| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: on the ground level. It did not look quite as it ought after countless
thousands of years of desertion, and when we cautiously turned
on more light we saw that a kind of swath seemed to have been
lately tracked through it. The irregular nature of the litter
precluded any definite marks, but in the smoother places there
were suggestions of the dragging of heavy objects. Once we thought
there was a hint of parallel tracks as if of runners. This was
what made us pause again.
It was during that pause that we caught
- simultaneously this time - the other odor ahead. Paradoxically,
it was both a less frightful and more frightful odor - less frightful
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: creatures flew away without stinging me. Then I met a fierce tiger,
and my heart grew light and gay. 'Surely this will cause me suffering!'
I cried, and advanced swiftly upon the brute. But the cowardly tiger
turned tail and ran to hide in the bushes, leaving me unhurt!
"Of course, my many disappointments were some consolation; but not
much. That night I slept on the bare ground, and hoped I should catch
a severe cold; but no such joy was to be mine.
"Yet the next afternoon I experienced my first pleasure. The thieves
caught me, stripped off all my fine clothes and jewels and beat me
well. Then they carried me to their cave, dressed me in rags, and
perched me on the top of the casks, where the slightest movement on my
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: drying up, little by little, in this hateful existence. I'll be dead if
this goes on--and"--she stirred in the bed and flung out her arms--"I want
passion, and love, and adventure--I yearn for them. Why should I stay here
and rot?--I am rotting!" she cried, comforting herself with the sound of
her breaking voice. "But if I tell Casimir all this when he comes this
afternoon, and he says, 'Go'--as he certainly will--that's another thing I
loathe about him--he's under my thumb--what should I do then--where should
I go to?" There was nowhere. "I don't want to work--or carve out my own
path. I want ease and any amount of nursing in the lap of luxury. There
is only one thing I'm fitted for, and that is to be a great courtesan."
But she did not know how to go about it. She was frightened to go into the
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