Handmade paper (cotton, kozo), India ink, customized Old Hickory kitchen knife, reclaimed acid free paper, acrylic, machine screws, felt pads.
The color images are generated using Stable Diffusion 1.5
As briefly as I can:
The journal of a man in purgatory. Desperately, he tries to categorize the monsters in the twisting jungle around him. This is his boulder to push.
This is not an expedition. It is an execution.1
When His Majesty showed me the plan for my journey, I knew as much. No crew. Not even a first mate. The boatsman said these new ships could sail themselves. Sure enough; the whole journey, I felt as if my ship was being pulled towards the continent along some interminable rope. Such a large ship, too. I sailed for a month straight.
* * *Boarding the dinghy, I lowered myself from the ship into the warm blue waters. It took minutes to reach the shore. Feet on the sand, I spun around to view the main vessel.
Already, the sails had turned direction. The ship tacked away from the shore. I did not even try to catch up with it; I knew it would not let me board again.* * *
Strange beasts and artifacts pepper this jungle. The leaves taste bitter; the meat does not fill the stomach. I lose no weight, but am always hungry. Weeks of salt water have not quenched my thirst.Each night, peculiar nightmares plague me. Many times I awake to feel the breath of some bogeyman on my neck; the sharp corners of animal teeth tear at me. Each morning, I awake intact on the shore.
I thought my experience traveling the world — years spent discovering new lands, and conquering them for the Crown — would be my savior. I thought the many men I had slain would prepare me for what I might find here. I thought I was a righteous man.Alas. It seems these very sins earn me my place on this island.