To My Friend in the North
I don’t know how to write about Metamor Keep. What can I say that others have not?
I never thought you would force me to write this my friend. If I never had to write this, I could keep it perfect forever in my mind. Even now as I stare at this inchoate letter, my mind goes blank. I’ve heard the words in my head, why don’t they come?
What we want and what will happen are always very different. When we’re young there is no limit to how we perceive ourselves. Leaders, trailblazers, luminous stars that will light the future.
Then we grow older and we realize we’ve failed to be what we imagined. We settle for what we are.
But not Metamor Keep. Only there can you be as you wish.
Everyone I met at first was thrilled with their transformations. I knew they had to be lying, no one would accept the form of a beast or a child. Of course I knew, I always knew better. Just as you or anyone who reads these letters inherently knows better.
My travail is writing this because in doing so I expose myself. For all of my faults and imperfections, now exposed for the world to see. Do you think the readers shall judge me fairly?
This is the third resencion of this letter I have composed. These letters are not about me really but about Metamor Keep. I hope to create…perhaps not a panegyric of the Keep, but an understanding for those outside of it.
Do you suppose the readers will figure your identity? By your request I shall not reveal it. Upon my death you will publish these letters, I expect, anonymously.
What has come to amaze me is this world in which we live. Metamor Keep is the microcosm, a place in change and growth, not always by choice. It is our modern world, a place where time moves on! Yet it is still influenced, not overwhelmed by the past. Will anyone understand that?
This is what I will achieve with these letters. I will to show what this place is too those outside of it. I will show how it changes and it changes those within its boundaries. And I will answer a question, what is Metamor Keep?
Not a valley or fortress, that is simplistic nonsense. It is not just a place that needs a E added to the end of Metamor. Is it a place defined by a curse? By transformation? By those who build up its walls? You have an answer I’m sure but I am also certain you can’t address all of my quandaries.
And yes I know I am rambling. Forgive me, we elderly do ramble as we approach our end, we can’t all be like you.
I wish I could see it as I did the first time, though not as the obstreperous youth. The first time your eyes look upon the many, the different forms, it is overwhelming. I wish I had appreciated it then
Alright my habit of circumlocution is showing through. Just as you dwell upon these letters, ask yourself my question. And enjoy your life, as I have so enjoyed mine. Let us start this cycle with the first important event in my change; let us discuss the day that I died.
Your Friend in the South
J.
Post Script: If you wish for a title for this first set of letters, you may call them Jack: Of Man and Beast.