So It Is

The Stalwart is fiercer in this, the fifth day of our little Adventure. The Hesitation is briefer, the Courage more swiftly found: the Sand Planets molested, the Sand Societies demolished, naught but the Sand Nomads (the madmen, the drifters, the shamans, the Children of Understanding—all those who know the inner ways and believed the prophecy of the Fifth Apocalypse) are left to repopulate.

This morning Mitch the Cat sleeps in, so this midmorning he assaults his Present Self and twists his Future Selves for the choice of his Past Self. [My day is fucked] run the gist of his thoughts. [My day is fucked. My day is fucked. I am so tired now. My eyes fucking hurt. I’ll be sleepwalking about all day. My day is fucked.] And so it is.

The steps leading down to the Sand Planets are next to some sort of tall, cross-beamed Signal Structure, which lines up with the Mile Marker on the 49th parallel. Mitch wanders over into the Canadian motherland, where the humble cottages morph instantly into multi-million dollar homes before the shore disintegrates into loose dunes. He wander-wonders along as usual, with a definitively negative slight to his abstraction from reality. If you recall, his day is fucked.

At one point his stomach drags his legs up onto land, to a lonely hamburger hut. A few fellow wander-wonderers are enjoying the peace of the morning to pursue their pleasure amid slobbering grease and deep-fried potatoes. There’s a young couple chasing gulls with their small child, and Mitch is released from his great Burden for a few moments as he watches them frolic in the Dream of Life.

He avoids the old man today. He can find not even the Courage to stop and admire the steadfast task. Divided from the old man who is one with his work by a salty stream, he trudges past the spot where a…a Seal? is blooming in the remains of the Dragon (pounded flat by the innumerable tiny fists of the Armies of the Moon).

He climbs the clay cliffs to the south, writes his true name. He then stares at it in sad disgust and draws a line with his finger below, letting it crumble and fall away to the oblivion of Forgotten Things.

When he starts back the tide is in, the Seal eaten, and so he has to walk along the road, petulantly kicking gravel until it transforms to concrete. The old man is on his porch, but Mitch the Cat doesn’t draw the Courage to make eye acquaintance, and strides sullenly by.