Letter 1 - 29th February, 1860



Sir Walter Wadsworth Wiggins iii
Maude & Yellow Girl Mine
Sunnyside
Victoria
Latitude -36 50’ 00” Longitude 147 30’ 00”

29th February, 1860

You can’t possibly imagine, dear Beatrice, how full of gladness, my heart became when I was to see an envelope with your inscription this morn. I long for the conversation that which my cursed condition deprives me. Four score and three lunations have traversed since the day but no substantial recovery has been experienced. I remain always hopeful. My wish is that you perpetuate the type of correspondence delivered today as it brightens my days in this strange isolation. Q comes by every new moon with supplies but he neither speaks nor indicates any understanding of my communication. And still, he delivers all requests! I am sure that I have known him in the past, maybe on board the Galatea? That part of my memory has become as grey as the vast, icy waters explored. At least I am comfortable and nourished.
Clyde informs me that your siblings, Emily & Maddison, have been mischievous since your parents left. Who would have foreseen them running away and joining the circus? I can’t imagine your father being fired out of a cannon but strangely I can picture your mother in her clown outfit riding her little bike, honking her horn, giggling away as she does. People are strange! Clyde thinks the tunnel will be ready soon and he will be able to join us. I still can’t work out why he needs to tunnel. Surely, if he can dig, he could just as easily cut the fence. Tunnelling horses are a rare breed indeed!
Since the darkening of the world began, unusual patterns have been emerging but more on that in due course. From where I pass my days, imprisoned, I watch the world below pass me by. The device sits just beyond my reach. I dream of touching it but I know that I will be eternally denied. It communicates with me but I don’t see or hear anything. I observe that part of the world that I can see; the sky, the trees, the land, the animals that pass by. I can feel the device learning through my eyes. It tires me, but I continue my work because the answer is close to hand. I am now in complete agreement with you that the world, as we know it, will end at mid-day on the 21st day of December, two hundred and ninety seven days hence. When Darwin said “Light will be thrown on the origin of man” I think he knew more than he was letting on. They are inside the mountain. I must reassemble “The Dragonflye Cloud”.
If I could talk to a dragonflye
I would ask, if he did not possibly mind,
Carrying me away up into the sky
And leaving the ground way, way behind

If I could fly with a dragonflye
I would ask if she did not overly mind
Taking me up, ever so high
And leaving reality a long way behind

If I could explore with a dragonflye
I would ask if they did not really mind
To go as far as land and sea combined
Imagine the amazing things we would find

I must go now, please pass my best regards to your strange sisters.
Happy Birthday for the 3rd!
Walter
p.s. I am concerned for Eleven’s well-being. He has disappeared and his calculation is wrong! It is not like him.




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