2) Sanbrekka, day 28.
Day 28,
I'm crazy.
My world has gone crazy.
First it was a thriving, lovely dream, a great valley crossed by a fresh river, a calm rest beneath the sun kissed branches of a beautiful old oak.
Then suddenly, I was captured and caged, without light, without air holes, without food, without sleep, under a shower of thunder and blood, for days, months, years, without being able to scream, only to obey.
Then I escaped, far away and angry, to a labyrinth of mirrors, without an escape route, without a definite reality, without certainties, with only an anger that forced me to flee, continuously running away from broken glass as the mirrors exploded in my wake: sharp glass and powerful winds, which wounded my face, chest, legs, and soul. Breaking into a thousand fragments. A thousand feeble flashes that went out.
At last came the darkness, the surrender, the escape. The hopelessness.
And now this.
A sea covered by a strange shimmering blanket, an almost foamy light from the waves, crossed by thousands of floating lights connected to thin submarine wires, under a sky with two moons.
The unattainable lighthouse that brought me here, with its strange, bright yellow light in the distance.
Everything was muted by a deafening whistle in my ears.
This is my first memory since my last crisis.
This sight and the excruciating physical pain.
I awoke under those two foreign moons, in a pool of my own blood. Apparently, I had decided to open a gash along my side with a sliver of wood during my last crisis.
I had returned to the valley of broken mirrors inside my corrupted mind.
I’d probably gotten too upset. In this moment, I do not remember much about that.
It's all so nebulous and confused.
But it does not matter.
Cauterizing the wound with a hot blade wasn’t bad, but I remained very weak, so I dragged myself to bed. Inside the absolute chaos of the cabin. Safe.
I woke up in the morning, or maybe it was afternoon ... and a strong awareness came over me.
This is no longer the Earth.
How do I know?
Well, can you show me a place on Earth where there is a mountain floating in the air?
No, this is not a mirage.
It was a beautiful mountain of pink rock covered by a thick and bizarre vegetation which floated on the water, as if it had been there, unchanged, for millennia, courted by clouds, winds and mists. So real and so absurd.
A colossal tree covered with pink and violet flowers clung greedily and solidly to the rock. From its branches began a cascade of flowers cradled by the wind as they fell gently into the waves of the sea below.
And those strange floating lights? They had turned into a swaying forest of pearly leaves connected to thin wires with strange little bulbs at the top protected by the leaves.
It was in that exact moment that I noticed the hydrophone was still intact, and it was singing.
A symphony of voices never heard before.
An excruciating, heart-breaking melody. Intimate and deep-seated. Ephemeral, yet eternal.
The song of lives, the dance of connections, the stage of dreams.
I had to see, I had to know, I had to understand!
I ran across the deck, leaned over the parapet and ... I saw them.
Extraordinary and majestic white creatures, like the whale Moby Dick, I had never seen before. They had a hypnotic sway. The fins were similar to large silver leaves. The luminous branches that floated in the air, were like fronds of willows. The vivid purple eyes, bright and protruding like lobsters, could be seen throughout the sea.
There were thousands of those swaying creatures.
And then I saw Dilgan and Mismar! They had followed me up here!
They seemed calm and comfortable with these creatures. Indeed, they were playing in the forest of leaves.
As soon as they saw me, they swam close to the ship's keel and greeted me with whistles and splashes.
Of course, I simply had to go inside and get two pieces of cod to throw to them, which they decidedly appreciated.
I needed to recover a bit from this tsunami of news, so I decided to take a couple of days to fix Lys, together with my faithful Timo to keep me company.
In the meantime, I continued to sail towards the lighthouse.
Although it did not seem to ever come close.
Are you really a lighthouse or are you just a star?
Where are you?
Do you really exist or are you just a reflection of my mind?
Now we come to the most important fact, in my opinion.
Two days ago, I happened upon a tremendous shipwreck.
Other people! After almost a month of solitude!
What a strange thought. After all, it was me that went away.
The ship seemed to have been sunk by a terrible storm.
Could it have been the same storm that got me lost in this place?
A mass of burned wood, floating supplies, sheets, ropes ...
And despair.
So much, too much despair.
How many men and women had been taken away by that shipwreck?
How many families, standing on the ports’ piers, were still waiting for them?
How many lives had been destroyed and changed by a single storm?
I had to do something.
I had to see if there were any survivors, and maybe save some extra supplies.
I had nearly exhausted all my supplies.
"I wonder if I can find some coffee," I thought foolishly and a little greedily.
We've been lost for too long, eh Timo?
I used the nets to drag up some pieces of wood from the sunken ship onto the deck and built a rudimentary platform for us.
Then I got down on this floating platform. Definitely unstable.
It was an incredible emotion.
I was just a finger’s breadth away from the sea.
I was just one step away from the enemy.
After all this time.
Dilgan and Mismar came out in front of me; it was the first time we were face to face.
I raised a hand to try to stroke them, but Dilgan got scared and plunged while Mismar continued to stare at me, puffing.
They were really big seen from so close.
And so it was, that for the first time in my life, I caressed a white-beaked dolphin.
I spent a few hours collecting those strange supplies with an improvised hand net.
Dilgan and Mismar instead enjoyed playing among the remains of the ship.
They were pleasant company.
I felt so strange.
I felt almost relieved for the first time in a long time.
All that sudden motion put a strain on my wound.
But it was something that had to be done.
Everything proceeded calmly. I did not find other people, or worse, in the wreck area, fortunately. Until Dilgan found a "surprise".
A girl.
An unconscious girl, clinging to a wooden board.
A girl who was barely breathing and was burned by the sun.
But was alive.
I took her on board with great difficulty.
"Hold on!" I shouted at her.
She burned like a teapot over a fire.
And she was just barely moving.
Poor girl.
Who knows how much suffering she had to endure.
I placed her gently in one of the free bunks, took a water bottle, and tried hard to make her drink some.
Then I put a wet cloth on her head to try to fight her high fever.
I left Timo by her side to protect her.
The lower part of her left leg is in bad shape. It is probably broken.
I tried to immobilize it with sticks and rope, and I applied some ice to it.
I was satisfied with the job.
My medical skills are still good after all this time.
Yesterday, she slept all day, struggling with fever and nightmares.
Poor girl.
From time to time I went to change the cloth and tried to make her drink some more.
I feel so strange.
Am I really taking care of another human being?
Me? Really?
The world has gone crazy.
Or I'm crazy.
Oh, she opened her eyes.
I have to go.
Wish me luck.
I'm crazy.
My world has gone crazy.
First it was a thriving, lovely dream, a great valley crossed by a fresh river, a calm rest beneath the sun kissed branches of a beautiful old oak.
Then suddenly, I was captured and caged, without light, without air holes, without food, without sleep, under a shower of thunder and blood, for days, months, years, without being able to scream, only to obey.
Then I escaped, far away and angry, to a labyrinth of mirrors, without an escape route, without a definite reality, without certainties, with only an anger that forced me to flee, continuously running away from broken glass as the mirrors exploded in my wake: sharp glass and powerful winds, which wounded my face, chest, legs, and soul. Breaking into a thousand fragments. A thousand feeble flashes that went out.
At last came the darkness, the surrender, the escape. The hopelessness.
And now this.
A sea covered by a strange shimmering blanket, an almost foamy light from the waves, crossed by thousands of floating lights connected to thin submarine wires, under a sky with two moons.
The unattainable lighthouse that brought me here, with its strange, bright yellow light in the distance.
Everything was muted by a deafening whistle in my ears.
This is my first memory since my last crisis.
This sight and the excruciating physical pain.
I awoke under those two foreign moons, in a pool of my own blood. Apparently, I had decided to open a gash along my side with a sliver of wood during my last crisis.
I had returned to the valley of broken mirrors inside my corrupted mind.
I’d probably gotten too upset. In this moment, I do not remember much about that.
It's all so nebulous and confused.
But it does not matter.
Cauterizing the wound with a hot blade wasn’t bad, but I remained very weak, so I dragged myself to bed. Inside the absolute chaos of the cabin. Safe.
I woke up in the morning, or maybe it was afternoon ... and a strong awareness came over me.
This is no longer the Earth.
How do I know?
Well, can you show me a place on Earth where there is a mountain floating in the air?
No, this is not a mirage.
It was a beautiful mountain of pink rock covered by a thick and bizarre vegetation which floated on the water, as if it had been there, unchanged, for millennia, courted by clouds, winds and mists. So real and so absurd.
A colossal tree covered with pink and violet flowers clung greedily and solidly to the rock. From its branches began a cascade of flowers cradled by the wind as they fell gently into the waves of the sea below.
And those strange floating lights? They had turned into a swaying forest of pearly leaves connected to thin wires with strange little bulbs at the top protected by the leaves.
It was in that exact moment that I noticed the hydrophone was still intact, and it was singing.
A symphony of voices never heard before.
An excruciating, heart-breaking melody. Intimate and deep-seated. Ephemeral, yet eternal.
The song of lives, the dance of connections, the stage of dreams.
I had to see, I had to know, I had to understand!
I ran across the deck, leaned over the parapet and ... I saw them.
Extraordinary and majestic white creatures, like the whale Moby Dick, I had never seen before. They had a hypnotic sway. The fins were similar to large silver leaves. The luminous branches that floated in the air, were like fronds of willows. The vivid purple eyes, bright and protruding like lobsters, could be seen throughout the sea.
There were thousands of those swaying creatures.
And then I saw Dilgan and Mismar! They had followed me up here!
They seemed calm and comfortable with these creatures. Indeed, they were playing in the forest of leaves.
As soon as they saw me, they swam close to the ship's keel and greeted me with whistles and splashes.
Of course, I simply had to go inside and get two pieces of cod to throw to them, which they decidedly appreciated.
I needed to recover a bit from this tsunami of news, so I decided to take a couple of days to fix Lys, together with my faithful Timo to keep me company.
In the meantime, I continued to sail towards the lighthouse.
Although it did not seem to ever come close.
Are you really a lighthouse or are you just a star?
Where are you?
Do you really exist or are you just a reflection of my mind?
Now we come to the most important fact, in my opinion.
Two days ago, I happened upon a tremendous shipwreck.
Other people! After almost a month of solitude!
What a strange thought. After all, it was me that went away.
The ship seemed to have been sunk by a terrible storm.
Could it have been the same storm that got me lost in this place?
A mass of burned wood, floating supplies, sheets, ropes ...
And despair.
So much, too much despair.
How many men and women had been taken away by that shipwreck?
How many families, standing on the ports’ piers, were still waiting for them?
How many lives had been destroyed and changed by a single storm?
I had to do something.
I had to see if there were any survivors, and maybe save some extra supplies.
I had nearly exhausted all my supplies.
"I wonder if I can find some coffee," I thought foolishly and a little greedily.
We've been lost for too long, eh Timo?
I used the nets to drag up some pieces of wood from the sunken ship onto the deck and built a rudimentary platform for us.
Then I got down on this floating platform. Definitely unstable.
It was an incredible emotion.
I was just a finger’s breadth away from the sea.
I was just one step away from the enemy.
After all this time.
Dilgan and Mismar came out in front of me; it was the first time we were face to face.
I raised a hand to try to stroke them, but Dilgan got scared and plunged while Mismar continued to stare at me, puffing.
They were really big seen from so close.
And so it was, that for the first time in my life, I caressed a white-beaked dolphin.
I spent a few hours collecting those strange supplies with an improvised hand net.
Dilgan and Mismar instead enjoyed playing among the remains of the ship.
They were pleasant company.
I felt so strange.
I felt almost relieved for the first time in a long time.
All that sudden motion put a strain on my wound.
But it was something that had to be done.
Everything proceeded calmly. I did not find other people, or worse, in the wreck area, fortunately. Until Dilgan found a "surprise".
A girl.
An unconscious girl, clinging to a wooden board.
A girl who was barely breathing and was burned by the sun.
But was alive.
I took her on board with great difficulty.
"Hold on!" I shouted at her.
She burned like a teapot over a fire.
And she was just barely moving.
Poor girl.
Who knows how much suffering she had to endure.
I placed her gently in one of the free bunks, took a water bottle, and tried hard to make her drink some.
Then I put a wet cloth on her head to try to fight her high fever.
I left Timo by her side to protect her.
The lower part of her left leg is in bad shape. It is probably broken.
I tried to immobilize it with sticks and rope, and I applied some ice to it.
I was satisfied with the job.
My medical skills are still good after all this time.
Yesterday, she slept all day, struggling with fever and nightmares.
Poor girl.
From time to time I went to change the cloth and tried to make her drink some more.
I feel so strange.
Am I really taking care of another human being?
Me? Really?
The world has gone crazy.
Or I'm crazy.
Oh, she opened her eyes.
I have to go.
Wish me luck.
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