Some mornings are rougher than others.

It's a December morning somewhere, the light filtering through grey dreary clouds and showering everything with its particular brand of purgatory. You feel terrible, like the weight of the world is coming down on you and it's not letting up any time soon. You are alone and can be expected to be alone for the forseeable future. This is not a bad thing in it of itself. Combined, these things make for a rougher morning. You think of the tidy catchphrase you use to express this to others "Some mornings are rougher than others." You look out the window at the red car, the less-than-stellar bar across the street, and the dead bed of flowers. You are contemplating your next move for the day. [[Wallow for a few more hours.]] [[Write about it in your journal.]] [[Study.]]

You begin to replay every little hurt you've felt over the past six hours on repeat. Over and over. Your body feels heavy and you go home and crawl into the warm bed and sink into it. You sink for a very long time. You fall asleep and wake up at 8 PM to a few texts from concerned friends. You turn your phone off and lay in bed and stare at the ceiling until morning, with the idea in mind that work will help get your mind off of everything. In the murky twilight of the half-sleep state, you hear and know a voice at some point in history scolds "Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?" You are not acting in accordance with that sentiment right now. You are succumbing to the disease.

You write about it in your journal successfully. Although you have some trouble with deciding how much to say and how much to keep locked up. Names are tricky because you know when you reread it you'll fill in any blanks mentally, so you really don't need to be too explicit. You can even use just symbols to express ideas which gets at the essence of things. It's not the peak form of expression but hey, it's something right? That took up about twenty minutes, but you still have a long morning ahead of you. (if: $studied is 1)[ You jot down some quick notes about your study session. Surprisingly you write more about Amma Theodora than about the man you were directly studying. Writing in your journal helped you piece together that the advice of Amma Theodora is resonating with you for a reason. You are battling Acedia tooth and nail. You resolve that you'll need to study Evagrius' Logismoi to avoid paying the full cost of the path you've chosen. You see a dog outside the cafe. It is cute. You smile at it. ] (if: $trying is 1)[ You mention in your journal that you reached out unsuccessfully. You erase the word unsuccessfully because you realize that it's very early and that you did in-fact succeed at 'reaching out' you just did not get the immediately gratifying result. You resolve to be more patient with yourself and others throughout the day. ] [[Study.]] [[Reach out to your friends.]] (set: $expression to 1)

You text your friend. He doesn't respond. It's pretty early. Good try though, it shows you're fighting the black hole nesting in your chest. [[Study.]] [[Write about it in your journal.]] (set: $trying to 1)

You read about the life of Correggio for a half an hour. One of the quotes sticks out to you but you don't like to mark up the book so you internally resolve to remember it. Correggio had made his appeal to the King in Lyons and was now attempting to appeal to the Papacy with promises that were unrealistic to say the least. He promised to augur for him most favorable astrological conditions, to provide him elixirs that would stave off death and misfortune, and would in a spiritual and alchemical way protect him. But Correggio, despite the evidence that he was not a pauper and had quite a bit of wealth himself, begged at the very end for the Pope's protection, saying "Protect, protect me... and I will protect you. Bestow your help on our Giovanni Mercurio, and I will assist you." It's a contradiction and undermines his offer, but it hurts to read because I understand. I have the tools I need to keep going. I have the friends, the family, the expression. I can find beauty in nature or in fiction. I can find honesty in everything and accept it. At the end of the day though, I am unmoored like Mercurius. I am without a banner or a title, I am without protection and patronage. I am watched but not by any form of guardian. Mercurius may have wanted a patron, especially one so lofty, to protect him from the barbs of the world at large but he in begging letters made wild claims and contradictions which dissolved any perception of dignity or authority he may have had over his particular domain. He shot himself in the foot, so to speak, in his attempt at reaching out. Or perhaps he never wanted to do anything more than attempt an appeal? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We all want to feel safe and protected but at what cost? You begin to get a sense that your feelings are probably getting in the way of your studies. (if: $expression is 1 and $trying is 1 and $studied is 1)[ [[Reflect.]] ] [[Write about it in your journal.]] (set: $studied to 1)

You know your friends will text you at some point in a matter of hours. You know that you've got the wise words of Amma Theodora to guard you. You know that you have the humility to reach out when it hurts. You know that you are not afraid to contradict yourself if it's honest. You begin to feel [[better]].

<:// H 3 L L 0 TH3R3. S000000 N1C3 T0 S33 Y0V H3R3 !!! F0VND [[7H15]] IN THE C0D3 0F TH15 DR34M-M3M0RY. D0N'T 54Y 3Y3 N3V3R D1D Y0V 4NY F4V0R5, F1LTH !!!

<:// gen.-MEMORY-.9321838213808.exe > <:// OUTPUT: The ragged bones of the loose lipped old man moved beneath his dry, wrinkled skin as he clasped a small stone pot between his arthritic fingers. Slowly, he scraped his yellowed long fingernails against the edges of the bowl and collected the remaining dust, plunging his dusted fingernail into his dry puckered mouth. As the old man moved, the string of hollow bones clacked against one another on strings of Redvar sinew tied into adornments. They dangled from his neck, arms, and waist. All were aged and bleached from years upon years of exposure and each was carved into the approximation of cardinal animals or great people and their features deep-carved enough to have staved off weathering and erosion. Some had been painted once and had long since faded to their fateful white, but the bones painted or not were the only thing he wore unlike the boy who wore rough-spun brown thatchweed to shield his body from the harsh fires of the sun. It was noon and the heat was as it had always been. Unbearable. The old man sat on a truly ancient Redvarii tunic whose fur lost all distinction of color betwixt the tufts, while the boy sat bare on scalding dry ground. If he tried to sit on the hems of his tunic, the kinwoman would scream and scold, then shame would sink in. The old man and the boy were finally wearing their patchy yet complete tunic of red, brown, and purple fur. Both had caught the Redvarii, snapped their feeble necks, and skinned the dextrous but ineffectual beats. In unison, they tanned skin after skin, day after day, until the deed was done. Each time the fur was ruined or the Redvar was handled improperly, both would cease their interminable toil and hand their Redvarii off to the chosen kinwoman who agreed to see them through the Matching. The kinwoman sat in the shade of the clay-make shelter and watched the Matching, day in and day out. She watched for slight faults and grave errors, but found only the usual mishandlings of the Redvarii, the brief noise of a sand-worn throat, and the glancing bites from the more fiercely defensive Redvarii. Sometimes when the buzzards produced the divine pattern of the tailed circle or the 'tear-drop' she would approach the toiling pair and silently lift the waterskin to each of their lips, elder then to youth in that order. Yet now, they sat in the beating heat and wore their fur tunics, both identical and unique. The colors may have been different, but the make was the same. The same sure punctures with the bone-needle, the gut-strings neatly tying the furs together unseen from the outside but visible from within. The boy had felt the Sight strike him multiple times while he toiled through the Matching. One moment he saw the cracks in the earth fill with clean, pure life-water and in but a blink and a breath, it was as arid and crackling as it had always been, only the cracks resumed their usual place with a more solicitous thirst for the water of the eye and vein and heart. In another moment of Sight, he saw his cousin Alannys's face upon the body of a newly captured Redvar. His palm shook ever so slightly yet it was enough to make Dyfnwall the Aged to shake his bald, red, and peeling head back and forth before handing off his own hard-won Redvar to Halaen Hooshreeks. The Matching was nearly complete and Halaen was shifting in the sling-seat with anticipation. The boy kept his eyes on Dyfnwall and Dyfnwall kept his eyes on the boy. Their eyes had to meet. Always. The first thing he learned was how to look with both-eyes at the both-eyes of someone else. His learnings then went onto hunting the small rodential beasts through burrows in searing heat. They taught him to to skin the fur in a very specific and orderly fashion, then they taught him how to remove the sinews and how to arrange them upon black slate in the searing noon-day heat for them to grow dry and taut. They taught how to remove all the bones of the small beast and to create the symbols of the Tander with them in the dry earth. Finally, they taught him how to present the good meat and wretched refuse properly to the attendant. The last learning was the way by which they sewed with bone-make needles and sinew-strings the tunic that would be his role, life, and bearing. The alderman's eyes would have grown watery if water had been permitted to pass into his body for the past three days. As it had not, he felt the perennial sting in the red corners of his eyes and the eternal prickly scratch in his throat unaided by reflexive swallowing of non-existent saliva. Dyfnwall the Aged was silent which was a quality Halaen regarded well. Most aldermen were raving mad by this time, oftentimes frightened and frightening their Match enough to cause a brief respite for the waterskin to touch their cracked lips and to quell their inner-selves for the next part of their journey. Yet Dyfnwall was silent. He knew if he wanted but the caress of life-water, he could feign a faint or blather idly, but he remained silent and watched the boy as his lips began to turn a terrible shade of blue. The boy was only watching Dyfnwall's eyes. Eyes that were weary with his many years as the Bonecounter of the Tander. Dyfnwall's eyelids would droop then grow wide, alternating with his heavy breaths until finally his chest sunk and was unable to rise. The boy could see the brief flicker of twilight in the old man's eyes. A terrible lucidity, a fear or bravery he couldn't guess, but as sure as the sun shines, the old man fell backward and the young boy mirrored him. Halaen leapt to her feet slipping on her thatchweed sandals and stepping onto the scalding ground with little hesitation. "Systal!" she shrieked, "Rise!" And so he did, alone. He sat as a boy and he rose as a Bonecounter. A bonecounter he would always be. "We go now... the angels will take him in flesh and when their role is done, his will be the first bones you count," she spoke, taking his calloused young hand into hers, speaking with sharp, jerky tones, "His will be the first bones you carve and the ones you will always wear until the distant time when you sit on his end of the Matching." They walked side by side. The boy had been permitted to wear his Redvar sandals which eased his walk back to the Tander. Halaen would continue to explain what would be done with the body of his father until they arrived at the Tander and he escorted to his new sleeping-place at the Bonecounter's Hut. >