Monday, February 26, 2018

The farthestmost point

There's a place that as kid you called the farthestmost point — the most distant you could get, the place that when you stood there you could pretend you were the only person in the world. Being there made you wary, but it also put a kind of peace into you, a sense of security. Beyond that point, in either direction, you were always returning, and are returning still. But for that moment, even now with Whitby by your side, you're so remote that there's nothing for miles — and you feel that. You feel it strongly. You've gone from being a little on edge to being a little tired, and you've come out on this perfectly still scene where the scrublands turn to wetlands, with a freshwater canal serving as a buffer to the salt marsh and, ultimately, the sea. Where once you saw otters, heard the call of curlews. You take a deep breath and relax into the landscape, walk along the shore of this lower heaven rejuvenated by its perfect stillness. Our legs are for a time no longer tired and you are afraid of nothing, not even Area X, and you have no room for memory or thought or anything except this moment, and this one, and the next.
— from Acceptance, by Jeff Vandermeer.

This is from Book 3 of the Southern Reach trilogy, about Area X. Each book is very different in tone, with a distinct kind of horror.

I'm almost at the end now. I have great admiration for this series.

I have no room for memory or thought or anything except this moment, and this one, and the next...

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