Epic Adventures!

It had been one week since he had banished the dire monkeys on his back into a distant, heavily guarded corner of his living room.  As their influence on his life waned, newer, fresher and ultimately more helpful monkeys were reared in their stead.  He had taken up a new job that week; rather, he was doing his old job in a new location.  For seven years he had traveled ten leagues per day round trip to and from his place of business.  He had recently made the decision to instead toil at a location a mere two leagues away - well within the distance his bicycle would take him briskly when the sun was shining.  While his previous profession had him working outside the city limits, in an area devoid of culture and decency (the “suburbs” they were called), his new place of business was right in the heart of the city - in an area so densely packed it was essentially a “loop” of giant buildings enclosed by a small river.  

This change was turned out to be a quite beneficial one.  The energy in this new locale was so completely different from that which he had grown accustomed; the air seemed to pulsate with opportunity and promise.  He was suddenly both ashamed at how he had been living his life so incorrectly and ecstatic that he had finally brought his head above water, once again able to breathe the sustaining breath of someone who aspires to something greater.  

However, something even more profound was different.  He loved his work more than ever, and this change was undeniably a good thing, but for the first time in years he realized that he could not go on doing it forever.  It was like making love to a partner who one knows cannot abide forever, trying to enjoy the moment while it was painfully obvious that the moment would not last.  It was an inspiration of endings.

His weaknesses had been locked away in a strongbox, sealed with a magical writ.  It was only three days hence before he faltered.  Having little else to do that day, and suffering an ache due to excessive ale consumption the eve before, he found himself staring at the box.  He knew its contents would aid him in his hour of need.  Long over the course of the day he persisted, holding strong against this phantom threat.  He could hear it calling out to him as he sat, trying to concentrate on any of his more productive hobbies.  

As if in a trance, he undid the magical seal which had kept these items from their ill-minded servant.  Indulging himself the rest of the day, he could think of little else besides the scale of his failure to prevent these wretched things from ruining his slowly improving life.  He knew then that it would not be enough to simply seal these things away close at hand.  They must be destroyed.  

On his trip to the market the next day to buy barley and chamomile, he packed up the impious items into a small satchel.  After traveling several leagues down the road, he found a nice pile of refuse, and without a single word of acknowledgement, threw his unholy treasure within.  Walking swiftly away, it was all he could hope for to never see it again.  His companions, he knew, carried similar items, and he would undoubtedly have to confront it again soon, but he would no longer regularly possess his own store of that which had crippled his life for so many years.  

It was time.

For an age he had been bound to two things: metal and herb.  The metal, hewn from silicon, platinum and a host of less precious materials, had kept him spellbound since his early youth.  It had been his tradition of resignation to place himself upon that plush altar, the “couch”, and manipulate this cold device for many decades.  It was the middle of his second decade which brought him the secret ingredient: that strange yet somehow familiar leaf, which allowed him to induce a trance upon himself; this trance further deepened his reverence for the metal and plastic box.  It was the bringing together of these two components which had only sped his downfall.

It was customary to participate in this ritual on occasion, at first, only when he foresaw several hours on end with naught better to do.  A momentary diversion, something to bring just a bit of relief to a difficult journey was how he viewed it initially.  For many years, this ritual was practiced on occasion, and its results were therapeutic in these small doses.  However, upon reaching a full adulthood, he found to be more and more true the fact that this ritual was no longer being performed when time allowed; rather, it was being performed recklessly, and to the detriment of the more important duties he started neglecting as a result.  Here he was; strong, competent and wise, ritualistically mutilating his mind at this foul altar of lightning-box and glowing screen.  Naught but his fingers moved for hours on end, and with only one eye open, his powerful mind began to atrophy in the absence of noble challenge.

It was one week before his three decades and first year, and at midnight he executed his plan which had been only hours in the making, but years in need.  Kissing the resinous glass tube in which he vaporized this leaf, he swore to himself that this would be his last sacrifice, and that these evils should be locked away forever, where their song of sloth and weariness could no longer taint his noble heart.  Almost numbly (being the desired effect of the leaf), he took his small collection of glassware, his ample stores of herb, and the two small metal and plastic boxes before mentioned, and he laid them to rest in a small tomb, not perhaps the most fitting, but out of the way enough that no traveler should accidentally happen upon them, and only he would know where to reclaim them, should he falter in spirit.    

In this box he lay his once-needed treasures, and, with a small piece of paper and pencil, he transcribed:

“Let that which is buried here

forever remain fallow,

that hearts and minds may seek

a treasure of priceless worth.”

and laid this writ across the seam of the tomb to seal the corrupted artifacts inside forever.  Daily was once their use, and he could not bring himself to destroy them completely; was it the lingering effects of these items on him that kept him from doing so?  He thought, in the back of his mind, that he could envision again a time when these items were needed and could be put to productive use, though he could not at the time envision exactly when that should be.  

There these items now sleep, their proximity a constant reminder to him how close to the edge of the precipice he walks, that precipice which separates the two almost identical yet profoundly different states: relaxation and laziness.

He had been a long time in the wilderness.  Not the wilderness as it is generally known, that is; instead, the wilderness into which all who roam without direction ultimately find themselves idling.  Dark were those years he had lived in the jungle and on the ranges, in that limbo between the ages of one score and five and three decades, wandering purposelessly save for preferring the path of less resistance.  Coming to his senses after this time was a bit difficult, his eyes needed adjusting to the newly bright sun which had always been there but had fallen out of his regular acknowledgement.  It was as if waking up from a long senseless dream; suddenly realizing how far he had drifted towards that great yawning chasm of complacency.  He took a long, solemn minute reflecting on his bad fortune, and then took two minutes in quiet reverence to have been given the opportunity to amend.  Straightening himself up, he dusted off his clothes (ashen and worn from his long time in the wilderness) and set out.

When he had first wandered into this forest, everything in his life had been set.  A fair maiden at his homestead, a strong body and indomitable will, two loyal feline familiars, and the best ales brewed in his part of the countryside.  So good were these things, and so lost did he find himself within their charms, that he had begun to believe that his life had peaked and was in wane; his mantel full of the trophies of one who has reached his journey’s end.  It was the reliance on these few early successes which had stupefied him so.  Clouded by initial victory, he had put his feet up and resigned.  

Returning at once to his homestead from his corner of the wilderness, he was horrified to find his once peaceful estate in ruins, fires still smouldering in charred piles of his ruined dreams.  Shedding a tear for all that had been, he knew that this misfortune was both punishment and gift for his laziness.  Both punishment and gift, as at once the pain of seeing his life in shambles was both defeating and inspiring, and he felt something within him stir as it hadn’t for many years.  This was the only thing that would have made him realize his mistake.  Only through losing everything was the real treasure awakened: O perfect happiness that is the desire to improve one’s lot.  

It was not going to be easy, he knew, but for once in a long while he felt that the challenges in his life were not to beat him down, but to sustain him.  He had known himself full of the potential for good deeds once, and surely this lost artifact of his virtue was still within him.  Facing the greatest adversary of his time, he steeled himself to face the obstacles ahead, as he could already taste the sweetness of his future victories.  This is his story.