// Dear Esther

Dear Esther,

 

I found myself staring at a host of black boxes. Unfamiliar towers of complexity, distant from the comfort zone in which I reside. Are these tools inaccessible for a man of my age and custom, I ask myself? To begin this journey, however, I knew it was a leap I must make. A leap of faith that left me penniless and open to virus and crawling with bugs.

 

Upon arriving home that day I longed for rest and relaxation, but it was not to be. A tangle of wires and cords barred entry like a nest of vipers; and yet I pressed on until finally my charge was complete. Somehow, miraculously, the whir of electronic components rotating filled the darkened room with sound and a pale blue glow marked the minor success.

 

It was all so new to me, Esther. I fruitlessly navigated my vessel through the spider’s web, the near infinite world of convolution. My anger rose. I was lost in a dense haze of smoke, pornography and advertisements choked my progress to a near crawl, but then I saw you. A distant red beacon blinking through the Steam.

 

 

The room was cold when I arrived at this island. It’s strange; many experiences strive in vain to immerse you and yet by simply bypassing the option of warmth it was as if I were actually there. My fingers were barely able to push the peculiar keys that lay upon the board before me. I felt my right hand rest upon a small animal, but there was no heat to be found from the mouse. I pressed on using unfamiliar tools within an unfamiliar vessel where once only a pad did lie.

 

Dear Esther, It’s like a dream here, isn’t it? Or perhaps a nightmare. A vague ghost story both real and unreal, concise and contradictory, beautiful and barren. The thin veneer of vegetation turns to greet me as I pass but there is no welcome here. I am alone on this island, watched by a blinking red beacon wherever I venture. I try a closed door to seek refuge, but can’t. I try my pockets for items of aid, but can’t. I try to crouch, but can’t. I try to run, but I can’t. I try to swim…

 

Come back.

 

And so I do, as if I’d never entered the water at all. I’m beginning to understand this place, Esther. It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been.

 

 

 

Perhaps I’ll pour myself a drink? Relax and enjoy the sensation of floating over babbling brooks of ethanol. Allow the EtOH to well in the cave of my gut before coursing through the blue tunnels of my veins. Perhaps this island will feel warmer with a drink Esther? Perhaps I’ll pour myself one… but yet I might have to drive before this evenings done. I’d pour myself a drink were it not for the warnings in my heart.

 

The warnings are written all over the walls.  

 

Perhaps Donnelley would have made a different decision. The hermit certainly warned Paul of the dangers on the road to Damascus. Had Jacobson suffered from cold hands too? This island confounds. All sense of time is lost. I’m bored and yet enraptured simultaneously. It’s all part of the journey, the questions, magical and sensory. Intelligent and warning. I arrived at this game in a vessel with no bottom and now I’m drifting into it’s trap. As the light fades and the journey nears it’s closure, I understand.

 

 

Dear Esther, this will be my last entry. The last time I climb this hill. The last time I make this trudge. I’ll pass on word of this Island that others may visit or send rescue. As I make my way to the highest point, I’m filled with awe and relief. I cannot tell you what it is to be here, you will have to find out for yourself, carve your own parallel white lines into the cliff. And as the blackness sets in I know that this will be my last visit to this island.

 

Come back.

 

Verdict : ART

 

Amongst the wealth of remaining questions on the tip of my tongue one seems more pressing than all others: Dear Esther, you are indeed art itself. Sculpted and crafted into a subtle beauty rare amongst the greys and browns of the modern landscape. But something is missing from you… I enjoyed every moment I spent with you Esther… this is so hard to say…

 

Esther, I love you dearly, but you are not a game.