Morning broke through the oversized windows of the Yang-tzu bath house and crested the stack of papers that Alderik had dragged into the humid room with him. Though they weren't wet, damp, or moist, they had gained the quality one could attribute to a piece of paper than is not yet wet and also not yet dry. The paper seemed to be existing in a anomalous state where it was neither one nor the other, but existed as a combination yet not at the same time. Though the purpose of interrupting his routine for a bath house excursion had been to relax and take his focus away from the work at hand, though he could not comprehend a state of relaxation that did not include some kind of reading or something to spur along his mind. In truth, the Anglian hardly knew what relaxation really meant. Even all alone in a pool full of the steaming spring water he was considering the state of being of a piece of paper and fretting the ends of the leather cord that made up the necklace he carried with him everywhere, or watching the waves bounce off of him and the worn stonework, then crash into each other and fracture into an immediate calm or crescendo into an array of watery scattershot. Even in the steaming water that threatened to break apart the mechanisms and rust the metal pieces he couldn't consider taking it off for more than a moment to douse his face or soak his hair. It had become a piece of him, like the goofy spectacles or his favorite pair of lecture shoes. He smiled when he saw its reflection in the mirror and clung to it in times of distress, and in the moment when the world dissolved around him and he was left clinging to the necklace he got as closed to relaxation as he likely ever would.
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It had been years since Alderik had even set foot on the grainy soil of the Yang-tzu Isles, but he still recalled every detail of his first encounter with the Chien-ji people in their homeland down to the color of their woven tunics. He had very fond memories of the place, as the setting for his first and only novel of fiction that was not written for children and a reference of several footnotes in many of the academic works in the years following including his magnum opus, Chasing Dragons. The aging Anglian sat in his office behind the massive desk wrought of bits of wood from all the places he had been too across Aloria and drummed his fingers against a particular rough patch on the top. He leaned in to inspect it, brushing away the corpses of the same letters he had written and rewritten in cyclical insanity before his mouth flatlined. He would need to get that sanded, but today was not the time to go searching for a carpenter. In a fit of distaste he lurched up from his desk and crossed the room to make his way towards one of the many windows that sat agape, their shutters open like the mouths of so many thirsty beggars and their window sills as parched, stonework tongues. Rain thudded against the ground outside and on the rooftops, two droplets crashing into the ground at the same moment and forcing out waves that bellowed out before striking each other. He noted the interaction, and once again it brought back his fantasies of the bathhouse he longed to slink back into and the friends he had forgotten and forgotten again to contact.
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He missed the Misery by a week, and that thought sat like a Winter Solstice fruit cake in the cavern of his stomach. Maybe, he mused, if he had found himself on the other side there would've been something he could have done, or a detail he could have learned. All that remained were scattered tinders of thoughts striking each other but failing to light any sort of illumination in his head. What to do, what to do? What was there that they hadn't tried? That he hadn't already considered hundreds of times? He had always been a fan of puzzles, but it appeared almost like they were playing without the pieces. That they had unearthed a box from somewhere deep within Grandmother Time's closet and blown off the dust, piecing it together but left to never know what the image it was that they were creating. He didn't like that. Alderik found himself seated once again behind the same desk, this time drug into the grand office space of the Expeditionary League Building in place of the plain, oaken monstrosity he had removed and given to the almshouse weeks ago. The Anglian trailed a hand through the salt and peppering hair that hadn't been properly cut in months, if using a penknife can even be considered properly cut and not merely termed 'mangled', before grasping at a handful and giving it a quick yank in frustration. As he raised his head up and reached out for the mug of tea that had grown cold hours ago he hand slapped against the side and caused it to go toppling all over the desk and a stack of letters that would never be sent anyway. He leapt up, cursing his own lack of grace and plucking his handkerchief from the breast pocket of his waistcoat before bending down to clean up whatever liquid culminated on the floor. In the instant, the droplets of amber liquid crashing to the ground and then sending waves into each other struck him with a moment of epiphany. He leaned back, disregarding the new stain he would garner from leaving the spill uncleaned and sat with his mouth open wide, and what he needed was beyond a dry towel or a day in the spa.
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