6/21/09 - Map Making

Enter Delasia: 11:48PM

Why is it so hard to focus?!? Sitting at a small table in a jungle-forest clearing, I was busy at work with my partner, Leyla Spears---a map scribe as I was. We had spent the entire morning scouting a vast land and were just now (1:05pm) stopping for lunch, a light meal of biscuits and iced tea. Busy translating measurements and calculations onto a draft map, I was working up quite a sweat, but the whole ordeal was probably taking more of a mental toll than anything else. It was a delightfully cloudy day, perfect for our task of trekking across the nearby valleys and hills. However, recording the information onto the map was much harder than measuring the area, so my partner and I were constantly stopping to evaluate and record information.
It was a daring venture; we were left on a new continent by “the company” with enough supplies to set up a base camp and hopefully record the geography of the entire land in only 2 months. (For any longer and our food supply would certainly exhaust itself) The land could not be seen by satellite due to a strange persistent cloud formation overhead, so our mission was straightforward---map it out, the old fashioned way. A tedious task of computing angles and distances didn’t make this easy at all. I was working as hard as I could, but was constantly being distracted by my assistant. To say the least, weeks and weeks of traveling around together had formed a strong bond between us.
“You want the rest of this biscuit?” she asked. Her beautiful eyes fixed in contact with mine for just a moment was enough to completely take my breath away. Now I know why this map-making is so hard! Although Leyla’s name might indicate a dainty personality, she was by no means feminine. She was a brave jungle scout, with sheathed machete by her side and far more experience in this profession than me. Her personality was just about as rugged as her jeans and she was the type which would never say no to a “race to the top of the next peak”. Leyla ran fast and usually beat me at such speed competitions, so she did the measurements and I was assigned to the brutal task of recording data. Her specialty was stories by the campfire and would completely blow me away with tales of her past adventures of cutting through jungles in the middle of nowhere---it was our nightly tradition. Sometimes her words of encouragement were the only things that would get me through late nights of map-making, what started as a fairly strict business relationship had become something much more---a fact we both openly acknowledged.
Somehow I knew so much about her, but I think this was the first time we’ve met in Delasia. How could she enchant me so completely in the length of a dream? So much mystery---but it was somehow revealed through the way her heart communicated with mine. Could this be a vision of my future wife? I’m inspired to keep searching for the bride which awaits me. I know she exists, even beyond a dream!
It was a fairly fast paced schedule, we were constantly on the move and after staying the night somewhere, the next day would simply include packing up our belongings and heading out to scout the next couple square miles. On the bright side, we only had to pitch and move one tent… I never slept, for I wanted to be sure we could finish the mission before the boat would come back to retrieve us, a reality which was only a couple weeks away. Leyla retired for the night, as I tended the fire, preparing the next piece of paper for tomorrow’s findings.
Time flew by uncontrollably fast from that moment on, key points our journey were frozen and passed like photos in front of my eyes, almost like I was in a moving walkway through an art gallery. I saw many good times and bad, that I spent in that strange land---it was like two months flashing before my eyes. Time stopped. There I was, on a dock with my assistant, my Leyla. We had returned to our land, Delasia and were going our separate ways, a dreaded moment we both knew would one day come. It was at that moment I began to have mixed feelings about the journey’s success; after all we finished the map, but what of my friendship with Leyla? Would I ever see her again? Why couldn’t she come with me? “Be at Peace” she whispered into my ear. My heart was grieved as she walked away, the warmth of her embrace still fresh upon me. I watched her take one last look at me, before sprinting off into the distance. I’ll see you again, Leyla---and will be waiting for our next mission together.

Termination: Gradual Awakening 6:52AM
W:5 X:1 Y:0 Z:4 B:5