(Note in header margin of notebook: I write very weirdly when half asleep)
Introduction
The following story was written while half asleep. If the reader can make any sense of it, they're wiser than the author. She thinks she wrote it mainly to be confusing. She's also fairly certain that it is the product of a half-deranged mind, or perhaps half-clear. Is the glass half empty or half full? Pessimists, optimists and realists have been debating the answer for centuries. The quest for truth without objective reality is endless.
Actually, just scrap the last three or four sentences. The only thing the author is really sure of is that she hates talking or writing about herself in third person.
This little introduction has become incredibly mindless. Let's skip onto the story, shall we?
(Note: Intro was written before the story was.)
Ethereal
(Why? Because, that's why.)
8/17/99
The Warrior stepped cautiously over the dry Sands of Time. His quest had barely begun, yet he had been searching since the moment of his conception. Dark figures on the horizon? Yea, that they were. The objects of his quest? That was yet to be seen.
The Warrior swept his sword out of its scabbard as a hundred doubts assailed him. Was there a God? Did Truth exist? Was Satan really bad? Was natural cheddar cheese really better than processed American?
The Warrior swatted at the black Doubt insects, but they evaded his shining saber easily. Futility, all was futility. The giants of Relativism and Post-Modernism were too strong for the lone Warrior to attack.
Out of the cloud of black buzzing Doubts rose the two giants, laughing at their weakened foe. Relativisim blew the breath of Relativity, and the Warrior fell into deep pit of Unreality.
He fell and fell. The universe swirled around him, changing and interchanging opposites like a deranged shopper in a mall full of clothing stories. Right is Wrong, Bad is Good, weeny is teeny, turvy is topsy. Black is white, white is black, and orange, and purple, and mauve and turquoise and salmon and burgundy....
The Warrior cried out in terror at the malleable cosmos. There were unchangeable Truths, this he knew. What were they? Desperately he tried to remember even one, knowing that that would snap the world back into place.
At last he snatched at an emerald strand of Clarity and screamed the two greatest Truths. "There is a God, and I'm not Him!" With a great creaking of the fibers of existence, the universe stopped whirling, and the pit of Unreality had a bottom.
The Warrior tumbled end-over-end and thundered at last to a crashing halt. Angered that so puny an individual could Thunder and Crash, a great gray Storm gathered up its sprinkles and moved off in a huff, leaving the Warrior again stranded in the hot desert without relief.
The Warrior sighed with relief, glad to have escaped the pit of unreality. Yea, there was a God, and yea, the Warrior wasn't Him. At this new understanding a piece of armor flashed into existence on the Warrior. It would protect him from now on from that particular Doubt, unless the Warrior neglected its maintenance and let it fall off again.
8/18/99
The Warrior paused his ceaseless questing to respond to a Call for help, and instantly the desert transformed into a Midnight Forest, dark and unending. The call echoed in the distance, but he could not tell the direction. He turned around, trying to orient himself.
When at last he regained his sense of direction, fulfilling his need for Orientation, a Chinese paper lantern appeared in a tree that seemed to be all branches. The candle burned through the red paper like fire (actually, it was fire), lighting the forest all around.
From the air the Warrior snatched his Guide to the Orient, where it had suddenly appeared out of the oxygen. Opening it to the section titled How to Tell the Direction a Sound Is Coming from by Use of Your Auditory Senses, he strained his ears, listening.
Consultation of the Guide helped him ascertain the Direction of the Call, and the Warrior set off through the forest, drawing his shining saber. It took him a moment to find paper and crayons and he'd never been much of an artist, but he at last finished the difficult task and stood sword in hand, ready to face any danger.
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