Entry #29 - 3.28.5503

Writing the history of the vermin's den is proving harder than I'd imagined. I've been at it for a little over two weeks now and have gotten barely ten pages written. Part of the problem is trying to remember all that happened so long ago -- though we arrived on Ohm less than two years back, our story really starts with my arrival on the Zooter homestead some 17 solar years earlier. The rest of my problem lies in trying to separate objective accounting from emotional memory --trying hard to log truth; struggling to overcome subjectivity. For a supposedly evolved being I find myself strangely, strongly haunted and torn by recollections of life with the Zooters, and of my home world in those days before leaving. I thought I'd gotten beyond such maudlin musings, but I guess not. I still feel terribly homesick at times, though I know you can never go back -- figuratively or literally. But I still dream of it...

I was in the central city amid canyons of towering glass and steel, surrounded by people and vehicles. I was on foot, heading downtown -- heading home. As I walked through various neighborhoods I noticed architecture wasn't just changing by district but growing older -- as if my trek was taking me back through time; back to before there were tall buildings and paved streets. Skyscrapers were supplanted by ornate houses of centuries past, which in turn transitioned into primitive wooden sheds and farmsteads. Eventually I arrived at a place in the country by what appeared to be a narrow inland sea -- a broad, flat delta laced with shallow streams of crisp, clear waters; meandering rivulets fed by a high course falling from towering palisades.

Below the falls, directly in front, was this fertile estuary -- a garden of giant spade-leafed green-on-yellow gingers; slender stalks of variegated petioles dancing in the mist. To my left was the sea, sparkling in the late-day sun -- a soft breeze teasing ripples on its skin, turning invisible solar rays into brilliant, ephemeral gems. And in the distance were great granite cliffs -- soaring bands of dark gray stone capped with emerald conifer pines; an inward-curving wall gently embracing the lowland plain. And in the middle of the arc, this enormous waterwheel of wood -- a monstrous construction, tall as the cliffs, slowly spun forward by the splashing river's feed spilling over from above.

Standing on the flats beside the sea -- the air cool on my skin; the sky a sharp and vibrant blue, as it often is that time of day -- I gaped up at the giant wheel creaking as it turned, falling waters splashing off massive broad blades; splashing water echoing off gray granite walls. And as I watched in amazement the creaking of wood grew louder, and the wheel began to change...

At first it was just a narrowing of the wheel -- circular frames and spokes moving together and, in between, blades growing thinner, and longer front-to-back. And still the wheel spun slowly in the stream. But then the construction started to morph altogether, to shift its being from that of a wheel to that of an upright parabolic screw -- a towering wooden spiral, bulging at the middle and sharply pointed at its ends. And as it continued to spin (now on a vertical axis), faster-and-faster as driven by the feed, enormous spouts emerged from its middle sending spirals of water arcing through the air...

And then I awoke, at first wondering where and what I was remembering so vividly but soon realizing it had been just a dream -- though knowing it was more than mere imagination. There was meaning in my vision, and it tears at me still.