Far Away, So Close

It wasn't until the second day on the sea that I realized how much I miss sailing. I hadn't done much of it back in Massachusetts, truth be told, but the opportunity presented itself fairly regularly in this unlikely world. I've sailed out of desperation, for survival and exploration, and I've sailed strictly for the leisure of it.

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.

Lost to Dreaming

The author long ago constructed a fishing-shack on a small island

I have said several times in this journal that I cannot sleep. All the more surprise, then, that I found myself waking up upon the floor of the villagers' cabin. Were there sheep in the area, I should make a bed of their wool... come to think of it, I do know where to locate some, not far from here.

But I slept, I tell you O my reader. I had fallen asleep at some moment last night, and I plunged into a deep slumber. Were this the usual world I was born into and knew all my life, I could reasonably assume I had exhausted myself with all my boating and climbing. Oh yes, yesterday I spent the entire day sailing around Sewall Sea. I had a clear orientation of south, based on the rising and setting of the sun, and my little wooden boat does not seem to drift but sails true, unerringly true. This is the most valuable factor for navigating the ocean in this or any world, a craft that does not list or stray. Due to this, I was able to sail south and, after some hours, catch sight of Ellery Island. My crops and livestock were doing well, but my maps were not in the dwelling-house. It was no trick to sail from there to Bartram Island, of course, and there I found my old maps.

Cartography

The vale behind the cabin: poppies, tulips, no huckleberries

This rainy, overcast morning finds me more withdrawn and taciturn than normal. I'm tired of "the fresh woods and pastures new" just now, though I trust I will not always be so. It surprises me to discover within myself an emptiness for other people, when so often in Concord the abundance of them drove me into the woods.

It is no surprise, of course, to miss the chirp of birds in conversation, as this world has none. And as I walk about the former villagers demesne, a random memory has burst into my mind: there are no huckleberries here. Why should there be, of course, when Providence has populated this bizarre realm with plants and animals in a manner conforming to no sensible pattern or system. There are horses and cows but no dogs or cats; there are potatoes without cabbage.

I am a little surprised at myself for this nostalgia for things I once took for granted, for people I sought to escape. I confess to feeling a bit childish at this moment.

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?

Last Ditch of the Horrors

It is no matter to build a new boat. I've nurtured a thriving grove of trees on Ellery Island, and I have deconstructed and repurposed the trestles in nearly every rail gangway within my ambit. Nonetheless, I admit to being perturbed at the mindless monsters that shouldered my little craft out of its specially designed safe-hold and on into the waves. Voiceless my rage, still did I hustle downstairs and take out a mob of them in my controlled monster-generator. I came out loathing myself but, I confess with savage pride, a little sated.

This is true and I need admit it to myself. If I cannot be absolutely honest on these pages, to myself, then there is no point to staining this book with my thoughts. There is no point. If I cannot frankly address the world, if I refuse to stare into my own depths and honestly chronicle all that I find, but instead attempt to deceive and mislead the true authority... there is no point to continuing this journal. I will not contrive a sottisier as my only remaining testimony.

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.

Solitude

Thoreau kicks off from shore and drifts leisurely from harm.

After that hair-raising adventure, I have permitted myself to relax and recuperate for a day or two. Too much rest is rust, I know, but in this case I think no one could blame me for wanting to stretch out in my bed, behind the security of meter-thick polished granite walls and a stout oak door, watching the sun crawl across the sky.

Not that day, you understand. I didn't even wait for my clothes to dry before I clambered into another makeshift boat and set sail. Night had fallen and the A.C.M.s were out: they had emerged into being within the livestock pen, however, and they find the simple wooden fences more than their match. They can manage staircases but not ladders; I have heard the fiercer of these mindless revenants pound at my door, but I haven't seen them make a try for the fence posts. Adios to these odious hosts, it's the ocean life for me.

Strange Notes

The author commits a tactical error.

It's been a day of nothing upon the sea. To alleviate the boredom I've just devoured a roast mutton chop, and I wasn't even hungry. I just wanted something to break up the blear of the sky against the waters. It was a good piece of meat, and I marvel at how it's made suitable for our bodies by roasting but not raw. It's almost as though life were a large and complex game, in which conditions must be met in sequences, in order for us to progress. You can grow grain, but it must be ground, mixed with yeast and toasted in fire before you can eat it; or you can give it to an animal who eats it directly, and you can eat that animal, but first it must be dressed and roasted. To claim this is merely coincidence is to beggar the imagination.

At any rate, I enjoyed the chop, tossed the bone into the briny depths, wiped the grease off on my trousers. It took no more than ten minutes of slow chewing to get through it, and now I'm back to staring across the limitless horizon with nothing to break it in any direction. My mind bounces around in its cage like an ill-tempered monkey, desperate for any plaything to distract it.

I thought I would make a few notes about the sundry strange qualities to my world, to kill an hour or a few (though one should never wish to lose even a minute of one's life, I trow).

A-Boating I Shall Go

I awoke today (strange to say, since I do not sleep) with a fire in my chest.

Morning breaks on safe harbor.

All morning, I have paced the sandy strand along the lagoon that is the entire southeast section of my island. I say "southeast" though of course I have no orientation but the sun's track across the sky: I have arbitrarily selected a "north" for my own point of reference, and as there are none but God's beasts to quibble with me on this point, the democratic process was swift and entirely satisfactory. But up and down the banks I strode, scratching my chin where the skin flakes at the base of my beard. I made a point of breathing and appreciating the freshness of the local air, in hopes of blowing the cobwebs from my skull's interior. To my left spread an apron of sturdy tulips, before my stone fortification, and their flashing colors occasionally distracted me from my thoughts. I stared up into the sky, where flawlessly rectilinear clouds drifted at a uniform ceiling above the sea across a dome of deep azure. I paced the lagoon up and down, back and forth; the two wild pigs peeked at me from within my oak forest but did not approach.

I haven't mentioned this lagoon yet. (Lord save me, I nearly wrote "my lagoon". Such arrogance.) The ocean is deep without limit, as nearly as I may perceive, so the sandy shoal here is quite a relief. Sometimes an octopus may drift in and out; other times, skeletons or other fell beasts wander through it, their speed impeded, and I may pick them off at a safe distance with my bow, collecting what they drop with convenience. But I've been thinking, the shape of this lagoon should be ideal to secure a small boat, and the shallowness of this water could only facilitating disembarking.

The resounding question: why have I not thought of crafting a boat until now?