a.note.on.the.door

There is a notebook page sitting on one of the tables in the library.

It looks to have been hastily torn out of the notebook it resided in. The paper is thick and high-quality- none of the ink bleeds through to the other side, which is also covered in writing. It is lined with thin, grey strokes, with a fair amount of space for a margin and title. The writing itself has been done in cursive with a thin black pen, without any sign of a crossed out word or hastily fixed letter. You smell the paper- it carries the scent of jasmine and something else.

Like Sherlock Holmes, who could deduce the character of a man based on a single written page without reading the words, you try to imagine the character of the person who wrote this entry. Someone calm and slow, who took great pride in journaling- how else would you explain the superb quality of the paper and ink?

Then, you read the page itself.


Why does this city exist? What gives the city its dreamlike quality? And why is it that we are allowed to walk its halls?

The truth is, there is no truth. The nature itself is transient. To put it in the terms of science*, it is like a photon. Photons are waves, particles, both, and neither. They are observable and unobservable. Their true nature is something evershifting, existing in a unique place that sits between everything. It is, and it is not.

That nature is what allows us to travel there and reside within it, to touch a world we cannot touch.

That is why we love the city.

Why does she love the city? Perhaps it is because she lives there, that she has no other choice. She herself came from another "world" beyond our reach. She does not want to return there. I can only hear tell of such worlds- she called it 'miserable', a place 'slowly rotting'. The city is different. Little is new, and little ages. In that way, it feels frozen in time.

She does not 'want' for much. As long as she can live, eat, and enjoy herself, she does not ask for more. Her suffering washes away into the concrete every time she steps outside, keeping her in a perpetual state of contentment- as content as a woman her age can be.

I know it's not enough. I know because I am watching her. There is something she wants, which she believes she cannot have. It is a modest question, and at the same time a monumental one.

"It's complicated", were her words.

I don't think it's very complicated. Or rather, perhaps it is from her point of view, but the cure is simple and in high supply. I would be honored to deliver it to her myself, that she might be happy and I might be happy as well.

That is the reason I love this city.




* I am not a "scientist", nor am I familiar with much of "science". If the future of my profession requires knowledge of science, perhaps this will change.


What more could you deduce? The writer himself appeared to be a foreigner in some sense- some metaphysical or metaphorical sense. Yet he spoke of the city with reverence and love. Then, he spoke of a woman in unfamiliar terms- she herself was the same kind of foreigner, but from a different place than him. He said he was "watching" her, and she was suffering from something which he claimed he could cure. However, on the same page, he claimed he knew nothing about science, so he probably wasn't a pharmacist, doctor, or scientist...

The enigmatic nature of the journaler confuses you. You squint your eyes shut as you attempt to ponder the man's existence. But any understanding of the man falls away a moment later.

When you open your eyes, the journal page is gone.

This is Deep Lore page 4.

There are a few of these Deep Lore pages scattered all throughout The City of Rest...

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