#but it was kinda relaxing ticking everything off my map on land

[traaanskimkitsuragi]

finished up everything in the witcher 3 apart from blood and wine >:)c

[missedtimemachine]

The Day of Madness

I didn’t meet my time machine.

I’m famously late for most things. I have to try really hard to be on time at work and even then I sometimes fail. I had stayed up too late then spent too long on coffee and showering in the morning. When I realised the time I hustled over to the chapel. I was far too late - none of me were there, no time machine, nothing. Honestly, this is so like me. I was furious with myself. What if I had missed my chance to get a time machine of my very own, at long long last?? Unlikely but possible-ish, and I’d ruined it.

However, the mysterious author (or authors?) had been busy in my absence. Throughout the day I received many more letters. Here’s just a FEW of the envelopes:

Image is of a half-dozen envelopes addressed to Josh and Pirate Josh.

Image is of a yellow envelope held shut by tape covered in pictures of kittens. It is addressed: TO ME (Josh, a pirate) FROM ME (Josh. A PIRATE)

Two images above: a purple envelope covered in dinosaur stickers. On one side is written “NOT FOR JOSH THE PIRATE” and on the other side is written “but give it to him. He will know what to do!”

Image is a yellow envelope, decorated, addressed: JOSH. DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 18:36

That last one is fucking mysterious, right? We’ll come back to it. I received the letter at like half 2 in the afternoon so if I had to wait 4 hours, you can also do some waiting. You best believe I was counting down the seconds towards the end. I took it very seriously. If I wrote that instruction to myself, I must have had a good reason, and I always listen to good reason. Especially from myself.*

*HA NOPE

I won’t spend much time on my side of the story here. The letters do it fine on their own. Just... just look.

Letter 5 reads: OUR COMMUNICATION HAS BEEN COMPROMISED. DON’T TRUST THE LETTERS. - Pirate Josh

Letter 6a reads: Josh! They’re after us! Please hurry. I can’t hold them off much longer! - Future Josh

This sounds like a different Future Josh than the one from before, right? How many Future Joshs are there?? The note above was contained in this folded card:

Letter 6b reads: Name: Josh. Occupation: Pirate. Skills: Pillaging. DIRECT ORDER FROM COMMAND: Capture the above mentioned JOSH on sight. There can be only one JOSH. From, Lord Commander Josh.

This implies that there are versions of Josh (me) that have banded together into an organisation of some kind. Is it like Rick & Morty, with the citadel of Ricks? I wouldn’t have a citadel though. I’d probably have a giant network of tunnels and rooms carved into the skull of a long-dead space titan, with magic sail-based spacecraft bustling and swarming in and out of the eyes. Or an abandoned and broken gigantic clocktower on a floating sky-island, covered with ivy and crumbling stone, drifting through a misty star-lit purgatory, the windows dimly lit with an eerie blue light. At the very least, a volcano island in the shape of a skull guarded by several King Kongs.

Why would an army of Joshs obey a Lord Commander that clearly wants to eventually eliminate all the other versions of me? That would include the army itself, right? Maybe there’s only a certain amount of divergence the Lord Commander will tolerate - maybe some Joshs satisfy a kind of... purity test? IS THIS JOSH A BIGOT???

Letter 7 reads: Dear Josh, We have been compromised. Thank you for standing by us, our brother in arms. We are escaping to the Yemen. The monks there will give us passage to Portal K1325. We will meet you in the Nebula Air Portal at 5.10pm. - Lord Commander Future Josh

Ohhhh pretty sneaky, Lord Commander Josh! But I’m not falling for that. Sure I was looking everywhere for a ‘Nebula Air Portal’ (?????) at 5.10pm but I suspect that Yemen* would have been some kind of trap. Most things seem to be...

*there will be more on Yemen later

Letter 8 reads: THE PORTALS ARE COMPROMISED. RUN!!!

No shit, Sherlock.

This next one, I withdrew it from the envelope so that this was the first side I saw:

Letter 9 reads: Yours sincerely, Good Josh. PS. Everything will be okay.

That’s so nice of me. Maybe Good Josh has a plan? Or maybe he’s just confident in our skills and luck? He knows that I worry, and he knows what kind of effect that exact phrase has on us. Maybe this time, for the first time in a long time, everything really WILL be okay? If we can play with time, manipulate events, twist the path of history, then we can prevent wars from breaking out. Whenever anyone is sad, lonely, scared, or feels trapped, wherever or whenever they are, one of me can turn up to help. We can revisit every loved one we’ve ever lost, enjoy even more time with them, and make sure to say goodbye properly. Everything will be okay. With so many of me I can finally relax a little, maybe release a little of my worry, no longer feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. Is this what it feels like to be free of worry? It feels like there’s a wide blue sky inside my chest, no more tangled web of thorns covered in scraps of ragged pirate flags.

With that good feeling powering and protecting me, I might as well unfold the letter and see what the rest of it says...

Letter 9 reads: Dearest of Joshes, It’s a TRAP. Yours sincerely, Good Josh. PS. Everything will be okay.

... Oh. Forget I said anything.

Letter 10 reads: Dear Josh, I know you must have many questions for me. But you must trust me. I will tell you all in time. YOU MUST GO THROUGH THE PORTAL. DO NOT bring the medallions. The metal will cause havoc and destroy the portal, and who carries it! - Me

There are medallions involved now?? Where did they come from??

Letter 11 reads: Josh, I HAVE THE OTHER JOSHS. Bring 3 medallions to the Barn. - Evil Josh

Is this the same evil Josh as the Lord Commander Josh? Is it a different evil Josh? Why does he want the medallions? I checked in the barn when I received the letter, obvy. No sign of me. Maybe the other Joshs resolved the issue before I even got there? Am I getting mail intended for the other Joshs, like a shipwrecked survivor on an island accidentally receiving radio transmissions during WW2? WHO THE FUCK IS SENDING ME ALL THESE LETTERS?? THEY MUST HAVE WORKED REALLY HARD.

Image is a paper map, unfolded, with several small Xs linked to a skull and crossbones with a dotted line, and a sticker in one corner on which is written ‘Godspeed Josh! Godspeed!!’

Upon very close inspection I figured out this is maybe a naval map of Yemen? In French?

Image is a close-up of the map. The word ‘Yemen’ can just about be seen amongst the other tiny writing.

See?

At least the final X is on land! Immediately upon receiving this, I realised I knew nothing about Yemen. That’s changed now obviously. The Republic of Yemen is coastal nation on the Arabian peninsula, sharing a border with Saudi Arabia and Oman. The human rights violations of the government there include human trafficking and slavery, they have compulsory military service, they’re big on petrol and oil, and water is so scarce that the whole nation lives in perpetual fear of running out completely.

None of that helps me. I’m not going to Yemen though. 

This one is more complicated:

Letter 12a reads: JOSH, I found this letter from her. I loved her too. I know. I know. I know everything. The rest of the text is obscured by a folded piece of paper, taped to the card.

Letter 12b is paper taped to the card. It unfolds to reveal a poem:

My Love, Josh from the Neutron Nebula Galaxy, He waited for 14 hours in his taxi, Going home he was, until he was not. Don’t get into that car, but listen he did not. - Your love

The second part of Letter 12a reads: I’m waiting by the time machine. I moved it to the pool house. Look for this sign. - Good Josh. A strange triangular symbol is also included.

I mean, right?? So it looks like Good Josh found a letter from....? I don’t know who we loved. Or who he loved? I didn’t love whoever it was. I don’t know them. It also sounds like whoever she was, she was writing a poem about me like I died? It sounds like she might have died too, from the past-tense use of the word ‘love’? It makes sense that versions of me have died. I’m very lucky but sometimes I’ve been very reckless and probably lots of versions of me have died already. This is so sad.

Needless to say, I also checked the pool house. There was no time machine in there. One of me must have taken it already.

Let’s talk about the symbol later. In theory it looks similar to this one but it’s not identical...

Image is a diagram of some kind, involving triangles. There is some kinda timecode in the corner saying ‘12:33:12:49′. Parts are labelled ‘Neutron chamber’ and ‘Tessareactor’. There is a list on the left titled ‘Need’, which lists: 1. Split atoms 2. Hydrogen (whole) 3. Magensium chloride (a pinch) 4. 16 baby carrots

There’s a lot to unpack here. First up, this is clearly the Josh version of a flux capacitor. I assumed it was all being done by portals, but I guess every portal needs a generator? I’m gonna talk more about whatever a “tessareactor” might be in the epilogue. For some reason the recipe calls for baby carrots. Maybe I only included that in the instructions so that I would have a healthy snack? That doesn’t sound like me. Maybe it’s like, potato or lemon batteries, except carrots?

No idea about Magnesium Chloride. Apparently it’s a fairly common chemical compound extracted from salt water and used to thicken some Japanese sauces, a bit like gelatin. That doesn’t help me either.

Maybe there’s portals AND a time machine...?

Meanwhile, remember that letter from earlier which said not to open it until half 6? As the seconds ticked past at 18:35:50 I was poised and ready to open it. Would it be a confession finally?

No.

Letter 13 reads: Dear Josh. Follow the symbol to safety. She’s waiting for you. She never betrayed you. It was a lie by Evil Josh! She’ll be at the Air Portal. She’s been there all this time. She loves you. Get in the car! - Lord Commander Future Josh

Okay, Lord Commander Josh. You’re up to mischief again, I see? But Lord Commander Josh is apparently a different Josh to Evil Josh? Is this when the Lord Commander finally abdicated from his role, becoming Future Josh? Is this one of the first letters?

Who IS this ‘she’ that everyone keeps talking about? Is this the same ‘she’ from the previous letter? Oh my god. IS SHE ALIVE?? What kind of twisted cross-time death-defying relationship have we gotten ourselves involved in? How many versions of me have loved how many versions of her??

In the epilogue, exactly zero of these questions will be answered. Literally none of my many, many questions. Make your peace with this now: much like life, this whole experience has no tidy ending where we learn a lesson and our unresolved emotions are satisfied.

This is the prologue.

This is the first day, with the 4 original letters.

This is the epilogue.