Category Archives: Thought of the Week

Once-weekly posts on whatever nonsense crosses my mind.

Thought of the Week: A Little Story

The Axe of Darkness

Sorry for the delay this week – same problems as last week, you know.

Anyway, short and sweet: I thought I’d share a little story with you. It’s very special and inventive, and was originally written out by hand in the small hours of the morning before everyone woke up. It took a lot of effort, and reflects a labor of love. Amazingly, it’s only the first of four such stories, which together form an epic fantasy, spanning an entire world and pitting our hero against unsurmountable forces of darkness.

I wonder where the inspiration came from.

 

Three Dark Weapons

The Axe of Darkness

 

By Little Satis

 

 

 

Chapter One

Ash lived in a land called Sath. Life there was good; he had friends, his mother and father gave him food and shelter. Life was good, except for one thing: the land was owned by the villainous Shadow Lord. There were only three known weapons that could defeat him: the Axe of Darkness, the Dagger of Hands and the Sword of Death.

Ash felt that they were evil weapons, but he thought that evil could defeat evil. His father had attempted to take the weapons, but before he could even start the quest a tree fell on him, and injured his leg badly. Ash was only thirteen when he got the greatest surprise of his life.

 

Chapter Two

“Ash,” said Roan when he came back to his house. Roan was Ash’s father.

“What?” said Ash.

“The time has come for you to take on the quest that I never started.”

“What?” said Ash again. “You don’t mean the Three Weapons Quest?”

“Yes, I do,” said Roan.

“No,” said Ash. “I will not go.”

“You must,” said Anna, Ash’s mother.

“I don’t even know how to wield a sword,” said Ash.

“That is why I will teach you,” said Roan.

Ash saw he was going no matter what (unless there was something like a storm). “Okay,” he said. “When do we start?”

 

Chapter Three

Ash started to train the next day, and the next. He kept getting cuts and scrapes.

“Ow!”, he said one day as he cut himself with his sword. Roan walked over to Ash.

“You have to be more careful,” said Roan as he cleaned the cut.

Then three figures jumped over the wall.

“Shadow Knights!” said Roan as he drew his sword.

They were clad in black armor with wickedly curved swords, but Roan was ready to fight. In three swift chops of Roan’s blade, the Shadow Knights lay dead on the ground.

“Wow,” said Ash.

“Let’s get you trained,” said Roan.

 

Chapter Four

One month later, Ash was ready to go. He had a sword and a dagger, and wore a vest of armor under his shirt. He was walking into a forest. Its trees had no leaves. He stepped into the forest, and found himself in the middle of the forest.

There was no path behind him. He took a step back and found himself on the path.

“Clever,” said Ash. “Illusions.”

He walked on until a beast stopped him. It had two fangs, one hundred teeth, big claws and two black hungry eyes.

 

Chapter Five

The beast attacked. Ash jumped and drew his sword. He landed on his feet. He swung his sword at the beast, but missed. The evil beast snapped its jaws, and nearly took off Ash’s arm. Ash swung his sword at the beast, and missed again. Then the beast pounced on Ash. Ash struggled to free himself, but he couldn’t. Then he freed one hand, and managed to plunge his sword into the belly of the beast.

It howled and stood on hind legs, and fell. Ash ran away; he was glad to be rid of the beast.

 

Chapter Six

Ash slowed to a walk. He thought he wouldn’t make as much noise, and would be less likely to attract any more beasts. He kept walking until he got to a clearing of green grass.

“That’s funny,” said Ash. The rest of the grass around it was gray. He walked onto the patch of green grass, fell  and began to sink — it was quicksand!

 

Chapter Seven

Ash struggled, but he only sunk deeper. He saw a vine and clung on to it, but it broke and got sucked into the quicksand.

“Help!” cried Ash, but he knew it was pointless.

Suddenly, another beast came, and another. Soon there were ten beasts, hoping for fresh meat. Ash sunk more, and the beasts drew nearer. Then, Ash was sucked under.

 

Chapter Eight

Ash fell out of a trap door under the quicksand. He was in a chamber. Before him was a door, and out of the door came ten Shadow Knights.

Ash drew his sword. The Shadow Knights attacked. Ash’s sword parried the first Shadow Knight’s sword and stabbed him. Ash made quick work of the rest; in nine chops, they were dead.

He went into the next chamber, to find the Axe of Darkness held by a Shadow Knight. This Shadow Knight had gray armor, and horns on his helm.

 

Chapter Nine

The Shadow Knight said, “I am Sta.”

Sta attacked. Ash blocked the attack, but was sent flying back.

“You cannot defeat me when I carry the Axe of Darkness,” said Sta. “You are pathetic.”

Ash got to his feet. He stabbed Sta in the knee, but Sta didn’t even flinch. Then Sta got a lucky shot and cut off Ash’s left hand.

Ash swung his sword and cut off Sta’s head. Ash picked up the Axe of Darkness and put it to his wrist, which was bleeding badly. Then, his hand was restored.

 

Chapter Ten

Ash stood up, holding the Axe of Darkness. He slammed it against the wall. The wall broke, and daylight came in. He walked outside to find the ten beasts were still there.

He took out his sword, and then put it away. He had the Axe of Darkness — there was no need for a messy sword fight.

He slammed it into the ground, and caused an earthquake that killed the beasts. He had won.

Ash was one step closer to freeing Sath from the Shadow Lord.

Thought of the Week: Full Disclosure

Hello, everyone.

I’ve missed you all; it feels like I’ve been away for quite some time. I apologize in advance if this post fails to be interesting; my intention is simply to explain my absence, and lay it all open for once.

I have spent the past three weeks in the company of that great black dog, dragged away to a numb and black landscape that offers no escape. I’ve been lost in apathy, neither wanting to live or to die. A deep uncaring with no emotion. It’s been all I can do to get up in the morning and go to work. When I got home, I want nothing more than to crawl into bed. I spent my lunches sleeping on a couch at work.

The fatigue has been a key factor in the past few weeks, too. I often am tired at the end of a busy day at work, and I sometimes find it difficult to stay alert during the drive home. Recently, however, it’s been an unbearable challenge to stay awake at the wheel, not only coming home but even going to work in the morning. I came closer than I ever have before to a serious accident: I was driving down a straight stretch of road in moderate traffic, and I closed my eyes for a moment…and when I opened them, a car was crossing in front of me, pulling across traffic into a driveway. I was only feet away, and in my waking daze, didn’t even have the wherewithal to hit the brakes. What I was able to do was instinctively jerk the wheel, and passed around the car as it continued into the drive by probably three inches. Into oncoming traffic, as it happens, but that’s beside the point.

The terrible lethargy hits hardest at home, of course, where my walls collapse and I’m unable to hide it. Laundry piles up; dishes go undone; hair goes unwashed. Understandably, this puts a great strain on all of us — my wife, Little Satis and I — and the worst is the guilt of knowing that I’m responsible for all the stress.

In all of this, the effort of writing posts has been more than I’ve been able to contemplate. For this, I apologize. I feel that I’ve let you all down, as much as myself and my family.

Along with the mood stabilizer and antidepressant I’m already taken, my psychiatrist has had me start a third medication, a non-SSRI antidepressant. It’s probably too early to tell, but it surprisingly seems to be helping already. The past two days, I was able to drive to and from work without feeling like I was going to fall into a deep sleep. I’ve been able to smile and laugh again, and criticism isn’t driving me into the ground, a wailing child catatonic on the floor.

I’ve been through these cycles before, too, of course. The ups, and the downs. I don’t have manic periods, so they’ve ruled out bipolar disorder. Nonetheless, the key difference I’ve noticed since starting this new medication is the lack of perpetual drowsiness. A stated side-effect of this new medication is mild to moderate weight loss (which I need), and I have my appetite generally reduced, and I’m no longer dreadfully enticed to devour an entire box of saltine crackers in one go.

And there you have it. I’m well aware that I’ve alluded to my depression in many past posts, but I needed to just say it clearly. It is a monster, a treacherous demon that sneaks its way behind my eyelids, slackens my jaw and convinces me that there is no other way to be. That is the worst of it — the love of the depression, the aching desire to let myself be washed away with its black waters.

I am slowly returning, I believe, and I will attempt to return to this blog, as well. Up until the New Year I am focusing on the process of final edits for The Redemption of Erâth, in preparation for its publication sometime next year, which I’m terribly excited about (when I’m not drowned in depression). I will continue to post a Thought of the Week each Monday, and the Daily Photos will continue to autopost as well. I will be putting a pause on Tales of Despair, as the time and research involved each week is something I don’t feel I can commit to at the moment. We will see how things stand in the new year.

Most importantly, there will be nothing more of The Redemption of Erâth to be posted. The entirely of book one is already posted, and the extensive background written late last year as a preparation is at an end. This doesn’t, however, mean The Redemption of Erâth is finished. Oh, by no means. More details to come…

So in conclusion, my apologies once more for my absence, and my sincere gratitude for bearing with me all this while. The 300+ of you who have visited me 7,000 times in the past year have made this experience more than worthwhile, and the likes and comments have meant the world to me. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try not to let you down again.

Satis 2012

Thought of the Week: Where Did All the Time Go?

Damn it…look at the time!

I’m not fond of Time, for a number of reasons, the primary being that, like money, there isn’t ever quite enough of it. I’m not fond of money, either. (Actually, I rather enjoy money a lot — I just resent it for not being in my pocket.)

Time pops up in the oddest places, and at the oddest…um, times. My birthday is this month, which is always an unhappy reminder that I’m a year further from my youth, and a year closer to my death. It also gives me a chance to reflect on what exactly I’ve done with the past year of my life. Usually, it turns out, not a lot.

I’m reminded of Time when I drive, or when I cook. I’ve come to the conclusion that microwave and car clocks cannot run to time. It’s clearly a fundamental law of the universe. It doesn’t matter how often I set and reset them; within a few weeks, they will both be out by minutes. In every car. On every microwave. A part of me suspects relativity; we all know that as one approaches the speed of light, the faster time passes in the universe around us. So when I’m driving eighty miles an hour (a significant fraction of the speed of light), the world around me has lived a few extra seconds. Compounded over several weeks, it could explain why my car’s clock is always wrong. What about the microwave, you ask? The answer should be obvious: cosmic rays.

There are endless reams of literature on the nature of Time; whether it is finite or infinite, whether it’s continuous or discrete; whether there’s some fundamental, universal unit of time, and why the atomic clock in Berlin isn’t, actually, quite right. I’m going to leave most of that to Stephen Hawking. I would be interested, however, to know whether he’s figured out a way to pack more hours into a day.

This is, probably, my biggest gripe with Time. Why, oh why, are there only twenty-four hours in a day? Especially since I really want to spend most of them sleeping? Couldn’t there be thirty, or forty, hours in a day? And no, don’t bother pointing out that if you made the hour shorter, you’d get more of them in; the universe just doesn’t work that way. Ask Stephen Hawking.

If there could be thirty hours in a day, I could spend ten of them sleeping, eight of them working, and a glorious twelve hours to sit around all day and do absolutely nothing. And dishes. But no, oh no. I get to spend five or six of those hours sleeping, ten of them working, and the rest…

Well, now it comes down to the heart of the matter. There ought to be eight hours left there. So where did they go? It certainly doesn’t feel like they were used for anything terribly productive. Does it take eight hours to eat breakfast and brush your teeth? I suppose dinner has to sneak in there. Bit of bed time reading, maybe some blogging…my point is, nothing that ought to take up eight hours. Eight long, lonesome, missing hours. I feel like I’ve abandoned them.

But while the absence of time will probably remain a mystery to me, I do have the past year to look back on, and reflect that, maybe those eight hours did in fact creep their sneaky way into my life, because it suddenly feels like I’ve got an awful lot done. I started a blog, which has now been going for slightly over a year. Over 6,000 people have stopped by to say hello. I’ve made some good friends in the process.

I wrote a book; 160,000 words including the background material. That’s 400 words a day (I’m not sure I’m glad I just worked that out). I wrote part of another book. It’s only got about 20,000 words so far. Wait…that’s kind of a lot, too.

I’ve begun the process of getting my book published.

I wrote 221 posts.

I got blown about in a hurricane.

And I did some other, less important stuff, like spend Time with my family.

Perhaps I’ll never know exactly where Time went. But if it keeps coming back now and then, I suppose I can’t complain.

Too much.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I do apologize, but I’m not able to refund it at the moment. All complaints should be addressed to Stephen Hawking.