, as a gale of arrows lodged violently into my armor. For as I had descended into the depression behind my cabin to wrangle the Explodicons, no less than a squad of archer-skeletons crested the ridge to pepper me with their volleys.

"Listen Very Carefully to Me."

He makes himself right at home.

I was very startled to see another person, after Selidon and Voessi slipped away under cover of night so long ago. That is, I assume they fled. They could easily have been devoured by night creatures, but that would have had to have been a very thorough job, as I've been over this territory dozens of times and haven't found so much as a blood stain or a fingertip left behind.

The stranger walked right into my little house, and immediately I had a flashback of days gone by. Back in Massachusetts, that is: it was known among my acquaintances that they had but to walk right through my door and make themselves at home. If I were not in, they would leave a little note saying they'd missed me, or would entwine a small grass ring they'd crafted while waiting for me. It saddened me to recall these suddenly, for at the time I acted very haughty and cool about it, though inwardly I was rather delighted and charmed by their thoughtfulness. Now, of course, I'm exceedingly famished for friendly social discourse and I miss those past interactions with a keen longing.

Storming the Village

The witch spotted me when I drew within a few meters of her: an inopportune bolt of lightning illuminated my craft and caught her eye. As soon as I was detected, I leapt from the boat and scrambled for stable footing on shore. She knocked back a potion and lights began to swirl around her person, the effect of whatever she had used to empower herself, I know not what. Her hand darted under her robes and withdrew another potion; I nocked an arrow and envisioned a golden line from my bow to her core, despite rivulets of the storm blurring my vision. When she drew back to hurl her vessel, I released the arrow, and it flew true to bury itself into her throat. Her eyes rolled in their sockets, she dropped the bottle and clawed at her throat, sinking to her knees. With a second arrow loaded I cautiously approached her. Her lips pulled back in a terrifying sneer and her jaw worked, but then the life drained from her face and she collapsed upon the sand.

The A.C.M.s groaned and pounded at the cabin's door.

I released the breath I was not aware I'd been holding. Some savage instinct within me overrode my faculties: I searched the wretched body for useful items, then planted my boot to her shoulder and rolled her into the ocean, her purple robes swiftly vanishing within the depths of the Sewall Sea. I am surprised at myself for the callousness of my behavior, it is not something I would have imagined myself capable of. And yet this is the fact of it, as I record it without waiver or apology.

This accomplished, I turned my attention toward the large stone house, only to witness two A.C.M.s battering at the oak door. I sprang into action: two arrows pierced the back of one animated corpse, and it collapsed. The other seemed not to notice, so I carefully lined up two more shots and dispatched it as well.

The Journey Worsens

Vast stretch of desert, entirely unfamiliar to the author.

It should surprise no one that I have found the great continent which was my destination. I cannot determine what was my intent to deceive the reader of this journal, in pretending that I was abandoning Ellery island with no specific designs to land. I suppose it was more romantic to sound as though I'd trundled up my essentials into a small wooden tub and flung myself once more into the vagaries of the Great Sewall. No reader can be more disappointed by the mundanity of my itinerary than I am by my flimsy deceit; I think that I do not mistake in this.

That behind us, I have found the southern coast to the lands I knew full well to exist. Where I have gone awry, to the reader's delight, is that I recognize nothing of these lands. According to my map, I should have found enormous, savage snow-capped mountains, down which fearsome rivers of lava ran to most dramatic effect. Spruce carpeted the sides and caves enticed the adventuresome eye, both for ready-made shelter and allure of what prizes they contained.

Nope, couldn't find a shred of this. No mountains, no lava, no spruce. Just a vast desert covered in sand and more sand, with traces of cactus and sugar canes, plus a low and miserly scrub-brush about which there seems no magnificent promise. I skirted the coast, scanning for anything remotely familiar, as disappointment filled up my vessel before catalyzing into dread: if I couldn't recognize the land I expected, flying due north across Sewall Sea, what were my odds of turning southward and drifting to the familiar lands?

The Stifling Complacency

Baah-baah, they say. Cluck-cluck. They bide their time.

Oh, what do I do with myself now... I have a system in place, that serves me well. It's called "playing it safe": there still are random factors beyond my control, this is well, but on the main I'm able to mitigate the worst disasters due to having managed my property with discipline. On the surface of Ellery Island, my sheep and chicken mingle well, produce eggs and wool, and when they are numerous I render them to meat-stuffs. Between them and my well-tended plots of carrots, potatoes and wheat, I will never go hungry. As Heraclitus saith...

...nope, that's still gone. I've lost all my Classics. This saddens me deeply.

The Measure of a Man

Coal lies within easy reach; diamonds may be had,
if one chooses to risk the threat of burbling lava.

There are days, weeks perhaps, when I mine solely for the meditative comfort it affords me. Perhaps this sounds strange, to you of my civilized brethren, for whom society has been forged and tweaked for the surplus of creature comforts and convenience, and you cannot understand my sentiment. Generations prior, men reaped modest benefits commensurate to the sweat of their brow. Integrity was quantified by the effort an ambitious laborer plied to his trade.

This is no longer true, as merit is gauged by how many menials and slaves one may indenture toward one's own riches, and somehow the whole of a nation has been finagled into compliance with this horrific estimation. But on my island—or on my secondary island—yet may the purest estimation of a productive being be evaluated strictly by productivity. No one does my work for me; I hire no one, I commission no one to labor for my profit. I stake the estimation of my worth not on any corporation of desperate lackeys and subservient drones.

The Unfathomable Depths

The author mines directly overhead. Never, ever do this.

It seems I am not much for learning from my own mistakes. I have commented on the quality peculiar to humans, that they are highly resistant to learning from others. It strikes me there are those who pursued this folly or that boondoggle, ran afoul of Fortuna, suffered for it, and saw fit to record their misadventures to better prepare future generations, only to be met by a resentful and indifferent audience. That was amusing, thinks the reader to himself, but it's clear where he went wrong, how his thoughts were poorly composed. I am not prone to such carelessness. At that point, it's a race to see which human will repeat which part of history first, with a secondary competition to register the greatest amazement that no one had the facility to warn them from experience or at least offer sage counsel.

Who said I'm a misanthrope? Go put your face in the corner, dunce.