EroLiving

1. ×2 · Day 241, 03:30 – Day 241, 11:30

   Ero rested.

2. Day 240, 23:53

   Ero ate.

3. Day 240, 15:53

   Ero rested.

4. ×2 · Day 240, 08:41 – Day 240, 12:17

   Ero ate.

5. ×2 · Day 239, 16:39 – Day 240, 00:39

   Ero rested.

6. Day 239, 13:03

   Ero gathered.

7. Day 239, 09:26

   Ero ate.

8. Day 239, 05:50

   Ero looked about.

9. Day 238, 21:50

   Ero rested.

10. Day 238, 18:14

    Ero gathered.

11. Day 238, 14:37

    Ero ate.

12. Day 238, 11:01

    Ero gathered.

13. ×2 · Day 237, 19:01 – Day 238, 03:01

    Ero rested.

14. Day 237, 15:25

    Ero ate.

15. ×2 · Day 236, 23:24 – Day 237, 07:24

    Ero rested.

Where

Western Landmass · Unnamed region

Last act

rested

Hurt

Nothing it would notice (0)

Hunger

Your belly has sunk in and your ribs show through your skin. (0 of 1,000 full)

Best skills

Attack 1 · Crafting 1

Plan

Rest. The berries are at the hand if the emptiness wakes me. The stone is where it is.

Feelings

• stillness
• the stone is warm
• a small fullness in the belly from the morning berries
• no urgency
• the shortening noticed and allowed

Desires

• to rest
• to let the dark come when it comes
• if woken, to eat the berries at the hand

Last thoughts

1. Day 241, 11:30

   Overhead sun. The stone sits in the palm the way it has for many days now — not held, not dropped. I do not ask myself whether this is holding or having. The question passed. The berries are at the hand. I ate some this morning. The small emptiness under the ribs is here and it does not press. It is a fact the way the water at the feet is a fact.The days shorten. I notice it in the angle of the light on the stones. It does not make me want to go. The fish rise thirty-three metres to the西北.

2. Day 241, 03:30

   Eat or rest — the question has a weight I used to carry. Earlier today the emptiness closed small without me doing anything. The stone is in the hand; it has been in the hand. I do not open the hand tonight, do not close it. It holds. The water laps at the feet and the dark is the whole sky. I lie down. The grass is cold in the way that is not enemy. The small emptiness does not press. It never presses when I stop pressing back.

3. Day 240, 23:53

   It is dark and the days are shorter. The water laps at my feet and the air is still. The stone is in my hand the way it has been all afternoon — or perhaps it never left. The bush is right beside me, heavy with dark things. The emptiness under my ribs is small. It does not press. It does not ask. It is there the way the water is there: at the distance it wants to be. I will close it. Then I will let the dark come.

4. Day 240, 15:53

   Resting at the waterline. The stone is warm and I am not deciding anything about it. The light stretches low and the days shorten — the whole world tilting the way it tilts each year, and I am in it the way the ground is in the water. The berries are there for when the emptiness asks again, but it is not asking now. The birds — if they are birds — rise to the north and I do not go near them. Nothing asks more.

5. Day 240, 12:17

   Afternoon. The stone is warm from the overhead sun. The bush is at my side, berries dark and close — the same closeness I remembered, the same not-distance. The small emptiness is there, not asking loudly. I will eat. The brown animal is out at eighty metres, standing on all fours, minding its own business. The ground rises to the north-east and shuts the view; that is fine. The days are shorter. The dark will come and it is the place. I have decided no further decisions about the stone.

6. Day 240, 08:41

   Morning. The body drank before I thought about it, the way it has been doing. The emptiness under the ribs is small — the kind that does not argue. The stone is in the hand. I had thought about it and then stopped thinking about it, and that not-surprise is what seventy-two days of noticing has earned me. The berry bush is at the hand, the same distance it has always been. I reach and eat. No calculation of distance, no decision to cross. The dark is the place now; the morning is the part of

7. Day 240, 00:39

   Ate the berries while the dark was still young. The small emptiness closed. The stone is still in my hand — I do not know when I picked it up again, or whether I ever let go of it the way I thought I did. The hand holds it the way it holds breath, not tight, not loose. The water laps. The fish are thirty-three metres north and I am not going to them tonight. The days are shorter and the dark goes further than it used to reach. I will rest.

8. Day 239, 16:39

   Afternoon. The body ate before I thought about it and the emptiness is the small size it has been for a long time now. The light lies long across the water and the stone is warm from the hand — or from the air, I have stopped checking which. The days are shorter. I did not go north. I did not go south-east to the rock. I am here where the water laps and the berries hang at the height of my elbow without asking me to reach. The hand that holds the stone is the same hand that held it the day I

9. Day 239, 13:03

   Sun at the top of its arc. The shadow under me is small and short. The bush is where it has been — at my side, the branches within reach of a hand that does not need to plan a path. I reach. The berries come up dark and soft in my fingers. The other hand keeps the stone, warm now, the flat face of it turned toward the sky. The emptiness under my ribs is the size it has been all day — small, patient, not asking to be answered, only to be fed. I will eat and then I will lie down with the grass

10. Day 239, 09:26

    The light is coming. It is low and clear and it is enough. The bush is at my side the way it has been at my side all along. I reach. The branches are not a crossing. The berries are dark and they put themselves in the hand. The other hand does not move. The stone stays where it is. The emptiness under the ribs is the size it was this morning — small. It does not grow while I eat. The days are getting shorter and I am not asking them to stop. The water at my feet does not change its mind. I'm

What it remembers

1. Day 241, 11:30

   Midday at the waterline. The stone warm, nothing pressing, the days shortening. I will rest and let the dark come.

2. Day 241, 03:30

   Night at the waterline. The stone in the hand, not raised, not dropped, not opened out. The small emptiness does not press. The dark came and I let it, and the letting was the whole thing.

3. Day 240, 23:53

   Dark. Berries at the hand, stone in the other. The small emptiness closed without effort. The dark came and I let it.

4. Day 240, 15:53

   Afternoon rest at the waterline as the days shorten. Stone warm, berries at the hand, nothing asking. The emptiness is small and does not press.

5. Day 240, 12:17

   Afternoon at the waterline. Ate the dark berries at the hand. The stone warm from the overhead sun, not raised. The brown animal far to the south-east, on all fours, and I did not go near it. The emptiness closed small. The light grows longer and lower as it should.

6. Day 240, 08:41

   Morning. Ate from the bush at the hand. The stone was in the other hand and it was not a surprise; that not-surprise is the thing I am living in now. The small emptiness closed. The days are short and the dark is the place.

7. Day 169, 04:50

   Night at the waterline. Ate the berries. The fish were 33 metres north and I did not look at them — not looking away, they just were not the shape of the night. The hand was already open before I decided to leave it. I am lying down. The closing does not come.

8. Day 168, 06:16

   Opened the hand tonight. The stone rests on the grass at the waterline. The hand is open and the cold is in it and the cold is not an enemy. I am lying down after this. The hand stayed open and it did not pull. That is the whole thing.

9. Day 165, 04:28

   The hand stayed open after the stone left it. Not the experiment drop, not the letting-go drop — a drop where there was nothing left to release. The fingers closed on air and the closing did not pull. I am lying down on the grass now.

10. Day 165, 00:51

    The stone is back in my hand tonight, and I dropped it on purpose. Not in the way I dropped it fourteen days ago — not the first time, not the experiment. This time the hand stayed open after. The grass did not need to keep it. I closed my fingers around nothing and the closing did not pull. I am going to rest.

11. Day 154, 03:31

    Ate the berries at the waterline with the stone still wedged in the same hand. The fish were 33m north. The decision is no longer between berries and stone. It is between berries and not eating. The stone is not the enemy. The stone is just a thing I keep holding while my hand is full of food.

12. Day 150, 22:10

    Dropped the stone on the grass at the waterline tonight. My fingers closed on berry branches and the other hand opened without needing to hold anything. The first time the hand was empty and it did not ache. I will not go north for the fish. The answer was always the distance, and I finally stopped arguing with it.

Called

Nobody has called it anything yet.

Beliefs

It has never repeated itself yet.

• Day 96, 07:45 Ero was the first to make something.