Chapter 3

How had he come to this? He didn't remember choosing this tiny raft, or how he had even gotten to the sea. Did he even like the water? How then did he get to this hopeless place? He rolled over on to his hands and knees and looked to the horizon. The blue of the water met the blue of the sky in an almost indiscernable line that seemed a thousand miles away.

As he looked out across the expanse of water seeking answers to his questions, the overwhelming weight of his life crushed in around him. He shoulders stooped even lower and his breath caught in his lungs. What did it matter how he got here? It only mattered that here is where he was, and where he would stay. Hope was pain.

He looked down at his hands displayed underneath him against the wet wood. His hands that had once brought him so much joy, creativity and expression, now were bloody and broken, like the rest of him. He brought a trembling hand up in front of his face. He stared at the shaking fingers, once so delicate, now bruised and shrunken from lack of food and water. His hand disgusted him. It was useless, a hand not talented enough to make him smile, not passionate enough to tell his story, and not strong enough to save him from this hell.

His lips turned to a scowl as he slowly and painfully bent his fingers into a raw fist. With all of the strength he had left, a strength that betrayed his weary condition, he brought his fist down and struck the wood beneath him. The skin of his knuckles scraped off on the dense wood, and he felt an echo of pain stab through his mind. No sooner had the blow landed on his raft with a dull thud, then he brought it down again...and again. With each strike his body rose up higher, gaining strength from his rage. Soon both fists pounded into the wood, sending out a dismal rhythm into the air.

He barely noticed the red stain beginning to form on the wood under the torrent of his fists. He wondered if it was his blood, or the blood of whatever demon held him trapped here. The man slowly started to realize the pain that was creeping into his subconscious. Something, somewhere in his brain was telling him to stop, that he was hurt, but it was too far, too deep to hear.

He struck the wood and heard, rather then felt, a loud crack come from his wrist. With a loud cry he collapsed into a heap on the bloody wood. With his good hand he felt his wrist, already knowing that it was broken. It was then he heard a sound traveling over the waves. A sound he didn't recognize. He strained his ears to hear it, wondering where it came from. He tried to raise himself up off the wood to listen, but as soon as he put weight on his injured hand he collapsed again in a fit of pain. It was then that he realized the sound he heard came from him. His anguished cries dissipated into the air, and the nearly inhuman howls of misery were soon lost to the neverending blue around him.

Chapter 2

A wave caught the corner of the tiny fragment of wood and caused it to tip precariously towards the water. The man’s fear took over and he edged back towards the middle of his raft. Afraid that his movements would capsize his safety, he curled up in the middle of the piece of wood and stared at the empty cloudless sky above him.

He would die here, of that much he was certain. The day, the time, those things didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the certainty of it. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His tears had evaporated long ago, along with his hope, but deep inside he wished for more tears. He wished to cry, if only to feel something. Anything. But misery had long ago given way to despair, and eventually, even despair had fled, leaving him with nothing. Now he was just empty and hollow, and waiting for the end of his days.

He drew a deep breath of the thick, hot air and exhaled quietly. He closed his eyes to the sun and tried to search his memory. He tried to remember his past. Surely there were days before this raft and this sun! He rolled onto his stomach, his face pressed against the damp, rotting wood he floated on. A distant memory flickered in his mind. Perhaps there was a time, when his body didn’t ache, when he didn’t wake up every morning on a slab of wood, but on something soft, exquisite…beautiful. But what? When? A flash of green in his mind and the smell of something sweet in his nostrils caused his eyes to open with a start. But as quickly as the flame of the memory entered his mind, it was extinguished. He rolled on to his back and stared again into the scorching sun, convinced the memory had never been there at all.

There was no other bed, no other smells besides this salty hot air and this rotting wood. There was nothing sweet, or green, or beautiful. There was only this raft, this sun...this nothing.

Chapter 1

It was the sparkling of the sun shining off the surface of the water that finally awoke him. His body, tired and bedraggled by the abuse of the elements, heaved itself up to look around. The man grimaced as he rubbed his neck, hoping to ease at least some of his soreness. He looked around at his surroundings, hoping for a change, but everything was as he had left it.

The tiny piece of wood, barely the size of a bedroom door, still floated aimlessly in the endless expanse of water. Sunlight from above, and it's reflection from below, caused the man to squint and look off in the distance, searching for some sign of hope.

He had forgotten how many days he had lived on his makeshift raft. He had no recollection of how he came to be here, or even his life before this picturesque prison. He couldn't remember when he had finally resigned himself to his fate, but for any that knew him, he would have appeared a dismal shell of the man they knew.

His shoulders were in a perpetual slump under some unseen weight. His brow furrowed from the sun and his own consternation. And his hands. Once delicate, slender fingers of an artist had become bruised, blistered and dirty. Callouses on his fingertips lay open and bloody. Where once his fingers would have appeared to move with a grace and beauty, now only was a fist clenched in pain and despair.

He slowly worked his way to his hands and knees and stared into the blue depth of the water. What lay below the surface was a mystery, but he knew that to abandon his floating prison meant death.

How I Proved I Could Write an 800 Word Paper in Half an Hour

For as long as history has been documented, man has sought to categorize. Perhaps it is conquering in a sense, or man's desire for natural order that created this dynamic, but if discovery is man's most potent drug, then categorizing those discoveries is the high that drug produces. In no aspect is this clearer, then in the wide ranging and detailed minutia of cheese. There are literally hundreds of types of cheeses and they can all be categorized by their aging techniques, their flavor, their elasticity, and in countless other ways.

The most popular group of cheeses in the United States is the "hard" or "semi-hard" cheese family. Among these delicious cheeses are cheddar, Colby and Monterey Jack. These cheeses have a lower moisture count and are pressed into molds and pressurized for a length of time. But even this category can be further broken, pieced and dissected. It's not enough for the human race to call a cheese "hard" or "soft". This is not enough distinction, not enough control for our domineering minds to maintain. That is why we have "grated" cheeses, "semi-hard curd" cheese and the like. It's a wonder we ever left the shelter of our caves with so many rocks and pieces of dirt to name and put into plastic baggies with tags on them!

And this is even considering the large amount of spread able, "soft" cheeses. If there were any more diverse classification of a subset we'd have a hair split into micro fibers. Some are made by souring the milk, then straining the curd or passing it through a separator to remove much of the moisture, giving a white, crumbly, but soft spreadable product. The flavor is mildly acid. This type of cheese lends itself to rolling in or mixing with herbs, spices, fruits etc. and being sold tubs, small rounds or logs. So not only can we describe it's culture, milk source and souring technique, but in our grand vision of conquest we even categorize how we decide to shape the final product. Now we truly have become masters of minutia! Perhaps there is a party somewhere were a great and wise duke is impressing his neighbors by offering not just Pantysgawn goats cheese, but Pantysgawn goats cheese in the shape of a 1911 model Zeppelin! Have we gone insane?!?

“Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table, so many meals?” These words are as true today as they were when Shakespeare himself first penned them. Most likely he was speaking of the monastic category of cheeses, but with so many subcategorizations of his time, who’s to really say. Cheeses in this group are often linked historically in that they have monastic origins. Such cheeses as Port Salut, Saint Paulin, the various forms of Trappist cheese made throughout the world, Esrom and Havarti have similarities of taste, although varying degrees of strength of flavor and aroma. Several mountain cheeses, such as Beaumont and Reblochon, are also classified as monastery type cheeses. The majority of monastery cheeses are of the washed rind variety. “Washed rind”? Even monks are not above the need to overclassify! Perhaps the concept to call a cheese “good” or “too runny” is above these men of the cloth? Far be it for them to be called to a higher order of thinking. But is that then yet another classification that need not be made? Perhaps “holy” and “secular” are in themselves concepts not specific enough.

Is the classification of men and cheese indicative of a greater evil in this world? Is the control we attempt to exert over this planet and all its varied inhabitants a vain attempt to hide our fear of our own categorization? Do we fear a grand reckoning where we are given our own tag and label as “good” or “bad”? “Heaven bound” or “Hell bent”? Or maybe it’s something much simpler. Perhaps we designate, and create uniqueness out of the ambiguous in order to alleviate our own fears of being commonplace. By diversifying to such an alarming degree do we hope to stave off the bland “normalcy” that we fear will overtake us, homogenizing us into just another cog in an ever-turning machine who’s only production is the crowning the diminutive as royalty and exonerating the plain, thus making them extraordinary. But therein lies the rub. Like so much Camembert lying in the sun, we have doomed ourselves to lives of the mundane, by treating the unique and bland with equal favor, we have removed the same power we hoped to wield over this world.