Just sitting

Sitting on the bench in Relto, looking out over the island and clouds . . .

The sky is surprisingly clear. Watching the butterflies, I find that I lose site of the butterflies as they move around, lost in the orange leaves of the trees. Especially as I get lost in thought. Stopping to think about how different this place is without the constant rain . . .

I had been thinking about Dr. Watson again. Having made my way into the cavern after the first Restoration, I had not had the opportunity to meet him. When DRC had first announced their new funding and the restart of the Restoration, there was a pretty vocal group of Explorers that wanted to know more about Dr. Watson–where he was, had anyone been in contact with him, that sort of thing.

Those voices seemed to quiet down as the Restoration effort began to pick up, and I had not heard much from that group on the forums or in the cavern. That seems to be the route of a number of movements take–a period of growth where a small group of very vocal only to shrink back into the Explorer community under the weight of distraction caused by other groups or the release or discovery of another age, Bahro stone or those other things.

I, myself, had recently been wondering about how Dr. Watson would feel about the current status of things–the opening of the museum and the pods, the new gardens and the new Journeys, the activity of the Bahro.

I imagined that after the first Restoration was canceled, Dr. Watson did not return immediately to the surface. In my mind, I imagined that he had used his position as the head of the DRC to at least pick through parts of the cavern that his position would have given him access that most of us had never seen. I imagined that maybe he discovered something or someplace and he is still in the tunnels, waiting for someone to find him.

I have also imagined that he did return to the surface, and is living quietly and comfortably and trying very hard not to think about D'ni.

And I have imagined that he is uncomfortably sitting sedated in a mental institution in a medically induced haze rambling on to those who have not yet heard the call of the cavern, or do not yet understand that which pulls them there, about people living in a cavern under a volcano who can magically transport themselves across time and space, of a civilization that could create a link between this planet and anything the could describe, via books.

I also imagine, sometimes as if in a dream, that Dr. Watson found something, stumbled upon something in the cavern, either the Bahro or even more evidence of Yeesha and the D'ni. Somehow, taking an understanding only he could develop, he found them, the D'ni, the people, and is with them somewhere. In that dream, Dr. Watson is sitting, listening to Atrus, talking about the journals, hearing about the last link between the cavern and the surface before the rediscovery, before the DRC and the Explorers.

Yesterday, with all these thoughts where running through my head, something happened. A new Bahro stone was discovered. Someone had just stumbled upon the stone amongst a pile of rocks while searching out markers to help calibrate the Great Zero. A stone that linked to someplace very special, a resting place in the middle of the Great Shaft connecting the lower tunnels leading to the cavern and up to the surface.

January 17, 2004 . . . Dr. Watson commits to taking the Journey after three weeks of picking his way through the tunnels and the cavern. The last entry of the journal he kept for himself.

And here I sit, comfortably in Relto, staring out over the pillars of rock that pierce the clouds beneath me. In the back of my mind, I feel the beginning of a thought about the impact that this will have on the community. Here in Relto, I hear the distant rumbling of thunder as it gently starts to rain again, the bulk of the storm still unseen.

I am still not used to how this place mirrors my thoughts and feelings.