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The abyss of the sky was dark and menacing. The trees provided some asylum, but it was not enough. It seemed my sorrows were a barricade for my mind to understand why I even went on this harrowing journey. Despite this I knew that deep in a bodega in my mind, there was a reason. Thus, even bristled with thorns and cuts, I kept on going. I was able to keep a walking cadence. As I walked I thought, I thought about chaos and order, myself and them. My stomach churned as I thought about what might happen, what might make me fail, or what might bring us to victory. What will be the coda of my journey? My mind was a mess of debris, and thoughts and questions, but I kept going. Then I came across a mouse, Diminutive in size. Of course I assumed it would just run along the blazing dunes of hot dry ground (for it was in the 5th hour of daylight.) That is not what it did, it instead created a fugue of melodies combined with my simple steps, and the mouse stayed with me. I smiled hysterically, as I had not seen anything this happy in weeks. This mouse was smarter than I knew, I did not notice that it was singing along, and it seemed to feel indignation about this. I was insensible to anything else besides my goal. Then I became jostled by the way the little creature was almost babbling about something. The Mouse was still there even after day had passed, but it was almost at a lull. Me and the mouse stopped, and ate some bread from the corn mill. I wanted to rest for the night, but the place had a bad omen. I still haven’t told you about the pandemonium that even brought me here. I am paranoid to write anything down here. I know that as Pharaoh Medzec said, “The mind is the best vault.” Writing anything down on here would breach that vault, the prow of information would be licked by the waters of the outside world. I rationed the food amongst the mouse and myself. This is how I refrained from following orders, and I paid the price. I was living with my mother at about 17 years old, (my father was in the hospital for retching). I was in the rubble of a wealthy family that was torn apart after a great fire. Almost as a sacrilege of my sworn privacy, I read my diary so far to the mouse. “3.5 hours after sunrise, June 1st: I have solemnly swore that I would do it, yet ‘it’ is something that swore against me. I was on my way to my small room, and I passed our lonely steward. I was packing my things in a tattered pack. I felt as if a throng of people wanted me gone, except my mom. My transgressions weren't enough to make her hate me, and I loved her for that. My room was now vacant of any of my few possessions. I grabbed my book of anecdotes and trudged down to the living room with my mom. I barged in through the door and gave my mom a last hug. You see the berth of my action falls on a fateful day of great tomfoolery. In one of the neighboring kingdoms (I lived in the kingdom of Othingheim) named Oklition had fallen into some large issues, like boycotts and protests. It was the day of carnivals and fairs in my town at this point, and I was eating a bulbous pastry. I was with my friends and we were suddenly drawn to a catatonic statue of the great Othingheim King, and we were struck with an idea. This was an idea that deep down I chastised, yet I wanted to do it, we were going to break into the castle.” I stopped reading and then laid down on the cold ground, the mouse right beside me. The next morning me and the mouse went on and I told him about the Communist freak from Oklition who ruined it all. I didn’t read but in desperation to find something to do I told the mouse my story, I spoke to it, and this is what I said. “I was walking with pride and power past the dinghies in the water and the apples on the stand. Me and my friends (we were all around 14) were feeling a curtain euphoria that comes when you are about to do something out of the blue and stupid. We wanted to stop, but we did not halt. All other sounds were incoherent. Deep down we knew that trouble was inevitable, but I don’t think we could wrap our heads around what would truly come. There was a man following us, and we did not instantaneously realize that, but he was. Our parents were lenient and let us go free as long as we were back by the time of the ending of the fair. The walls of the castle were lurching in front of us, and we were ready to do this. There were a couple people doing their things, some were parts of minyans, some other gatherings. The castle side would have been an ominous threat to us, but it was nothing to our immature minds. It was pandemonium in the streets, but to us we were supposed to be focusing on one goal, be the first to get inside to the lobby. I ran past a man with a considerable paunch, and started figuring out the old backway into the castle I knew of. I ran past a royal porter, and to the kingdom wall, I knew there was a secret entrance near that area. The kingdom had been quarantined from the rest of the world by a wall and I used the less-than perfect wall to my advantage. I recoiled at the stench of the parameter of the kingdom. I found some respite seeing the others did not know what to do. The crowd revved up at the sight of the king emerging onto the balcony to say things about the special day. This was my chance, I climbed over rubble and through a hole in the wall, I was outside of the kingdom. I saw some sheepish travelers going around the kingdom, and then I spotted some loose bricks on the castle. I removed the bricks from the outer side of the castle, and ended up in a squalid sellar. I saw busts of subhuman ancestors and wine, so much royal wine. I saw statues of creatures with enormous tentacles, but what I did not see was the outsider who snuck in with me.” By this point me and the mouse (I had named him Caesar) were being tormented by a steep mountain climb, well maybe just me. I could almost make out our destination, and I knew that only turmoil awaited us, so I kept telling my story as Caesar walked along beside me, and seemed to want more, so I gave him more. “I veered to the left and right trying to get out of the wine cellar. I did not seek asylum as I wanted to be the first. I thought of random things as I raced through the eerily empty castle with random thoughts streaking across my mind, Bar-Mitzvahs, flying pigs, and royal wine. Then a royal steward saw me and was filled with bile, but he could not do anything to disturb the king. With a brash run I made it to the castle lobby, and before I could adjust, my friends elbowed their way into the empty, yet grand room. As we walked past paintings of bureaus, we laughed and then decided to follow my path backwards and go back to the fest like nothing happened. “Stop, stop this instant,” yelled one of the guards, with a belly like a cauldron. In a churlish voice he asked if us “peasants” had seen an infiltrator. We said that we had not as we held on to our cinched pants. He then asked why we were here, but before we could get an answer out, he ran down the corridors, responding to an urgent call. We ran past portraits of dictators, and almost reached the exit. There was a draught of cold wind as the king and the steward I saw earlier were there. The steward pointed at me saying “he brought the intruder in, he showed the enemy how to infiltrate, flog him, ba-.” The king held up a silencing hand and He asked me if I had led an intruder into the castle, and I haphazardly told him the truth from my perspective. The king, with inconceivable power, asked me why and how I got into the castle. “He is an infidel, a wizard, a sinner, a…” the king silenced him and sent him off. He also sent my jittery friends off and then led me to the dungeon. On the way to the dungeon I saw scary paintings of leviathan, monsters, and even more wine. I heard a melodious organ in the background, and I just stared. I watched paintings go by of mutiny and death and sorrow. I was finally sat down on a pedestal as an oppressive gaze stared at me. “Where is your guardian,” he said in a paralyzing tone. I was able to get my mom in the fairgrounds and then I was brought back to the pedestal. I was profusely scolded by my mom but then my mom backed off when the punishment was decided. I was to be ransacked of my citizenship here and go on a journey to report on the kingdom that now knows how to get into the castle, for they are our enemies. I recoiled at the thought, but I was the perfect one for the job, I did not have secrets to tell, I was not valuable to the kingdom, and I needed to be punished. I restrained myself from resisting, there was nothing I could do. So I danced my last rhumba for a while and now here I am.” Me and the mouse steered the rudder of our journey to pack up for the night, I would build a shelter for us, and we would eat our last meal before I came head to head with another kingdom. Before bed I found myself sluicing my clothes in a nearby pond. The water was stagnant and I looked at my reflection and the mouse came up next to me. Again my mind went to random things; studios, synagogues of worship, grass. I tentatively watched the sunset through the trees. I looked at my fingers, a small tourniquet around my right index finger. I sometimes saw my king as a tyrant, but I caouldn’t thank him enough for the opportunity. “For some reason I keep having the same word repeating over and over in my head, Yurkelmus, I think it is a piece of religious headwear, but I’m not sure,” said Caeser, and I just nodded my head slowly.