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The Golden Tether
New Versailles
Neon Age
Yveriidia
Trivantis
Furcadia
Furcadia
Fallen London
Fallen London
The Golden Tether
The Golden Tether

Journal

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    A slim, black ledger.

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    Notes, ideas, half-formed thoughts. The first few pages seem to suggest a haphazard attempt at documenting the author's finances and recent investments, but soon deteriorates into drunken ramblings and opioid-induced poetry.

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    • Amputees have phantom limbs; will I have a phantom soul?

      Consider this an excising of once-comatose demons. (In the strictly figurative sense. As it turns out, Hell's contracts are legally binding, and I suppose it'll take more than a simple exorcism to get out of this one.)

      But I digress:

      My father always liked to remind me that I was a disappointment: a wretched, ungrateful wastrel, less clever and less ambitious than he'd been at half my age, whose only talent was squandering his fortune in whatever sordid, indecorous manner I could imagine. (This was essential to the development of my imagination.) Fortunately, he kept this opinion mostly to himself when he was sober. Unfortunately, he was rarely sober. (Fortunately, he's now dead.)

      The old drunk was right about one thing: spending coin truly is a talent of mine. Though he might be pleased to learn that I've discovered a way to profit from my profligate consumerism, through the magical, mystical mechanisms of investing. Sounds rather occult, doesn't it? Stodgy mercantile types love tossing this little word around, and even I've begun to embrace it, of late. Being an "investor" is more palatable to decent society than being an idle, directionless fop who locks himself up in his tower of books written in extinct languages, at any rate.

      So far, I've financed a quaint little "cartographic expedition" business that has incredible potential (to double as a book-smuggling operation). Remind me to pitch the idea to my lovely partner, sometime. We brave uncharted territory with kindred, fun-seeking souls, and return with texts and trinkets and all sorts of curiosities that less adventurous folk would pay a fortune to obtain. It's quite simple, really: gold in, gold out. The little minx only wants me for my coin, for which I'm grateful -- with any luck, she'll continue to expect me to do nothing but throw it at her and reap the benefits.

      Speaking of new ventures, I've also decided to start keeping a journal! (It's this one, in case you're confused.) I'll admit, I'm hardly the introspective type -- why write about feelings when I can just drown them in a vintage Armagnac? But if I'm going to be soulless one day, I might as well start chronicling my dreams/hopes/desires/fears/what-have-you while there's still someone upstairs.

      I wonder what it's like to lose your soul. Will I feel anything when I reread these entries (apart from mild revulsion, knowing that I kept a diary)? They say amputees experience phantom limbs for years after the procedure; will I experience a phantom soul? These are the questions that titillate philosophers -- or have them reaching for the laudanum, I suppose.

      V.T.