2,810 words, 15 minutes read time.
10 July- Gatwick Airport
“Oh Jeeves, I am so excited! You’ve been planning this vacation for months, and now we are finally going! “
The Count hops excitedly up and down in his seat at gate D4.
“Indeed sir. I’m pleased that you took so well to the idea of heading outside of the castle” for a change
“Oh, I couldn’t spend another minute in that stuffy old place! I can hardly think when I’m roaming those halls. It’s like the walls extend further psychically than they do physically, crushing my spirit.”
“And Norway!” The Count continues. “Such a splendid country! And still quite close to Britan! Brilliant Jeeves. Simply Brilliant”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are writing all of this down, right Jeeves?”
“Yes sir, every word”
“Good!” The Count huffs in a pleased tone. “Aunt Patricia would love to hear as detailed an account of the journey as possible, that shall be our birthday gift to her!…wait, when is that again Jeeves?”
This was already planned to be the date we arrive back in Oslo. “The 18th of July, 8 days from now.”
“Splendid!”
10 July- Airplane to Oslo
He prattled on about how excited and tense he is about being in the “savage wilds” of Norway for the entire flight. Didn’t take notes, pretend to have lost this page before handing in. Also double check that all my notes are erased.
10 July- Edge of Small Town of Eltonåsen
“My Goodness Jeeves, these bags you’ve packed sure do..er have a bit of weight to them! hah”
“Only the essentials. And your essentials, sir.”
He insisted on bringing tigercoat blankets and handfuls of ‘cleansing rocks’, we’ll see how long he lasts with them.
The Count stands heroically, beads of sweat already covering his mighty brow before we make our plunge into the shrubbery. Unfortunately, most of the official trails here lead South and North, while our direction demands us move West. It seems like 2 days of traversing straight foliage in order to reach a town for a resupply.
“No trails?” The Count enquires softly
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Good heavens Jeeves! You should tell me these things! Pharrumph. No matter. We make haste! To London!- I mean- Oslo!”
10 July – First Campsite.
After a day of stumbling through intense foliage, we are taking camp for the night. The Count elected to do away with his Tigerskin blankets and Cleansing rocks by a river, where we refilled our waterskins through a Life Tap filter in the stream.
We took frequent breaks, and took an early camp. The site we is nearby a bog, meaning plenty of bugs, so Jeeves set the camp up with haste. The actual location is a deforested area with a tiny stream for water nearby, and plenty of tall grass. Piles of sticks and scattered rotting stumps scattered over almost every square inch makes navigating almost a jumping challenge. The Count dubbed this biome; “Rotwood Quarry”.
A group of three sheep, led by a leader with a bell on it’s neck, stared at us curiously as they ate their way through the valley. We decided to live-and-let-jingle with the fluffed gang.
The tent was placed utop a steep cliff at a uncomfortable downward angle. Someone had built a mini shelter on the other side of the stream, where one could realistically lay in and take shelter from the elements.
By the time we’ve had dinner, and got in our sleeping bags, its 11pm.
“I didn’t even get to read my book..” The Count murmurs as he drifts off to sleep.
It doesn’t get dark here. Jeeves signs off for the night.
11 July – The Trail widens
Morning breaks and Jeeves urges the Count to drop reading his treatise in favor of getting breakfast so they may be in town before the rations dry up.
“Oh, damn it, you are indeed right Jeeves! I just really wanted to know how it ends is all”
The Count decides then and there that the intellectual world he’s so used to swimming in, would have to be put on hold if he were to survive this excursion.
He dedicates the entire day admirably to the task. Wading through bogs, using sticks to gauge the stability of each next step- lest we soak to our knees. We still need frequent breaks, but the expectation of luxury is curbed by the need to press onward.
11 July- Emergency Rest
Relentless, constant foliage. Every campsite we wish to make is either covered in ants, bog, or otherwise unusable. Swarms of flies descend on us as soon as we stop to rest. We over-exert ourselves. Our minds being to fray.
Just after crossing a bog, we find a Biome that’s covered completely in low-level shrubbery. We locate a large stone, throw our plastic tarp out over the shrubs and collapse on it, then and there. The bugs are relentless, so we put on some anti-insect and let them buzz. Nothing we could do.
We involuntarily napped for an hour out in the open like that.
11 July – Quick Notes
“You’re right Jeeves, it *does* get easier the longer you walk”
“It’s what we know as a species- long hiking stretches. Evolutionarily, the large planes of the savannah is home”
“Blimey… You should write that down”
“Already on it.”
When you accidentally step into bogwater- you see that you submerged your shoe, and you instantly pull it out, but it takes a second for you to feel it. The wetness takes 1.5-3 seconds before it seeps to your feet and you can fully sense the extent of your mistake. That delay creates a second-guessing, a tension, a hope that maybe it wasn’t so bad- until, yep, sog.
11 July- Campsite
“Jeeves, are you sure you are keeping note of everything?”
Shit
“Mlord, I try, but reaching our destination I deem a higher priority than documenting-”
“And who exactly are you to deem our priorities Jeeves?! This is not just your trip, ok?”
We haven’t had dinner yet. This is why he’s agitated.
“You- God Dammit Jeeves! I’m here trying to have an Adventure! What’s the point if it isn’t even being written..” The Count sobs with dignity into his sleeve.
I doubt any of this is making it to the dutchess…
“Sir, our Couscous is ready, here.”
Jeeves offers the Count his bowl, and the two silently devour their meals over the gas burner.
“It’s raining all day tomorrow.” Jeeves warns.
13 July- Civilization Day
“Thank god, roads!”
That was when we first arrived in the town of Rotnes. All our equipment was wet and smelled. No amount of perfume and deodorant can cover up wet hiking smells, to the Count’s dismay. He was however, in high spirits.
“We can be civilized again” He said with a tear in his eyes.
The previous day of hiking was hard on them both. New food, a place to put our garbage, washed away that hardship.
Since the laundromat was closed for the summer, I went to dry off our wet clothes at a random local bathroom with a hand-dryer. The Count would “re-civilize” at the local, modern-looking library. Inspiration struck him then, and he asked me to include this in the record.
[A parchment with water damage handwritten by the Count]
What one must realizeth from being in nature, is the sheer *need to act! You *must refine your water, otherwise you can’t cook or drink! You *must set up your tent, otherwise be left with no shelter from the pouring rain and insectry. These aren’t negotiable, and the more you slack off, the more nature will bite you in your rear for your hubris!
To that end, you are more or less busy the *entire day. I have barely read a single chapter of my treatise! Not to mention the water damage it accorded… my apologies to it’s future readers.
Uncivilized life- much like the cavemen or native Indians of America I imagine, is spent mostly on Survival, and then you Might have time for higher level, civilized thought about art, philosophy, and the like.
But civilization, in its efficiency and delegation of tasks, allows for the inverse amount of time spent on those Higher Plane of consciousness thoughts and activities.
It strikes me that civilization, although taken so for granted inside the castle walls- are actually utopian. What we do when we aren’t busy with survival, is utopia, is heaven, is the greater level of consciousness that we as Humans are blessed with, and blessed ourselves with through the machinic tracts of civilization. Engaging in art, philosophy, etc, no matter how common it seems now, is utopian and heaven compared to where we started to.
[A few more sentences following are intelligible from the paper damage]
I open up my phone and see someone had attempted to assassinate Trump.
13 July
We slept in the nearby woods, and stay near Rotnes for most of this day too to charge up our electronics in the library and wait out a heavy bout of rain.
We pack up and head south, directly to Oslo. The trails- always going vertical, finally align with us and we barely have to go through foliage at all. We make amazing progress.
The bugs are relentless as ever.
We camp out for the last time before we reach Oslo
July 17th
Due to a ticket error, I have to fly a day earlier than the Count. His time in the wilderness seems to have made him mind that somewhat less. “I’m Rugged now Jeeves! I can handle it!”. He’s also interested in studying at the Oslo public library.
As my flight lands, I turn on my mobile data and receive a long text message from him.
[Phone Texts from The Count]
Jeeves! Something just overcame me that hath broken my entire outlook! You won’t have to wait for me at Gatwick tomorrow, as I will be staying is Oslo for the foreseeable future.
[text ends]
What? He spent most of the trip whining about going home.
J: Very well sir. What changed?
C: Oh Jeeves, I happen to have had an encounter with a local beggar. She asked me to buy some food for her, which turned into buying tickets to see her family- anyway I gave her a royal sum and went on with my day.
J: Very good sir.
C: But seeing her, seeing her spend the middle of the day, hustling for enough coin to make do- it made me realize. Poverty is the modern day form of the primal, survival state that which civilization were meant to conquer! That is to say, she too spends the majority of her time on what she Needs to do to survive, with little time for Higher Level concepts and thinking. I even asked her, “do you paint, or write, or something like that?”, and she shrugged that question off a bit. No time! No space in her life for the Higher plane despite living in the capital of bloody Norway! What cruelty is this??
J: well
C: This is the class hierarchy that my cousin Carl keeps getting huffy over! The beggar woman is at the bottom, and I, am at the top! The structure of civilization is constructed to benefit me and my class at the expense of the ones doing labour! Like you, Jeeves!
J;…
J: Right, sir.
C: I was wrong Jeeves. The Utopia was never Civilization- a civilization that doesn’t elevate everyone into the Higher Plane. Utopia is Art, philosophy itself! The time spent there is utopian, and is meaningful and valuable in and of itself. What you do when you’re not surviving, is the meaning of life- it’s what you do it all for.
J: Well, I’m glad you came to that realization sir.
C: Jeeves, come with me to Oslo.
J: ..
J: Ok sir, but can I ask why you insist on staying?
Now I need to get tickets back…
He doesn’t respond for half an hour
C: Jeeves, do you know how my father’s finances are?
Too well.
J: They have seen better days, sir.
C: Right. There’s talk of selling the castle, and maybe even getting a… apartment.
C: Like, the entire building.
J: Sounds plenty spacious to me sir.
C: It will have to do, sadly.
C: But as time passes, and as the economics weigh against us, the time of frolicking through the Higher Plane threatens to shorten rapidly, Jeeves.
C: I’m going to say it Jeeves! Most of my Paintings, my treatises… even my violin pieces! Aren’t very good.
C: As much as that hurts to say, I’ve been playing in the proverbial mud of Quality for my entire career. Without the realization that my time here is Holy, Quality was not an important goal in my work, and vain self-expression led me to naval-gaze myself into a collection of work nobody will read!
J: They aren’t… all bad sir.
C: Oh Jeeves, you don’t have to lie just because my father told you to
J: Sir.
J: If anything, it’s your father who wishes you would stop your ‘Higher Plane’ activities and learnt a ‘practical’ craft, such as statecraft or economics.
J: I see when you really are inspired, and apply yourself fully, your work does have a spark of Quality in it.
C: …Really?
J: Really.
This better get me a raise.
C; Well… that just proves it! If I truly focus on bettering myself, pursuing Quality and grabbing it with both hands, I might be able to create something that is truly stunning! That might be enough to gather significant fees, or notoriety, and reverse our trend of slowly slipping away from the Higher Plane of society!
C: I have to prove myself Jeeves, and with the remaining time I have available, I’m uniquely qualified amongst the populus who has simply less time!
C: I’ve been blessed to this Higher Plane through birth, I’ve lived, swam through it. I know it intently.
C: I don’t know what It’d do without it Jeeves.
JUST GET A NORMAL JOB DAMN
C: I will master this Plane, and use it’s language to elevate not just us, but humanity as a whole. This is my potential, this I must grasp.
C: All those times moping in the castle walls- all those times feeling like I’m merely prattling about with my paintings and treatise’s… This was time granted to me by the structure!
J: The structure, and your fathers wealth sir.
C; well.. Yes Jeeves, that too.
C: I realize now that the privilege of time to be able to spend in the utopian higher plane.
C: This time that I’ve been granted, is time spent In utopia. If only I’d known how valuable it was…
J: Understandable, sir. Unfortunately I can’t find any tickets to Oslo for the coming week so you areonyourownnowbye.
Rapidly shutting down my phone so I don’t have to bear that anymore. What an opulent child. He goes hiking for a week and suddenly knows what poverty is like.
The airport terminal is packed with people. I’ve dropped the luggage around my feet while texting, but I sigh and carry it back up.
Suddenly my second phone starts ringing.
Deep breath
I raise the receiver to my ear.
J: Hello?
C: Jeeves! It appears your other phone was broken so I contacted your backup. I wasn’t finished!
J: Sir you don’t have to-
C: I just want to say that, I’m not a fan of this predicament. I mean, somewhat, as it grants me the urgency to and necessity of pursuing Quality- but at the same time, this struggle for participating in the Higher Plane shouldn’t be such a matter of urgency, or even an impossibility for the downtrodden.
C: I think it’d be best if there was some sort of, social welfare or something that ensured that artists, philosophers, Could live and do this at the same time, yknow.
J: Are you anywhere near the point of reaching a social welfare level of wealth, sir?
C: Well no, but I’m just saying.
J: Well…
J: Perhaps that could be something to write your next treatise on.
J: If any of your words could strike through and gain popularity, I believe choosing these might result in a net-increase in Higher Plane activity from the.. “downtrodden”.
C: My.. Jeeves! That’s an excellent suggestion!
C: Brilliant, Brilliant Jeeves! This must be why my father has kept you around so long, and assigned you to me!
C: If all goes well Jeeves, you’ll be able to write treatises of your own that will enrapture the public!
J: Well, you could even do that now-
C:Sorry Jeeves, the line is breaking up! I’ll have to call you later!
J: I- dammit. Ok,
J: Bye sir
[Call disconnects.]