Aria’s Journal 4/22

[000Curiosity]

Today absolutely sucked. I am an awful person. I’m on the verge of having a panic attack. I’ve done something awful and people are mad at me. I want so badly to run away and just, I want to stop. I want to stop being here and never have existed here. I know I’m still new and that I’m still learning but I’m so bad at everything. It’s dumb to think that I should be the best right now but I’m keeping everyone from having fun and being happy. Its just like back at school. Its taking all I have in me not to revert back to sitting in the corner hoping that the teacher doesn’t notice I’m not in a group so I don’t have to deal with the side eyes and sighs of the people i get stuck with. I really think it’d be better if I could just fade away. Im overreacting again. Am I? I ruined the consortiums chance at getting some money because I panicked when a thief held me hostage. And then a guard person was mad at all of us for killing a guy, but he was on the wanted board! Im too soft for the mercenaries but to hard for normal life. I don’t know how to fix this problem. And here I am making this all about me when one of our townspeople is CAPTURED! I am literally worse than useless, I am making this situation worse.

Can I cast calm emotions on myself? I feel like that’s the one good thing that happened today. I learned a new spell, I was gonna say that might able to help us but I feel like I can’t help anybody. I wanted to help people, that’s why I became an adventurer. I’ve looked death, tragedy, and abuse in the eye, why is it so hard now? I’m a selfish coward. I want to change, I want to be different. I want people to like me. What’s wrong with me? What’s my fatal flaw? I’ll fix it, I swear I will. I just wish people would lay it out for me, yell at me. Tell me how annoying and egotistical i am so I can let go of this tiny hope that they like me.

I hear music. The music that Daniel, Jack, and I used to listen to before going to the playground to act out the adventures we would have. It’s soothing in a cold way. Like a healing balm placed on a wound, freezing you until it feels warm, then hot. Too hot. I can’t dwell on the past, there’s no use. I’m here now. I just have to keep trying. I can be of help, be it as an adventurer or a sacrifice

[Ben]

[TFAMM,BIDY: Tales from a Monkey Mind, But In Dreams, Y’know?!]

As you drift deeper into sleep, the same message plays in your thoughts.

You find yourself seated on a field of grass that shifts in colors. The land is fog-shrouded with the clouds of dream-stuff.

In the distance, shadows and the incessant voices grow louder.

One of them runs towards you. It’s figure a grey and green mottled, misshapen thing. It hefts an axe and barrels towards you, screaming the same words that played in your head before you first drifted off, “you suck, you suck, you SUUU- urckk!”

A blade appears from out of its chest. It looks down, and dissipates into green Mist and effluvia.

A figure appears behind where the creature had been. It’s image is indistinct at first, but as it resolves, it seems furred, with a long tail.

It shakes the blade, to be rid of what remains..

“dude”, it says, it’s like that was made a boogers or somethin”..

Shaking the blade again, they sheath it into a scabbard far shorter than the blade had been. It seems to fold into itself, till only the handle remains.

“Dudess, if you prefer”, He says, “or maybe Duden? I’m still tryin to get a handle on proper terms, man!”

“Crud.. uhh.. woman? Person? Yeah.. I say man and Dude a lot. Hope ya can forgive me.. it’s a habit.. an I got a LOT of.. habits…”

“May I sit?”, he says, drawing closer.

Another figure runs in from the distance, screaming “everything you do is wrong, everything you do is wr-ackkkk”

Your seated companion, who, in the soft focus of your mind’s eye, seems like a humanoid monkey, unsheathes his sword to slice through the oncoming “screamer”. He attempts to re-sheath it in a fluid motion, but then pauses, shakes effluvia off the blade, shakes it again.. says “maaaan!” disappointedly as he cleans the blade with a cloth, and then re-sheathes it carefully..

“Greetings and salutations my dudess”, the Monkey says. “My name’s Hanu.. but like.. you can call me yer “head Monkey” if y’like man.. Crud.. there I go again”

“Anyway”, He continues “I heard ya, when you were like battlin the goblins, dudess. Y’know? The head screamers?..”

“Worthless sack of sh-aaaaaaagh!”, one screams, as it runs up towards you. Hanu’s blade slices it in two, and it dissolves into butterflies that fly away, crying “wheee!”

“That was Larken’s idea..”
“cool huh?”, Hanu says.

He shifts his seating and looks out at the mists of dreaming..

“So, like, I ended up here.. comin ta visit ya, yknow? And to share some thoughts with yers.. Cause I think, maybe, the reason I can find my way inta yer headspace is cause I’ve been here too, maaan.”

He clears his throat.
“Yeah.. you get my meanin, I hope”

“I got messages for ya, dudess.. drops in the pond that send out ripples, ya dig?”

“Like, it’s okay ta not be okay.. welcome to this thing called life. It ain’t over till it’s over. And, now and then, just take in the journey.”

“ Ain’t nobody and no thing does you as well as YOU. An you an everybody else out there is still learning who we are.”

“So what we label MISTAKES are just future signposts for when we next follow this trail, right?”

“Did I lose ya there, man?”

“crap, here come another one”
Another goblin runs in, screaming “worthless, worthless, worthless!”
Hanu stands and cuts it into three pieces, which form new goblins, smaller now, running around screaming in tinny voices “worthless, worthless, worthless”.
Until Hanu kicks them up into the air, one at a time, then extends his sword, catching each one on its point. They slide down and dissipate..
“Whoa man”, he says, “I made a shishkadork!”

He sits and strokes his beard..
“Ya know, it occurs to me that this sword shouldn’t work on these things… I mean, it’s supposed to be a demon slaying sword. A ghost hunting sword. A thing that’s there to, well,… I guess it does maybe make sense… Because what ARE demons, except maybe just the things that we’re scared of, or regret, or that like, hold us back and hold us down man?”

“Like, I got ‘em! They talk to me too… It’s hard sometimes ta listen ta anything else”

“You know there was something they used to tease me about at the temple where I was growing up… You know what they call the thoughts that kinda run away with your head, and like, chatter for attention? They call it “monkey mind”. I uhh.. I got called that a lot..”

He gazes out on the landscape of your thoughts..

“Quieter here, now.. ya dig? Our minds are settlin, maybe?”

“So, when things would get too much at the temple, I’d slip out out to other areas of the mountain, go find a quiet space and just sits, and sometimes thinks. Some times I’d not thinks too much.. which is something I’m good at, but, whatever… and one of those times I came across this poem and I think maybe, maybe it was written for me to see.”
“Those who claim
To know their mind
Still cannot hold it forth
And show its weight

Those whose minds
Are weighted by thought
Cannot grasp the shadows
That give it form

Yet those who battle
In fields of thought
Learn lessons pure
And weighted in substance

In seeking wonder
At great cost
Their mind may wander
Yet never become lost”

“It got me started, writing poetry of my own on the sides of “Cold Mountain” in the lands of our temple. I wrote under the name “Sheng Wu”.. He laughs

“It means “not Wise”, or “lost sage”.. I mean.. it’s all the same.. Who knows what the big ultimate TRUTHY truth is anyways, man?”

“Over time, it seemed like the poetry wrote itself.. I even don’t REMEMBER writing some of my poems.. I think my tail writes FOR me, man!”

“But.. I started to see poetic replies to my own stuff.. One of the poems even encouraged me to leave the temple, so I’d continue to grow and develop.. to FIND myself. And, I figured somethin out, dudess.. The master of my temple.. I think he’d been writing to me the whole time, in the one language that I really could dig.. ya dig?”

“So here’s what I’m gonna do”

Hanu draws his long sword out of its too tiny scabbard and sets it on the floor of your mind.
“I’m going to leave this here for you, in case you need it. It can be in several places at once, man, sorta like my mind.”

“I’m gonna tell ya that there’s plenty of people out there, especially in this here little pocket of the worlds, that’re going through the same thoughts, at least sometimes.. though, either you know that already, or it just takes a bit for your heart to knock on the door of yer headspace and tell ya it’s alright to trust in the shelter of others”

“An I’m gonna say, that it’s even okay ta let them voices be there from time to time. But they don’t have ta be drivin the bus, ya dig?”

“Oh.. sorry dudess.. wrong time.. I lose track a time sometimes. But still, I end up when I need ta be”

“So like, I ain’t far.. and other friends are even nearer.. and the stronger you get at fightin those goblins that pop off in yer head. The better you can share in the fight with others, spread the love, and realize.. we ain’t alone, man, we just get lost sometimes.. and need to be reminded a how to get back on the path to seeing what’s new, and what now.”

“later dude.. at least.. till later becomes now..”

“who knows, man.. maybe one of us will even remember this when we need to “

He fades into the smoke of your dreams as your eyes flicker open, yet even then, something remains..

Beside your resting place, somewhere between half asleep and fully woken. The dust of dreaming forms words that dissipate as sunlight flickers nearer..

A fool or a Sage
The driven, the dreamer

Neither seen true
By their essence alone

Fortune or failure
Loss or lesson

Each one defines
How the other is known

Where does the Road
Have an end or beginning

How do we tell
When our tale has been told?

Don’t seek me
To tell it

I’m naught
But an idiot

No wisdom
Just wander

And let it unfold

– Sheng Wu

[Author]

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