For Dinner: None  Yes, I'm starving.  But if I think of it as a fast, it's slightly more bearable.
Mood: . Resigned....even enjoying the isolation a little.
Written in the Year of our Lord 3580, April  8th, Sunday night.
Location:  Somehwere near  the river  Nibulon, but that's all I know.

    I stayed by that pool for a long time. Finally I walked to the top of a nearby hill, to see if I could see the river. No. It was a hilly terrain, and in my panic I had evidently covered a lot more area in my panic than I knew.  No animals save buzzing insects, like the brokkban (sort of a mosquito--with its annoying factor squared) bothered me. I slept at the top of hill, not wanting to move, finding a place of relative safety. I went down to the pool to bathe the next morning, and get a morning's drink of water.

     I had my Bible, and I had my Father Brown Omnibus. They didn't bother to take these. I read a little of both.  I thought it folly to move too much. I wasn't sure which way the river was, and I might just get further from it. I seemed to be relatively safe from predators here, and I had a source of relatively fresh water.

      I was ravenously hungry. Well, fasting used to be quite a fashion among Christians.  I would hold out for a few days, easily.

       Once I heard a air transport go by, but it was far to the south of me, though I jumped up and down and yelled.

       I started to sing an old song...a variety of old songs.

        "In manus tuas Domine,
        in manus tuas Domine-oh....
        Domine, Domine, in se Nomine,
        in manus tuas Domine..."

       I was as alone as Adam before Eve, or Cruesoe before Friday.  In a way it was almost enjoyable. I had been assailed by so many clashes between Lokiite and human mores, it was a relief in some ways to be by myself.

      But I knew without the nanoprocessor, I would starve to death. Our party had another one, but someone from that party---rather than a bandit or merely a disinterested party--would have to find me first.

      I built a fire last night, and kept it burning as long as I could, both to keep  animals away and to attract searchers. I'm doing the same tonight.

      I could actually sit down and examine some plants on this planet. On the ground was a reddish plant covering, the equivelent of Earth's grass. But these crimson blades were loops, like fragile croquet mallets. In a place where individuals walk a lot, they are beaten down and make a matting. In places where they grow wild, they eventually grow so tall that they can trip one up, hooking on one's feet, as you walk. But matted, they make a good, natural bed...very springy. It's called gisy by the Lokiites.

      I thought of the words in the prayer by the first of the Holy Vicars, who succeeded, after Earth's disappearance, in uniting the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican/Episcopal faiths of Christian belief...

      Oh, the Worlds You have Woven
      On the Loom of the Natural Laws You made...

      ....In which he praised the boundless variety of God's ingenuity in selecting natural Laws that resulted in so many wonderful, varied worlds. Here I was seeing another aspect...an unexpected beauty to Loki I had never seen before.

      It's the first Sunday in years I've never attended or conducted a service. Yet there was nothing I could legitimately use for the Bread and theWine.

      For the first time in days, though, I had a sense of Presence, and of  Peace. Of course, it's hard to feel too peaceful with hunger gnawing at you...

                             Yesterday | Tomorrow
 
 
 
  Return to Redwine at Dinner.