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The Uninteresting Account of an Ordinary Man

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1/11/2009 1:11:59   
Necromander
Member

The date is January 28, 1932

I write this because my doctors have asked me to keep an exact record of my daily activities. I see no reason for them to find me so interesting, as I am what every dictionary still calls an “Ordinary Man”.

Despite my constant protests and attempts at reasoning, they refuse to remove me from their medical surveillance. They say that my being Ordinary is what makes me Extraordinary. But I know why they truly keep me in their labs, and why they conspire to watch me night and day.

They want to know why I was born without the Blessing.

Because of the strange circumstances of my birth, I am different than other men. I cannot outrun a horse without growing weary. I have never lifted a boulder with my bare hands, nor leapt over a building on my way to work.

My name is William Anderson. I am Ordinary.
DF MQ  Post #: 1
1/11/2009 1:28:55   
Necromander
Member

The date is January 30, 1932.

I have missed a day of my writings due to January the 29th being the day I attend weekly services at the church of His Sanctified, The Blessed Phillip. Religious celebrations are stressed among the populace, and I am under greater stress than others.

The Blessing is regarded to be the highest symbol of religious purity. I, being devoid of it, am eyed as a heretic by many members of my community. I am constantly called on to prove my devotion, especially in this, the week before our Great Week of Celebration.

Preparations are aleady beginning for the Great Day of Mourning. This celebration marks, by our reckoning, the 620th anniversary of the Black Plague, when nearly a twentieth of Europe's population was killed. Although no preparations have begun yet, the celebrations of the days of Cleansing, What Has Been, What Is, and What Will Be are already being planned.

I am never called upon to help with the celebrations. I am incapable of even decorating the Church. While others can leap to the rafters, I am stuck on the ground. I am reduced to shame by their physical prowess, and can only hang my head and pray to Phillip for guidance. He does not answer my prayers, as he does to so many others.

I am helpless. My prayers fall upon empty ears, and I can only wonder what I have done to scorn him.
DF MQ  Post #: 2
1/17/2009 13:01:39   
Necromander
Member

January the 31st, 1932

Day continued ordinarily.

I woke up, at breakfast, and got ready for work. I managed to say "Good Morning" to my neighbor, Mark, before he dashed into the distance.

I had to walk to work. It would be so much more enjoyable were my office not 7 miles away. I takes me 2 hours on a good day, 3 hours if the weather is bad. I tried applying for a job closer to home, but the city denied me. I am "needed" at the Shipping and Travel Company. I do not share their opinion.

The Shipping and Travel Co. monitors all transit and trade out of London. We have to constantly import food, due to most of Europe being covered by urban sprawl, and we also have to make sure no one with The Blessing leaves without license. Tourists are free to come and go.

My job is to keep track of files. I put nearly two-hundred sheets of paper in thousands of drawers, and that is my job. I feel the city is trying to keep me here for some reason.

It is two days to the Great Day of Mourning. But tomorrow, I visit the scientists for my first check-up since receiving this journal.
DF MQ  Post #: 3
1/21/2009 18:13:12   
Necromander
Member

February 1st, 1932

I took a leave of absence from work today, due to my appointment with the scientists. My reasons were still met with hostility among my coworkers, despite the truth fullness of my reason for absence. I couldn't tell if it was jealousy or discrimination that fueled their emotion.

I, without The Blessing, am prone to sickness, unlike my completely immune countrymen. I have received special dispensation to take "Sick Days", where I am allowed to be absent from work on account of sickness. My fellow workers in the office have expressed envy more than once.

I digress.

The doctors did their usual routine of drawing blood and doing a physical examination. They say I'm their favorite person to draw blood from, because the needle is so easy to insert. It takes two scientists to drive a needle through the skin of a Blessed One.

The physical tests are tiring but endurable. I run a treadmill, lift weights, and jump hurdles, and the scientists compare my performance to a Blessed One and to a fellow Ordinary, brought in from the Phillipian Colonies. This time around, I feel like my skill in each area has decreased. The scientists say I may have improved, but I doubt it. I'm only getting older.

I was excused from the laboratory at seven o'clock PM, long after everyone else had returned home. I ran the 3 miles to my home, said my prayers, and went to sleep.

Tomorrow is the Great Day of Mourning.
DF MQ  Post #: 4
1/28/2009 18:53:58   
Necromander
Member

February 2nd, 1932

It is late in the night as I write this entry. I have spent my day attending the various religious ceremonies that acompany The Great Day of Mourning.

First, I had to don my Mourning Clothe and spend an hour praying for the souls of the dead, as each citizen of London was required to do. After the hour of prayer, you are expected to take breakfast and then attend Church ceremonies. I was forced to skip my breakfast so that I might arrive to the chapel on time. It is quite hard to focus on mourning hundreds of lost lives on an empty stomach, I can now say with certainty.

I fought my way through the intense pangs of hunger, and made it through the three-hour long mass without a word of complaint.

The mass is long to accomodate the epic tale of the Black Plague, when a vile punishment was brought to Europe by God. He sent vermin from the east to spread a wretched disease among our ancestors. The priest told this tale in his booming voice, filling every chasm of the chapel with the tale of the Plague.

He concluded his eulogy for the Plague victims with the line, "And so the disease spread. Until the man now known as Blessed Phillip uttered a single prayer, and changed England forever."

At that line, we ceremoniously threw off our Mourning Clothes, in celebration of the end of death. Tomorrow we celebrated life.

October 7th, 1933

How odd it is that I should come to this page under my circumstances. I am running out of paper in this journal, and I search desperately for another place to scrawl my thoughts. This journal has become my anchor in a world of madness.

I hear them at night. They are in the ship, below deck, wailing in agony. Their screams come through the boards, and I mourn them, just as I mourned the victims of the Plague in the entry above.

I hear their screams, and I can only wonder what God has wrought.
DF MQ  Post #: 5
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