I’ve been sitting here for at least an hour. I have no way of checking this, but the sun has visibly moved along the sky. I sit cross-legged, baking in the sunlight and praying for rain. There is a question in my mind that I have been avoiding. I’ve been avoiding it since I arrive. […]
I slept the last night on the Compass Rock. I sat in the dark scraping the animal’s pelt on a rack of woven bones. I scraped the animal’s thin amphibious hide with a splinter of its lower jaw. My lack of experience left the pelt with several ragged holes and tears. So it goes. One […]
My first spear is a write-off, broken into three pieces by the animal’s attack. So it goes. With a bit of effort, I’m able to find another collection of conifer branches near the waterline. I know that I’m tempting fate to do my work here, but I do not want to carry this creature’s entire […]
Any animal can be loving, timid, cautious, or cowardly…right up until you try to kill it. Then all animals, from the meanest to the most mighty, open their own purple testament with abandon. So it was this time. My first jab is aimed at the creature’s body. It bites flesh just below the shoulder. As […]
My first spear will be a conifer branch of my own height. That’s a bit long, as I’m 1.9 cm tall. That’s fine. Reach is more important than compactness right now. To make the spear, I must first find a spearhead. I’ve sharpened the tip with the stone axe, but this tip will do little […]
Ok. Me vs. the Marsh, Round Two. I scaled the decline in early morning, leaving behind my collection of leather and hooks. If I’m delayed, the rain may wash out my equipment. While I hate risking this, it’s better to store materials. I created a small break out of rocks that should shield the bindle […]
Rain, as previously discussed, arrived within an hour of my newly-minted plans on ranging I’m hungry. Something near the deluge of myth and legend is occurring just beyond the portal of my little cave. I have crammed my belongings in the back of the cave and blocked it with my body, and now I block […]
I wake to the sound of music. I know this to be impossible. Yet I cannot quite deny that it is there. I lay in my cave, naked, sweating, dehydrated, starving. Every part of my body feels a cage for some thin, sickly process neglected and adulterated by my surroundings. Yet I lay here within […]
I reached the cave just before dark. It’s now well after dark and I work by touch under starlight. I’m building a fire. I sense that this is the first fire that has ever been constructed on this world. The animal that I killed implies a very clear explanation of where, or rather when, I […]
By virtue of my observation, having taken pains, I have divided time and space. I now have a means to count the hours and to tell North from South, East from West. My Compass Rock is a plain invention, simple stone upon stone. I cannot hope to fully articulate what it means to me. My […]