Chapter 2 Nothing good would come of allowing our spectator to remain unchecked and out of sight, so I plied what Craft I could bring to mind, and hand. I wrapped my left hand around my cloak pin, thumb on it’s keen bronze point and … Continue reading Door to…
“I didn’t think it would WORK!
It was a JOKE, for fuck’s sake! Everyone was locked down, we were so BORED, I saw this crazy frikkin’ DOOR my weird neighbor was building in his yard, with all these dead branches…” the lad was near hysterical again, I encouraged him with a ‘drink up’ gesture to take another drink of tea from the wooden noggin-cup I’d already decided to not take back, when we parted paths.
“That’s all the tea you’re got from me, for free, you see?” I leaned into the rhythm of my words, not so much to work ill, of course, but habit was hard learned here. “A draught of mead, I’ll pour thee. This ye’ll have child of Earth, given free, the first and last, those in-between you’ll pay with service.” I knew I wouldn’t take too great advantage. I’m a sporting man, and this was just unfair.
He sputtered and slurped noisily, draining the mead, but one of the few True things that were Mine Own was Sir Bottle. My boon companion for long, long years now the Good Sir, and never will he run dry, thanks to the memory I traded him for, back when I was callow. Never, ever, so unprepared, blind, & soft as this boy… A man in years, true by the whiskers on his face, well trimmed like a dandy, but I knew he had no gold or silver about him. The beetles in the hollowed out gall were still as death. If he HAD such, I’d have robbed him already, of course. Body’s got to keep a trade, after all, and ‘highwayman’ was one of the things I remembered I was. So many rents & tatters in the tapestry of my mind… never mind that, he was babbling again. Words tumbled from him like he did not ken they had value here, and oh my lost soul, he truly didn’t, and he just told me his NAME. Bold as brass, loud as if he wanted to lose it.
I clamped my left hand over his mouth, still pouring with my right.
His eyes went round as the full moon no eye would ever see over this part of The Land Beyond. New Moon, high above leered down, black as pitch in a sky full of strange stars, auroræs shifting like the skirts of my love {her name, long gone, with the color of her eyes & hair, traded early on for pittance, afore I knew better.}
“Stop your mouth, you stupid, STUPID lad! There’s ears aplenty near enough who will sell what they hear to your peril!”
“Can I have just a LITTLE peril?” he blurted as I lifted my hand from his jaw, “I’m drunk…” whatever else was following on the heels of THAT obviostity want cut short by the buffet I laid on his cheek, my open left palm cracked sharp on his flesh, hard enough I judged to let him know I meant it, but not near the full force my arm could render. I may have missed my mark on what he could handle because, to my surprise, and genuine pity {where did THAT come from?! I wondered.}, he fell straight off the cut log he was sitting on. I heard distinct laughter from over to my right, in the bracken outside the firelight. Low down but high pitched and ringing a bit like a tin bell.
One of the biggest lies of our Digital Reality is the myth of ‘shared community’.
We pore over our feeds, our handheld links to life, we wallpaper our small worlds with our data, and call it our neighborhood. Our extended virtual families become our safe home. We want to believe that we share common ground with those outside our bubbles of shared air.
We don’t, really. Each of us is being curated by our algorithms, our like-as-not surveilled input & output manipulated by hands we never see. Every bit, byte, & hot take filtered, and when we bother to become aware of this, we’re told it’s for our own good.
We let our words be anticipated for convenience and speed, when deep down we know we’re reducing our agency. We tell ourselves that our peers and companions are sharing our foundational information while we know it’s a lie. The ‘deep fakes’ are treated as amusing novelty and porn accessories instead of the dire threat to communal reality they are.
You wonder why, when you directly interact with your folk it seems to go awry? Because you haven’t been placing the same shaped baseline of data that you think you have. There’s no substitute for as direct contact as you can safely manage, my friends.
Stay safe, stay sane. Distrust and verify.
Elon Musk will never see this, but I’m going to go first person on it anyway.
Dear Mr. Musk,
You don’t need to ‘be homeless’ to effect positive change in the World.
You’re never going to have any parity with actual homelessness, ever. Not even if you were to make a pyre of all your money, put on sackcloth & lived in the ashes. You grew up never having missed a meal, except by choice. You never fell asleep wondering if the heat or lights would come back on. Air Conditioning was standard, not a luxury.
The benefits of a childhood with excellent medical care, dental care & healthy diet will never leave you, no matter what voluntary sacrifices or strictures you place on yourself. You’re, of course, like any free man, allowed to find your path like any other. Except you’re not like any other. You have the ability to make a difference. Your wealth and power make you able to influence the wider world.
Tossing them aside does not make you virtuous. It would be the act of a shortsighted fool to do so. You could help more people by understanding the value of that wealth as a tool to leverage positive acts, to create opportunities for many, than by shedding that great responsibility.
Shoulder the weight. Stand with those who have moral courage, and do not hide their acts. Those who are open & honest. Who can look themselves in the eye every morning in the mirror and sleep sound at night knowing they chose rightly in their deeds.
Use the gifts of intelligence you have been granted to learn wisdom.
Dramatic gestures are rarely wise, in the long run. Use what you have, don’t disrespect who have less by trying to ‘be like them’ when you could give them a worthy exemplar to aspire to. Poverty is a condition to be eradicated, not put on like a suit. There are enough idiot plutocrats in the World. Seek to destroy them, not yourself.
To you and yours, greetings, blessings & apologies for my lack of visual progress.
It’s been a rough go, of late, and I know I’m not alone in that. When in lockdown, we feel even more isolated.
The wind & rain are howling outside my rattling windows, as this day moves toward sunset.
If you choose to celebrate tonight, please be mindful of the needed precautions. Blessed Be.
After the weekend, I’m posting an updated, edited Ascomycota story, and by next week the same for Illiesh. thank you for the support, likes and all of it.
Ardven seemed happier now, Xaph’ thought. The clear sky and distinct lack of old growth trees comforts him, the same way it discomforts me. ‘Ah, well,’ mused the elf, ‘I’ll be thinking of him under leaf and bough, in a hundred years, and be comforted … Continue reading Ascomycota; Some time later…
Some weeks ago, I was inspired by, well, let’s face it “inspired by” connotes a type of divine organization and “Distracted by another shiny bit of {basically useless} information” is far more accurate- anyhow, I was looking into ‘Fabric made from processed Fungus’† and it … Continue reading Ascomycota; a fragment
°Some thoughts on tool use, and TTRPGs My neighbor cut down a tree today. I’m going to lay aside a whole bag-of-infinite-capacity’s worth of {a lot}, and drive hard at my point. This tree took a long time coming down, like 5+ hours. I went … Continue reading How not to cut down a tree.
Or; “we do it to ourselves” as related to TTRPGs A few days ago I had the good fortune to stop in at a lovely little FLGS in a neighborhood near mine own, owned by an acquaintance in the Industry. The gentleman himself wasn’t in, … Continue reading Flamewar Bread & Circuses
Klabautermann's Hammer 