From Linear's Journal


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People are funny sometimes, when under extraordinary pressure. Like when we broke out our futile swords to fight a squid larger that the whole darned ship and tried to poke it. I guess it's not funny since so many perished doing so.

As soon as I sensed what aspect of nature was going to rule, I turned to what friends I could see and motioned to run. I could see Angry Pipe had the same idea. Turns out a bunch of us did. Smart crowd we are. Angry Pipe and I ran like hell to where Big G housed his boat, knowing he's smart enough to be launching his personal rowboat.

When we got there, he'd already shoved off. I'm thinking squid-jump-squid-jump, so I took a friggin (excuse me) leap into the vast ocean and plunged right next to the small boat. To my delight, Garfer was surprisingly accommodating.

Then came the odd Monkish human with the Elvish ways. A hell-of-a leap. Leggett, who is ever-preoccupied found himself faced with nature in all its splendor. I mean, not only was he forced to reckon with the ocean and all its secrets, but with his own mortality. He can't swim. But he jumped. The man's got courage. "Balls," I think humans say. Oddly, another fella landed near the boat with a huge splash (that is, aside form the dead body the squid hurled into our boat). Wad's his name.

We rowed and bailed our butts off ("fuc.kin' as.ses off," in human) to get away from the ship. I turned and watched a great architectural feat get pulled under a greater architectural feat. A design intended to skip along to surface of nature sometimes finds itself meeting its depth. Sorta like how the Parsin Beetle finds itself yanked into the deep crevices of the bark of the Vaccuparsin Tree.

It seems I might be mistaken about the humans. Yes, they are crude and base in their dealings with each other, but I am beginning to see that there is an underlying code they live by that drives their everyday lives. It is hard to explain. It seems like they are existing by a code of honor established long ago by a very different kind of humans, in a time when "right" and "wrong," or what is good, might have been more clearly discernable.

Today, the humans I've met seem to interpret those age-old ethics with a great deal of freedom. I cannot think of anything "wrong" with that except that what is at stake among them is, well, trust. But I am learning that they simply have a different understanding, albeit a seemingly slippery one.

To be continued...