Hmmm, well… good day to you downstairs. I am the Captain. Young Oliver asked me to pen some lines to you and so I shall.
To quote a true bard; Are you light of brain down there? You invent objects that; do your work, take you to places faster and smoother and make your life easier. And what do you do with the time these amazing inventions give you? Create, invent and celebrate life? No, you sit on your stuffed behinds and watch screens that tell you lies, sell you lifestyles and give you false dreams. Are your heads filled with wood?
The world is filled with good and bad but I have seen them, the real leaders, hidden in their castles, hiding behind Presidents and Parliaments. They manipulate you and drive you. They set the rules. The common man must strive to be not a fool. The dog eat dog policy, turning neighbours into enemies, the territorial fighting, the reign of materialism and vanity could be brought to an end my brothers. By you…
By you, in front of your televisions and phone screens, eating plastic packaged food and glugging cheap alcoholic beverages. Where is the society born out of hard graft and respect? Somewhere North of Japan I thinketh. When he was young William, Old William caught double pneumonia and his Father nursed him through it; sat by his bed and fed him broth and the like. After his recovery, William would arise from his slumbers at six to clean, scrape and prepare his father’s car every day until his father died. Mutual respect. (His Dad did wallop him from time to time too; keep him on the straight and narrow. This may have had a bearing on the situation.)Treat each other with equality and fraternity. I believe you have been told this over and over but your cloth ears cannot hear it.
Perfection
Hell is empty and all the devils are here, again to quote our bard. (Apart for the one that lives in the small room, near where the staircase used to be in the Hall. Dark nasty piece of mess that one.) They are everywhere and nowhere, taking your hard earned money and keeping you poor. They create a desire that is compulsive, glamourous and problem free. To be rich is to be happy. To be perfect is to be happy. They even give you an image of this perfection to lead you on; to make you dream their dream. Somnambulists awake. Bear arms together. Reject their realities and create your own, the time of the enlightened working man cometh.
Or not…Up to you. There was a time on earth when such words spurred me on and put fire in my loins but no longer. Even as I write I feel my lust dissolve into a kind of apathy. I travel; I watch and occasionally create havoc when the boredom of this existence fills me. I am a fool, a half-wit .My earthly existence was filled with misdirected passion and pain and now I suspend my sentence here by idiotic acts of destruction, meaning to drag you from your apathy or to create a new balance. Women with their obscure ways and sharp tongues force me to alter their fates and bring their haggard lives to abrupt ends. Even after hundreds of years up here I cannot control myself; I may never leave this land of limbo.
Battle
The Hall is preparing for the summer. Ancient wood is starting to shrink and warp and damp patches dissolve into powder. The cat, a damned fine beast, grows more powerful by the day. On its hind legs it holds Charles with its paws, face to face. Could have done with one of those when I was alive; seen those King’s men run in horror at its magnificence. Having witnessed countless bloody wars, rebellions and uprisings I realise now that this is population control and wealth management in action. Your lives mean little to those in control; you are a means to an end, usually yours.
Well, my brothers and sisters, fare thee well. Use passion wisely and care for your neighbour. Judgement day is coming for you all.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die, trust me I know…