Category: One Among the Dead

Day 533:

Before trying to figure out my cave problem I decided I’d tackle my running-out-of-glass problem by digging all day in a river.

It was wet, smelled like fish, and some of the local squid got all up in my face.

(Turns out squid do not like a poke in the snout with a shovel any more than anyone else does… but these squid were nice enough to swim away, while a similar size squid on Old Earth probably would have taken the shovel and hit me with it.)

Anyway I stink of gross but I have a lot of sand to melt down into glass, so the cave is nice and warm and stinks of hot gross.

Day 532:

Just a ways down from me, to the west, with the sheep, there’s a giant hole in the ground where the sea is seeping in.

It has some very valuable ore in it.

And the sea.

The sea is the inconvenient part of course.

And I’m torn between risking ruining whatever ecosystem is in there and walling off the cave, harvesting all the mussels or whatever, and having myself a right good feast with bonus ore.

Either way, it will happen tomorrow, because today was sand gathering so I can make some more glass.

Day 531:

Some days I feel like writing a lot at night when I get back to my cave.

Some days I’m barely able to hold the pen I’m so tired.

And then there are days like today where nothing seems notable even though I know it is. I connected two chambers today and that extended me toward the east (safely underground) significantly.

But meh. It doesn’t feel exciting. It feels like two chambers with a lot of dirt in them because I didn’t clean them up yet so they’re not really done, they’re just connected.

Part of the reason I write every day is so I don’t forget how to use the language.

Part of the reason is so that if something does happen to me, and there’s a pretty good chance on a ny given day that I could be killed, there’s a chance someone will remember me and tell others what happened to me.

And part of me writes because I need to remind myself that it’s not all for nought; I’m creating things, I’m saving my own life, I’m leaving something behind.

This is one of those days.

Day 530:

Trying to finish up unfinished caverns so that I can run mine carts down the middle of them. It’s hard work and I’m tired and I’m actually having to haul stone to the mine site which is still a weird feeling.

But it beats trying to run mine carts up and down ridiculous hills and valleys. Straight lines are fastest, etc. etc.

Day 529:

I spent some time fishing today. It was partly because I wanted to have more stock in food than just carrots (although with all the beef I have in stock right now you’d think I wasn’t worried) and partly because I needed a day to think.

So think I did.

And the thing I thought about the most is how, now, even my hobbies are utilitarian. Like, there’s no sitting around and watching sitcoms on the vid screen until 2 in the morning anymore. I’m either building something (work), mining something (also work) or fishing or gardening (technically work but so much easier than the first two that it feels like a treat).

There’s no story here unless I write it. No podcast unless it’s me talking to myself. No vidscreen at all. No video games because there’s no screen. The closest I come to a first person shooter is actually shooting things, and to be vomitously honest, I hate every minute of it. I’d much rather shoot electrons than actual things, even if the things are consistently trying to kill me.

And I don’t have time to write fiction, though to be honest I do a lot of telling myself stories. They’ll likely be lost to the ages. It’s not like I have time to write them down. I’m way more interested in making sure there’s food and shelter and the occasional mattress.

I guess, if anything, the mattresses are the place where I really stretch out my creativity. I get fancy with the stitches sometimes or make sure that there’s a ducken outline in the ducken skins I’m stitching together. The birds deserve to be remembered; they deserve to be something fancy.

I might work on dye. There are plenty of flowers around here. It might be nice to have some red thread and some yellow thread in addition to the ducken-gut-colored thread I’m using now.