Pocket Diary Entry # 4

Unknown
(Loche Newirth’s pocket diary)

Here’s a first.

I do not know the time.

I do not know the date.

I do not know the time of day.

But strangely, I think I know where we are. Edwin, Julia and I-we are at Priest Lake. The ridge lines and my gut tell me. Even the scent of the air brings a memory of home. But knowing where we are does not help me to decide where to go.

I am not sure why I am making an attempt at putting words down. Habit, likely. So much has happened I can’t seem to make sense of any of it. We’re healthy and alive.

The stars are bright—

EDWIN.

I cannot control what is happening. The pithy phrase, “Do not worry about what you cannot control,” comes to mind. Who was the first to tell me that? Rearden? Ironic? But knowing that our current state has come from my “story” —a story that I thought was in my control… and now I’m a character. What now?

Maybe it means that a character in a novel should attempt to control the story.

Isn’t that what should happen—to make a good story?

Trouble is, this is no fucking novel.