Dear Minty,
My innocent slumbers were interrupted time and time again last night by the sounds of revelry. So many people just … out there doing fun things still while I must be confined. The sound of their happiness could not be dampened by the firmly shut windows, the drawn blinds, the covers pulled over my head. I could still hear their companionable singing and their inebriated laughter. So close. It would be the work of just a moment to rush out in my pantaloons clutching a bottle of aqua vitae. “Behold, I have chosen to join your revelry, strangers! Fear me not, despite my power. Come, partake of this fine bottle with me, and let us orgy wildly here now while we still live!”
I would sleep so much better with just a tiny sliver of mandrake root to add to the sleepy infusion. Remember I mentioned it before? Help your poor brother sleep. I promise not to use it to attempt apotheosis again. I woke several times and felt that need to just … go outside. Without mandrake I’m a danger to myself and others. I am long past even thinking about the rite of Carth-Natrax.
This morning my throat hurt terribly, almost as if I had been screaming out the names-that-cannot-be-spoken-softly in my dreams. I awoke and I didn’t want to do anything. I attempted to speak to Lou by telephone I could barely talk. My cough had gone deeper. It was worrying. I sounded like a squashed frog. My voice is deep enough anyway.
Now, strangely, that pain and discomfort feels like just a memory, entirely replaced by a stuffy nose and constant tinittus. Just the high pitched sound though, Minty. There are no voices telling me to do bad things. I never hear them these days, and if I do I don’t really listen to them. The cough persists but it feels that my immune system has kept this plague from my lungs once again.
I have a sensation that the worst of this disease will be over soon now, for me. This doesn’t mean I won’t need the mandrake root to sleep. I’m allowed to be cautiously optimistic, yes? Send me the root. Send it.
I have been craving company so much that I have constructed a whole artificial world that I can access through the portal in my head. Not the sinkdark of course, no. I never think of that empty place. Ah ha no. This is the Bitter Coast – perhaps known better as Morrowind. I go there and I am Dunmer and I can go where I please and cast spells. It passes the time, but it is not true human contact. When they speak they repeat themselves. And nothing I achieve there means anything in the real world. It gives artificial dopamine. It keeps me down.
I instructed a local grocery to send me essentials, and a bottle of wine. Much of my long lasting food supply here has been here so long it is no longer edible. I almost poisoned myself for a second time this morning with a can of lethal sausages and beans. Instead now I am calm and warm, full of ravioli and cheese, hoping that my dear sister is well and is packing up that mandrake for special delivery.
Ah my dear sister… I have no idea where all this is going. But I’ve started so I’ll finish. Just know … it will not end with me attempting to ascend to Godhood again.
I feel unusual. I had a fever most of yesterday. It’s almost as if I’m not in sound mind. But was I ever?
Send me that mandrake.
Al
AlBarclay 