Glad you could join us for the next jarring episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…
The approaching shadow spread over Elliot, blanketing him with a dark so deep he knew it was Death. He closed his eyes, apologized with all his heart for the time he’d told his little brother that the salt lick they’d happened across was an icy slip-and-slide, and he prepared to die.
Glad you could join us for the next intriguing episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…
The shocking splash was a cold, dead hand slapping Elliot smack in the face, yanking his breath right out of his lungs. Water filled his shell, now a brick dragging him belly-up to the bottom of a crushing grave. His life swam before his eyes; it looked a lot like bubbles.
Glad you could join us for the next captivating episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…
The ground had changed from a hardened white crust, scraping beneath his foot like the shards of a broken dream, to a rough carpet of crunchy leaves scratching softly at his seeping sole, but Elliot didn’t notice.
His single-minded purpose had pushed him to the peak, a glistening trail of crystalized slime painting his path over the sun-baked clay, drawing a portrait of imminent death as he slipped in and out of conscious awareness, his brain so shriveled and fatigued that the air before his eyes seemed to shimmer with hallucinations.
One of them spoke.
Glad you could join us for the next beguiling episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…
Feeling an itch for excitement in the very soul of his single-footed self, Elliot forged a path up the hill that stretched further than even his fully extended eyes could see.
As his muscles, undulating beneath his glimmering skin, drove him ever forward, the sun rolled lazily across the sky, slowly stirring the air in its wake to blow a warm dry breath over his streamlined form, mocking his efforts with the very real threat of dehydration. His confidently rapid gait struggled against the parching wind and the thirst it left behind, and his progress slowed to the pace of a sleeping sloth.
A dark tendril of doubt crept over the crest of this endless uphill landscape. Should he admit defeat and turn back? Can a person ever go home again?
One year ago, I stepped off the cliff and fell into Space, Time, and Raspberries.
It was the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge, and I finally saw a reason to set up a site of my own. When I’d signed up for a WordPress account two years earlier, I didn’t really anticipate becoming a blogger. I only did it so I could comment on a friend’s posts. (Huh. It didn’t seem so silly back then.)
We recently received a form letter rejection of ENHANCED from an agency based in Tacoma, where 41″ of rain fall every year. That’s 2″ more than the national average, and doesn’t even count Tacoma’s annual 4″ of snow.
My point is that Tacoma is green. Emerald green.
A reminder: When Robb and I embarked on the Big Game Agent Safari, I decided to commemorate each rejection by making something beautiful.
Gapawa published a post today titled A Bit of Honesty. He likened himself to Sisyphus, futilely pushing a big rock up a hill only to have it roll back down for him to push back up the hill. Day after day after day. Gapawa concludes the way out is beneath oceans of fear where your dream — whatever that means to you — is carefully concealed.
“It can be reached. But you must be courageous. You must be willing to accept help. You must be strong enough to surrender. Sweet dreams…” Gapawa
I left a comment.
“If you dive into the oceans of fear often enough, you can locate the shallows of experience where you can dream awake and put down your rock.
The first time was the scariest.” Me
He asked me if I’d care to share some of my experience, and my response grew into a post. With credit to Gapawa for prodding me to put it into words, I decided it would be more polite to publish it here than to fill his space with a post-length comment.
Here is my reply:
(This morning, I commented on grandfathersky’s post “The paradox of consciousness – part II“. My comment stands on its own here.)
I wonder if questioning is a cycle of humanity’s evolution. Surges of exploration, scientific discovery, extraordinary creativity in any of the arts all seem to coincide. Golden Ages like the Renaissance or the Age of Aquarius. Revolutions. Times when dissatisfaction saturates enough people’s lives that we reach a tipping point where the collective will is finally strong enough to question the rules, Authority, what we think we know, what we believe. And we search for new perspectives, trying this philosophy or that, new music, new art, new medicines, no medicines, new governments, anarchy, new views of the stars . . .
Till we reach a new plateau where we sit, complacent. Tired of questioning or simply believing there is no need to question. Willing to accept the lie in believe. A new Dark Age. We are comfortable.
Until we aren’t.
I suspect the world is showing us just how uncomfortable we have become, and dissatisfaction has reached the 98th monkey.
Space, Time, and Raspberries 
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