Dear cyber-survivors,
As the world axis turns the daily weeks along, so too have the wheels of my heart spun the fast beat pace of RPM's. Since whence we last saw each other, I have made many miles of progress through the great heartland of our country's forgotten name. It started with an AME, the first syllabic pull down of the tongue depressor. But our shot went wide. My partner and I, the Ever Resilient Strong Minded Captain, or ERSMC, have landed in the midst of Cherokee National Forest near the town of Ducktown, the townliest of all post-human settlements. Yesterday, we celebrated our 4th day in the wilderness with a wide bucket of black beans and wild garlic. Foraging has produced mixed results.
So far, we've eaten from the fatty tissue's fallen from
Ostrich Ferns; curled balls of hairy Carboniferous Creatures. When cooked over flaming spit, they produce a mildly crunchy texture along with the flavor of earthly green. My personal delight has been in the delicate harvesting of Purple Scarlet's. My beloved ERSMC has informed me that they are actually Violets, but the fantastical holds my mind and scarlet is a pronounced favorite. The Violets, while soft and salad-y, take a enormous effort of time and crouching patience to gather enough for viable meal alternatives. There were also the fresh leaflets of the Red-Bud tree, small citrus flavored bulbs.
As to the wild life, there have been several encounters with serpents- they were passive creatures basking in cool to sunny standing grounds. One was a curled small creature with grey to brown designs, the other a long black shimmery beast held in forested dignity. Once, while chopping dead wood for fire, I spotted up the tall banks of the mountain a rustling movement on the cliff edge. Thinking it twas my cumulous captain, I went to call out. But something held my tongue, and as the time passed its clocking seconds, I spotted a furry backside of brown-black fur, highlighted in silver hairs, with a small triangular tail. The beast was only there for a second, then it shimmed its way into a cave farther ahead. I stood wary but stalwart, and continued my chopping with renewed vigor.
Today we wandered into town, ordered breakfast at a one Highway 68 Diner. The locals are nice people, rich in language and tone. There are many salvage events happening across the land, where junkers and hoarders bring their surplus stores to the roadside to sell it in bootleg scandal to unwary passerby. The captain and I searched for several moldy texts on foraging and mushroom hunting, but to no avail. Now we are situated within the Ducktown library, uploading our situation into the Logs.
My dreams have been wide and extreme; I have made songs with friends, travelled to airports with spainairds, and dreamt of treacheries within my heart. These first few days have been a great unfolding of the outer issues in my conical psyche- I struggle with the things that haunt my shoulders and the weaknesses of my own character. This great escapade seems to be the only thing that could save my own self-character from civilized immolation. I hope to walk from the woods a stronger person.
The rocks store my seed,
beneath the watery feet,
where naked I stood,
the come covered constellations,
reveal my hesitations,
as sunlight struck,
I stood stuck
across the stone-bed,
naked and wading in the river,
yet too scared to swim.
Till next time Space-Cowboy,
Austin the Lazar Wiggin
