Dearest,
Sometimes there are moments in the night, when sleep refuses to come, when the half-darkness ceases to be either a scary unknown or a comforting blanket. It becomes instead an entire world, the only world, strangely calm, surreal, and utterly isolated. What few sounds of humanity that there are heard appear oddly hollow, desolate, and distant beyond the hope of ever touching. One comes almost to believe that if one were to walk out, then every door would be closed, all streets empty, perhaps in some late night cafes there would be a last late flicker of light, of life! But before one arrived there would be nothing but guttered candles on clean tables, devoid now of any touch of human presence.
Tonight is a night like that, my old travelling clock ceased to function a few days back, no amount of winding will make it function again and I think it’s days are done. I have made no plans to have it fixed, as to me its timelessness suits well the timelessness of this inn, where the day is only divided by meal times, and normally – sleep. So, it reads now forever a quarter to four… It amused me to wonder whether this was a quarter to four in the afternoon, or in the morning. Tonight I think I have my answer, as it seems that this lonely silent pre-dawn darkness is as eternal as the motionless hands of time.
In part perhaps this is due to the weather; it is interminably warm, humid, and close. The window is open, as is my custom, but tonight there is no cooling sea breeze, only this troubling sweaty heat.
In part also that of late I have been vexed by a certain listless lack of progress in my life, it too feeling almost like this dispassionate night. My goals are perfectly clear to me, and I am ardent in my desire to acheive them, but sometimes it seems as though I am on a wild herring chase, with as little chance of ever acheiving them as a harvest mouse has of pulling down down the moon, no matter how high he climbs the golden late summer barley.
What in all likelihood troubles me most is what troubles us all at the inn these last days, news brought first by the lovely Ms Mushaboom, then later in more detail on the mid-afternoon news broadcast on phillipe’s radio. News that seems most incredibly impossible in the idyllic slow moving haven by the sea, and news so dark that we haven’t even spoken out loud of it, although as can possibly be ascertained from our topic of discussion the other night it has been heavy on our minds.
From what we have learned the space brigands I had cause to mention in a previous missive are far more than just the isolated opportunists we had all previously though, but have been forming a secret and powerful coaliton. Most shocking of all this coalition seems to include several earth nations as well including Texas (well it has been no secret that Mussolini has long hoped to extend his power and reach ever since he first ursurped the impoverished Texan throne), and some of the larger members of the Asiatic Libertarian Trading Block. This in itself would be news of earth shaking import all by itself, but furthermore this group has refused any call for dialogue and refuses to respect any of the existing galactic boundaries, and meets with firepower any attempt to enforce these rules. This is something the members of the Nepalese Peace Accord cannot afford to ignore, so yes, it seems there is to be war.
Yours ever,
Bartleboom, Phd.