Updating

With apologies to Spencer and his crazy.

I wake up.
You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX.
I woke up on the side of the road at the border with New York. Opal was tied up in the back of the van. We talked a little, and parted ways.
You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI.
The blackouts have been getting much worse. I'm slipping. I don't know if it's that easy to tell from the outside. It's harder to keep track of where the blackouts end.
Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
My logs are really only vague suggestions and guesswork of where I stop and It starts.
You wake up at Air Harbor International.
The music helps. It keeps me focused. Keeps me awake. Changing my face helps as well. I'm wondering how I'd look in ginger.
If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?
There's a murderous drum-beat in my head. I know where it's from. And that scares me. So I'm driving east, clean out of Vermont towards the ocean.
Any objections? (EN: Nope)

So driving for two days and not sleeping at all is not a good idea.
I'll have more to say after I get some sleep. And maybe some food.

If I'm not back again this time tomorrow

Carry on, carry on as if nothing really mattered

Figured it was appropriate.

The world seems to have decided it was a good week for everything to go all to hell.
Let's review.

Opal left the House (EN: Thank god)
Opal came back to the house. I had to knock her out with a shovel. (EN: She hit me first)
She came to and tried to strangle August. Some things happened. (EN: It actually hurt a lot)
And now she's not at the House any more. (EN: It's probably for the best.)

I feel like I should fill in the gaps. (EN: After all, you went a little crazy Fitz)
I don't know what I was doing up at one in the morning. Probably reading. Someone was sneaking around outside. I had a book. Turns out it was Opal, come back for a shovel of all things. I hit her in the face with a book. She tried to get me with a shovel. There was no reasoning with her. She got me pretty good in the shin. Doc said I'll be alright.
She ran outside to bury a body, she was absolutely covered in blood.
The body belonged to her friend Aggy. Took me a bit to get outside. She flipped out when I tried talking her down. Had to hit her in the head with the shovel handle. I dragged her back to the house.
Then things happened. (EN: All kinds of things. None of them good.)
Opal tried to kill August.
I had the knife. I could have stabbed her. (EN: There would have been blood) just like last time
Spencer dragged her off to the East Wing. (EN: It's a little fuzzy)
August left to see Elaine, Doc wanted to check my leg I think.
Asked her for some drugs. Not doing that again. (EN: Seriously.
Waking up in the infirmary wasn't the most pleasant experience in the world.
(EN:Don't do drugs.)
Doc? I don't know what it was that you gave me. The resultant romp through my head was probably wonderful. Waking up with an aching shin and the sensation that this paled in comparison to what I'd just been experiencing was remarkably unpleasant. And it didn't help what I remember at all. Thanks for trying though. (EN: At least there weren't trees in my sleep)

Opal was knocked out on a bed next to me. Can't say I was terribly surprised. Sorry for grabbing her like that. (EN: Someone probably would have knifed her. Couldn't let that happen)

I tied her up and put her in the back of the van. Hopefully whatever Doc had dosed her with would last a while longer. She was a little heavy, so more dragging. Having the rope helped a little with that. (EN: It's true, they always need the fucking rope)

And then I drove away. (EN: Could have dropped her in a river we went by.)
I untied Opal at some point, dropped her off. (EN: Would have saved someone the trouble)
And then kept on driving.

Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
To me

Broke the deep lethargy within my head
A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
Like to a person who by force is wakened;

And round about I moved my rested eyes,
Uprisen erect and steadfastly I gazed,
To recognize the place wherein I was.

True is it, that upon the verge I found me
of the abysmal valley dolorous,
That gathers the thunder of infinite ululations.

Obscured, profound it was, and nebulous,
So that by fixing on its my sight
Nothing whatever I discerned therein.

Let us descend now into the blind world,
Began the Poet, pallid utterly
I will be first, and thou shalt second be.

Obituary 3

Because it is necessary.

Richard Corwin Smith,
Born July 8, 1991
Died June 6, 2011

Consider for a minute, the human eye. The human eye is a camera made out of little more than jelly, which can interpret with fidelity all manner of colours and transmit them to the brain.

Richard was a screenwriting student. He wanted to make the camera see things. And so it went.
Richard began a small project of his own, with a few friends, and their classmates. Mostly theatre students, cast and crew numbered an even dozen, if that. Their camera man was a student of another program altogether. The theatre students had little experience with a camera, Richard himself had none. The journalist did. Michael joined the production, a rousing little drama in which a group of young adults are pursued by a man tall, dark and slender, with all the trappings of that particular drama.

What happened next should be well known to those versed in this particular manner of story. Richard began to see the Slender Man, appearing out of the corner of his eye. He found himself harrowed by the persistent agents of this Slender Man, and so the production came to a halt.

What happened next was unexpected. Richard ran, and he ran until the scene put him at the edge of a cliff, faced with slender agents to one side, and a precipice to the other. He jumped.

Richard Corwin Smith died at the bottom of the cliff, his legs mangled by the landing, he died as he lived. A coward.


~R.C.S.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have forgone the good of intellect.

The Vestibule of Hell, such a place is reserved not for those who have sinned, neither is it reserved for those who were virtuous. Those here cannot enter further for they are neither good nor evil. They did not sin. They did not do good works. They did nothing. They are nothing.

"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men"

Prologue

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.