Day Four-Eighty-One: This book of mine

I left Pubton early this morning, 'stealing' a wagon from Morris' farm. He wouldn't mind, and I left several notes behind explaining the situation. The only person coming with me is Julius, because a) June won't hurt or manipulate him, and b) he didn't give me much choice in the matter anyway. No point giving June anybody else for her workforce, and if the rest of the town knew they'd insist on sending SOMEONE else along.

We've made remarkable time. The path Libby carved through the forest with the Hypermole is now a well-worn road, and said road flows all the way from Pubton to Pubtwon. We weren't quite at the mountain when we stopped, but it will only take a few more hours of travel tomorrow morning to get there.

Considering he's a tarantula who can't normally talk, Julius is amiable company. He's friendly, polite, and always up for a game of something. I brought along a dinged-up chess set for the trip, because you can't play new games ALL the time. Sometimes you have to play the classics.

I'm not that good at chess. I know how to set up the board - pawns in back, bishops, kings, aldermen and prostitutes in front - and I know how each of the pieces moves. I know about checks, and mates, and bribes, and taxation, and the Kobayashi Maru manoeuvre, and a few other basic strategies. I'm not a pro, though, and I never will be, because I lack foresight.

But this match wasn't about winning. It was about getting my mind off of my errant wife… and asking Julius something that had nagged at me since reading his diary entries.

"Hey. Julius. What'd ya mean when you wrote about my diary havin' a, er, 'personality'? And bein' sealed and stuff?"

After moving one of his prostitutes across the board, Julius glanced up at me. He probably blinked a few times. I can't tell when spiders are blinking.

"Y'know. When I was captured by those Non creeps. You said it had a personality. What was that all about, eh? Wouldn't mind hearing more."

Julius pointed a large, hairy leg at the diary in question. I laid it open beside the board and handed him a dipped quill, along with an empty page. We conversed.

"Your diary is alive, Dragomir."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Say what? Explain that."

Julius paused for a few seconds before writing more. "It is alive, through you. You give it personality. You give it shape and form. Yet, when I read your latest entries, they were… cold. Somewhat impersonal, it seemed. They lacked the colourful naiveté of the old days. I thought it strange, and commented on it. That's all."

I read the paragraph a few times, not convinced. "So… you mean… like… it was a metaphor?"

"In a sense, yes. Your personality is your diary's personality. Your writing was cold, and, therefore, your diary's personality was much the same. I thought it clear enough."

"Well, you messed with me." I rubbed my chin. "What about that 'seal' nonsense?"

Julius let out a little spider sigh before he resumed writing. "Someone has tinkered with your diary. I don't know who, and I don't know why, but I suspect there are entries in it which you cannot read."

"Oh, is that all?" I shrugged. "I figured that out a long time ago."

Spider shock.

"Sure, sure." I flipped through the diary, bringing up several blank pages and trying to write on them. As always, the quill slipped off of the parchment without leaving a mark. "At first I figured I'd broke it, or something, but nah. Pretty obvious somebody's been writing in this thing. Prince Logan used ta do it all the time, 'cept his entries are still in here."

Julius stared at the diary for a long while. "Whom do you suspect created these invisible entries?"

I shrugged. "Dunno."

"Aren't you curious?"

"Hell, of course I'm curious. Also wonderin' why anybody would bother writing in it. Just… like… get your own damned diary, you know? Leave mine alone. This is Dragomir's Diary." (Why did I get the unstoppable urge to capitalize that? Weird.)

That was pretty much the end of the conversation. Julius wasn't going to tell me more about his cryptic entries, and I didn't feel like speculating over who might be writing what in my diary. And then making the words invisible. I'm sure there's lots of interesting stuff I'm missing out on, but all it adds up to at the moment is wasted paper. Wasted, I say!

…

It is odd, though.

Personality.

You USED to have a personality, diary. I know you did.

So…

Where did it go?

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Co-Mayor