Codex Transportica

I have managed to decipher the third and fourth parts to the diary. They will serve as in introduction to a series of images that have been carefully secured to the pages of the Transportica. Their creator remains unknown at this time; all I can hope is that later diary extracts will reveal more about them.

The first in the set of pictures will immediately follow this post. Some are shattered beyond recognition but I will do my best to repair them.

Anonymous author’s diary text now follows:

I awoke to find a most curious package upon my doorstep this morning. It bears no markings; certainly no address nor name. I’m not entirely sure whether my postman even delivered it (I cannot recall the last time that he called at my gate. Perhaps I simply do not warrant any mail; I feel that I have become somewhat of a pariah since losing my employment).

First, I finished my breakfast (marmalade without toast again) whilst pondering over what the parcel may contain. For a moment my despair took hold and I hoped that it might be a mercy gift sent by a charitable neighbour (my food rations are really beginning to dwindle), but no, the box contained the very opposite of what I require right now.

Several hundred gossamer thin sheets of porcelain, all carefully wrapped in paper so as to protect them. But even so, I think the parcel must have been carried across its journey by a single person – someone protective enough to avoid the knocks and jolts that would have surely damaged the contents.

I flicked through a few of the partitions, picked out one of the tissue envelopes and attentively peeled back the covering. To my horror, I sprang from my chair and nearly allowed the box to drop to the floor (fortunately I managed to snatch a firm hold of one of the sides – the porcelain wafers would surely have smashed into a thousand pieces if they had hit the ground), there on the almost transparent plate was a crude painting – not unlike one of the many I had sketched myself whilst suffering a Seizure.

Was this a prank, a trick, a wicked joke. The picture looked like I had painted it with my own hand; the same lines, the same attempt at conveying light and shadow. But what was I thinking – it would be ridiculous, these were objects I could not make especially whilst under the influence of one of my blackouts. Have I lost control of my faculties to the extent that I can leave my house, find a potters workshop, sculpt, paint and operate a kiln – all without any recollection.

No, I am not that mad. Someone must know of my condition. They know of my affliction and what that produces. Out there, someone is aware and must know more than I about the origin of these insane vehicles. But what can I do. I have no way of retracing the package’s route. All I can do is to keep watch upon my property from this point on – hopefully, I will then spot any further mysterious intruders, and by Jove!, I’ll not let them leave until I have my answers.

For now I have put the box and its fragile contents in the large pantry. I see little else that can be done with it. Perhaps their owner has yet to return and all I need do is simply wait for an explanation.

SECOND PART

I had grown accustomed to my aggravated nights; my tormented dreams pass and I have respite in exhausted unconsciousness for three hours at the most.

But, for several evenings now, I have found myself trapped within my own nightmares. During the experience I am fully aware that it is nothing more than a dream and yet it engulfs me, I find that I am unable to escape the unreality, I try to shake myself awake and yet I remain trapped. Not even the alarm clock placed beside my head is sufficient to disturb my slumber.

Perhaps more dreadful is that my dreams are blind. I see flashes of light, like blurred explosions across the horizon, but nothing more. Thankfully, there is sound, I hear all manner of noises but I do not recognise them. Perhaps a cat screaming as it is fed into a meat grinder; I do not know. And between the cacophony there arrives muffled voices, conversations in an adjacent room just too far away to understand – except for one piece of information. The numbers.

For the first few occurrences I did not place any importance on these figures and then I recalled the mysterious parcel that had arrived a few days earlier. I remembered that each porcelain slide bared a specific number marked on its underside. Could there be a connection. I had kept a note of each set of digits that had been revealed to me within the dream, and so it would be simple for me to check their corresponding number in the box.

A foolish thing to do in hindsight I now admit. I opened my notebook and read my finger across the first number, then I found its place amongst the pictures in the box. Immediately on making the match I sensed my vision narrowing and eventually turning to black; I was speeding into another Seizure and somehow the number and picture had induced the attack.

I awoke a while later to find the porcelain image placed carefully on the table and against it another passage of text in my own handwriting. Because of this I feel it only right that I now place the precious slide within The Book alongside the description done in my alien hand.

I cannot explain what is happening. Just as I feel that I am growing accustomed to my solitary life, wretched interludes of unawareness and their frequent remote writings, I now find that I have one more inexplicable assault to endure.

And worse, it appears I have now completely emptied the larder of all the marmalade. I will be forced to eat the gooseberry and elderflower preserve from now on.