The Journal
While I was purging my computer, I found these old documents that I had written a lifetime ago. At first, the discovery of the continued existence of these documents horrified me and I considered deleting them. I couldn’t bring myself to do this, how could I.
I decided to finally do what I had originally meant to do with these records before I had decided to forget about them, putting them online for the public. Despite the danger, this story could impose on others I considered that many who read this will think the story fabricated which might alleviate some of the danger in reveling this information. More importantly, though I convinced myself that it was better to present this danger than to leave it shadowed in its own mystery. To those who read this whether you believe it to be fake or based in truth this should be taken as a chance to arm yourself against a great danger that I fear may approach us all.
I like digging through the trash. I just kind of look and see if there is anything of interest discarded and if I see something cool I grab it (I don’t normally have to dig truth be told). Honestly, everyone should try it. You would be amazed at all the cool shit to be found in the trash like the occasional book or some fresh batteries. At one point I even found a new figurine (although I think that was in there by accident). Mainly though I find some pens, pencils or unused/slightly used journals that I can scrap for school supplies. I haven’t stooped to taking food from the garbage yet, and I hope I won’t have too, but that is unrelated to what I need to tell you. You see one day I took a glance into a trash can on my way to class, but I did not expect to find anything because nobody had passed by yet and the trash had just been taken out that morning. That’s why I was surprised when I found a strange yellow military grade weatherproof journal. I couldn’t believe someone just threw away a twenty-dollar journal (I looked up the estimated cost later) into the trash, so I took it and hurried off to class. When I got back to my dorm I was able to take a better look at the journal and to my dismay found it full of notes. I couldn’t use it for school, but I decided to read the notes as a way of justifying my fishing it out. Anything to put off studying. Some of these entries you will find provided here. Feel free to see if you can figure out some of these yourself, because frankly I can’t, and I don’t want to be bother with doing so. I’m busy with other things.
Just skimming through the journal though made it seem kind of disturbing, like a mad man’s notebook, but upon reading it I think it is just some creative writing students attempt at a story. I say attempt because it seems poorly paced, with long entries about seemingly nothing at all. The weirdest parts are the images of a strange box poorly sketched throughout the book. The Sketch is hard to explain. It looks like a kind of Cube, except it’s all gray and some of the pieces are sticking out of it.
I will start from the being, even though the first entries are boring, but I think the author was trying to build up the characters or something like that. I will occasionally add input on the story to help give some context, so I will keep the journal entries in italics to keep it separate from my entries.
Date 05/15/2013
They brought us into a living quarter with six rooms: four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a lounge. This is just supposed to be a time for us to meet up and get to know each other. They told us to get the guards to bring us anything if we need it. Like they were room service or some shit like that. I think they are trying to downplay the fact that there are always armed fucking guards around us, like we don’t know their true purpose. They just drive us out to this military base in the middle of nowhere, tells the exact location of the base is classified, say we were “recruited” for our expertise, but it’s all okay because the guards are just glorified butlers with machine guns. Its just fucking typical of the fuckin system to notice my expertise when it is convenient for them but to not give me any recognition for it beforehand. I’M A GODDAM HERO YET THEY TREAT ME LIKE SHIT!!! But I endure anyway because I’m a hero and that’s what heroes do.
They brought me in due to my experiences in programing, and they were right to because I’m the best. They also have a geologist, Humbert. He is a fucking asshole. Just because he went to school he thinks he’s so fuckin smart. Zed said that if we stuck a rock up his ass we would get a diamond in a month. I’ve been tempted to try on multiple occasions, diamond or not. Zed is the architect they brought in he is probably as smart as Humbert but not a dick. Had a few beers with him in the lounge he is a fun guy. Then there’s Burkeman. Oh sorry, Doctor Burkeman, the psychologist. He is the one who gave us all (or more accurately had our gorilla-sized butlers assign us) the journals and told us to write in them. As the commanders said, Burkeman is the life line he is going in there to help keep us alive. He seems alright, but he also has the authority to force us to let him read our journals. At least for the first week before the mission begins.
He has this power supposedly for our own safety, but if he is reading the journals then why would I write anything bad about him or anything I didn’t want him to know. In honesty, though I have always felt having a journal to be useful with both my work and with keeping myself organized, so I will probably continue to use this anyway. Just thought you should know Dr. Burkeman, but I still dislike the idea of you reading it.
05/16/2019
I try to recall this evening. It was a peaceful moment. Perhaps the last we get for a long time.
I was sitting on the couch with Zed, having a good talk with some beers and listening to a baseball game. Even though I never liked baseball, the beer is good, and I have learned to at least talk like I enjoy baseball. Humbert comes in and snorts at us like he the fuckin pig he is.
“Shouldn’t you be prepping,” he says.
“Chill Humpy” Zed responds (Sorry that is a says not a response in the Journal, but this guy uses that word for every single dialog and I’m sick of seeing that word so I’m changing it from here on. Also, there are countless spelling errors I’m fixing because I can’t stand them.). “Besides..” Zed continues “we are prepping getting to know each other like we are a team. Bonding is an important part of the downtime. Ain’t that right Dr. Burkeman?”
Burkeman steps out of the kitchen and pops open the beer he grabbed as he goes to sit in the recliner to the right of the couch “That’s right Zed,” says Burkeman.
“Well then,” Humbert says and goes into the kitchen to later come out holding a glass of wine, he continues to stand though “if we are doing team building then how about you tell us your name Zed, your actual name?”
“Zed is my actual name. It’s what I go by now anyway.”
“No parent names their child Zed.”
“What does it matter anyway. We are only teammates for this mission we’ll probably never see each other after this operation, so who cares?”
“It’s a matter of trust you know my name, you know Henry’s name, and you know Burkeman’s name I would like to know yours,” Humpy whines.
“I only know your first name,” Zed counters “besides, I’m sure Burkeman isn’t the doc’s first name.”
“It’s my last name actually,” Dr. Burkeman responds then continues with a sigh “So when it comes to keeping score for names as it is, we have Humbert’s first name, Henry’s first name, an alias for Zed, and my last name. So, if it is any comfort to you, Humbert, that just means you are one of the more trustful people here.”
“If it helps Humbert I wasn’t going to give my first name either,” I point out.
“Nobody was going to call you Sup3r_H, man,” says Zed. Everybody laughed at that, I was glad to help bring some peace to the scene although I’m not sure if Humbert was satisfied. We then continued to listen to the game while making stupid bets like what the next commercial was going to be advertising.
I liked this whole story for some reason I can’t quiet put my finger on why I liked this story enough to try to memorize it. Maybe I liked the back and forth we all had there or maybe just the conversation. It was peaceful in an odd sort of way like a calm before the storm. The field is always hectic, and it was nice to have some rest before then. I will kind of always picture the guys from that story just sitting around listening to baseball on the radio. I think I will tell this story to my girl when I get back home too.
Okay, I’m skipping the next few days since a lot of nothing happens the next two days and the entries are uninteresting. At one point, Henry decides to write a whole entry on the quality of his shit, I think he was trying to mess with Dr. Burkeman though. So, like my friend Mikey always says, “On with the show.”
05/18/2019
They herd us into the general debriefing room like cattle. In there they would give us all a general idea of what we were going to be doing for them. Then they would individually brief us on our own assignments and what was done before us by the previous teams.
We are now part of Operation Gordian (Ha, did the author really think he could slip such an obvious Alexander reference through so easily!). We made up the sixth team to be sent to discover the identity of an unknown object. What they could convey about the object is that the object was cube-like and appeared to expand upon the completion of a scenario of its choice being solved like a sick sort of puzzle box. At current point, it was 5 meters tall and 4 meters wide and a length of 3 meters leading to a volume of 60 cubic meters, and they estimate it is still growing.
They told Humbert something about it being a regenerative mineral that they would only now be able to get him a sample to work with and the tools to get more if needed. They said that it was discovered that the mineral was perhaps an 8.5 on the talc scale but behaved like a 4.0 on the talc scale when removed from its host. They at first thought it was made of perhaps a metallic basalt but recently have come to think that it may be made up of some sort weird combination metallics or metallic by-product. Some of the experts believed it to be containing lots of iron and nickel-like substances.
Zed they wanted to find out what could be the inside design of the structure or how it could be made and what could make it open. They said they wished they could give him more information, but so far, he was only their second architect on the scene and the first one was only able to discover that while it appeared to the eye to be a perfect hexahedron its measurement betrayed it to truly be a prism. The object seems to have some weird optical illusion the measurements being just close enough to each other in length to give off such an illusion. However, the object was much smaller when this observation was made though and they are unsure if such an illusion still exists.
To me, they said that they had been able to connect all sorts of wires and devices to the cube. They are unsure of how, but they have two theories. One is that the material seems to form an appropriate outlet for any type of device. The other theory is that the material simply absorbs the end of the wire. While they have been able to seemingly connect devices, they have yet to be able to get a charge from the object to power said devices, but it has yet to destroy any devices even with its apparent magnetism. More importantly, they have found a signal within the object and what they would like me to do is try to get a response and communicate with it.
They had no instructions for Dr. Burkeman.
They would give us the rest of the day to prepare and tomorrow they would send us in for three weeks with three weeks’ worth of food and radio silence to let us focus on studying the object. After the three weeks, they would let us go or we could stay and continue to study the object if we so choose.
Zed asked the first and only question “How come you only think all these things? Have you not observed the object yourself?”
Their answer was that only those recruited to study the object were allowed contact with it. Comforting.
(There isn’t a date for the next entry).
Have you ever thought about death? I’m sure you have had nights lying awake thinking about how on the day you die you will be totally alone. How nobody really cares about you and those who did have now abandoned you due to your “horrible” actions. How you should just end it all right now because your life is over and there is no coming out of the hole you have dug for yourself. DIE YOU FUCKIN P(couldn’t make out) LEECH! YOU DESTROYER OF (couldn’t read this part) though because you are a coward… (guessing a bit here on that last part was hard to make out he really tried to scratch this out) but that isn’t what I’m talking about. What I mean to ask is have you ever thought about death?
Have you ever thought about the concept, the worldwide, the universal phenomenon that is Death? How it/he/she comes for all things without prejudice. Everything on this earth is destined to a final rest no mater what it does to try and avoid this. Death haunts our every waking existence. As we see the passing of the years, of the days, of the hours as bring us one step closer to Death. In our panic, we see the Reaper as an enemy and do everything in our power to stop it. To make her/him/it so he/she/it does not take our life or the life of our loved ones. It is the fear that keeps all of humanity together he/she/it is inevitable and so so much bigger than us. Yet have you ever looked at our thought of death and realized just how beautiful Death is?
I don’t get why this passage was even written. This over expression of death. Yes, death is a huge and overpowering thing, but so is life. I just started to live some more finally got out and I got a date. Yes, a date with a girl, her name is Ally, and she is so sweet and kind, she even laughed at my dumb stories. Only recently did I get the chance to ask her out for the first time. I think this may work out after all.
I was so worried at first. I was pacing back and forth bugging Mikey for advice over stupid questions like: “What if she doesn’t show? What if she doesn’t like me? What if? What if?”
Mikey cut me off there like he always does with every panic attack giving the same advice: “if you can’t solve it don’t worry about it and if you can solve it then solve it.” That helped calm me down. I knew I could handle a date if it went bad so what and if went well all the better. I just had to be myself, my broken old self.
05/20/2019
I feel that I write the following in vain as I first don’t want to reflect on this morning, and secondly, I will be seeing that Thing, that Box, daily and don’t need or want a reminder of its design written down in my journal. Unfortunately, Dr. Burkeman insists that we all write down what we saw and felt this morning, and then that we each have a talk to with him in private about it to help calm our nerves.
We walked into the operation room with the ballistic doors being clossed and bolted behind us, for “security purposes” I fucking hate them. They say that it’s okay to be locking us in because they have food for the three weeks already in the kitchen and if we fail to ration or need more Burkeman can knock on the door and request more. We have running water, each our own individual room, and a personal bathroom. Each room and bathroom fully stocked like it’s the fucking Hilton. Don’t know how they managed that when nobody besides recruits are allowed to observe the box. Then there are our work rooms with mine being the smallest with multiple computers and monitors in one cramp room. My room and workplace are also farthest from the kitchen. The kitchen has two ports to it the back part of it has a storage area for the nonperishables and a fridge and freezer for the frozen food. There is also a stove/oven along with a microwave and cabinets that store our utensils and dishes, we have a dishwasher too to help clean the dishes. There are two other doors in the kitchen one leads to a storage closet full of survival tools and the other leads to the laundry room. The front part, which is closer to the box, is the dinning area. So to get to the kitchen I have to walk down the hallway through … the observation room… then past Dr. Burkeman’s office/room and finally get to the kitchen. After the Kitchen is the second… observation place which then leads to Zed’s work place. Zed’s work place is full of blue prints and books as well as a table full of drawing equipment and all are tidally put up against the walls of the room with only the drawing table being in front of the glass which out of you can see the. Zeds work room is probably the closest place to a library we got. Zed’s Room is right next to his office with only a door separating him from the room. Herbert’s office is right next to Zed’s and is basically a laboratory full of equipment and solutions of all sorts. Herbert has a room but I have no interest or care about it so fuck it. Each of them also has a computer at there workplace and my workplace also has enough parts to make at least three more computers if necessary.
The whole building has a crescent shape and each of the offices has an inch-thick bullet proof window for us to view the box from, but for some reason, the observation rooms only have a rail separating you from the 4 story drop and the box…a hero must be brave.
After they locked the doors we walked into observation room 1. It was right there in front of us a dark gray box as big as a house wire attached to the top of it, suspending it? Uneven surface parts jutting out and sinking into it. Staring at those parts is painful. You know that they aren’t moving, but your eyes lie to you seeing them as moving in and out in some sort of rhythm. I see words. There are words in the gaps of the uneven spaces they aren’t there I know they aren’t there but the words read:
“Oh yea poor wretches come to me with your liars, your loveless, your poor and I will make”
I can’t read anymore, I want to scream. I have no voice to scream with. Herbert screams, or at least I think he screams, I see his mouth open, but I don’t hear anything nothing but a heartbeat. My heartbeat? Herbert covers his ears and runs like a dog with his tail in between his legs. He runs into Dr. Berkman’s office slamming the door to cut off his line of sight. I fall on all fours and tuck my head in between my arm with my hands behind my head. I turn to look at Zed looking for I don’t know what I looked for anymore comfort maybe. I see Zed still standing eyes wide hyperventilating knees buckled, swaying back and forth like a tree in a strong breeze with perspiration pouring down his forehead.
That thing, that box, it is inanimate, it is an object clear as day, but for that moment I knew it was alive.
So, the date went well. It turns out I and Ally have a lot in common we both watch the same shows and movies. We both like video games and she was so beautiful. With fiery red hair falling gently to the small of her back and sparkling green eyes like an ocean shinning in the setting sun. Wearing a simple white dress and red accents. I was so flustered at first, I couldn’t talk, and she was so shy that she just looked down waiting politely for me to start a conversation. Finally, I managed to say something about a video game I was playing and that got her interested. So, then I asked her about any new video games she was playing. She couldn’t wait to talk about the game. I can’t remember the game she was playing anymore but I don’t care I was in heaven just talking with her. We talked back and forth about well about everything until the placed closed. Come to think about it I don’t really remember the place we went to for our date. Maybe I should since it was our first one. I think we had spaghetti or pasta or something like that, so it must have been an Italian place?
I tell you all this though because after the date I came across a discovery. It was late and there weren’t many people on campus as I cut through, but I saw someone putting something in the trash. Curious to see if it was worth my while I looked in to find another yellow journal identical to the first. I picked it up looking for the person who put it in. I want to find this author I want to return these journals and tell him he isn’t half bad that he shouldn’t give up, but he was gone after I dug this second journal out of the trash. I think this one is Zeds.
