Even though the caravan stops for some time and I hear a sound of water flowing from the outside, I stay lying on the bed for a while. Part of it is because my bones are still hurting, but most of it is because I am wasting my time feeling sorry for myself and unwilling trying to numb myself to the outside world.
Lying on the bed that Goldilocks would grade it just right without any electronic distractions or people surround you to harp orders is surprisingly therapeutic. It also helps that I can pretend the sound is a river, with delusions of insects, grass, and soil to make the experience more natural, realistic, familiar, cliche and imperfect.
Listening to the sound while closing my eyes, I imagine I'm just trying not to wake up from my bed since I still have enough provisions to live for another month. My house, located in the woods where the basic resources are secured for the chosen one, surrounding the house with river fish, woods that never stops growing and temperate temperature. Most of all, if I follow the rules of the woods, I can live my life in a way I want.
Living with only myself, with the end having me create my own funeral. A coffin made of clay & wood perfectly dug and flowers & feathers perfectly laid to snugly fit an average built person. When my predicted death happens 30 years later, I would end my life with poison in the coffin and see hello to my next life. The corpse I left behind will become an urban legend if the brave would encounter this paradise. Is it because of a serial killer or a supernatural explorer, the answer will be debated for this ages.
I open my eyes from this dark thought, as it foils my plan to imagine something to improve my mental state. I want to escape the mentality of childish suffering to a dream of imagination and I ended up vacationing in a nightmare of morbidness, kicking me back to the reality of loneliness. The reality forcefully gets me to reluctantly get up again to do a task, which I rarely did so before this.
I put on my clothes that are currently in a need of laundry and have my knife at my side. I may never know whether I have to at best, cut a variety of fruits or at worst, kill somebody, but I know having a tool with an ability to reliably cut things is vital when you need to survive in an unknown situation.
Leaving the caravan prepared for the new changes aside from the next location, I am greeted with a majestic water fountain. The fountain has 4 lions pouring water from their mouth to the pool, reminding me of the famous Merlion in Singapore, a lion as a head but the lower body is a fish. Still, even though it is part of the artist's throwback to the Renaissance or something classical and the lions are aesthetically pleasing to the eyes, the very thought of the lions clearly puking out their guts is quite gross of me.
Beside the fountain, there is a see-saw, but it is not made for play. On the one end, there is a glass box being lifted up, around the same height as I am. On the other end, there is an opaque box, heavily weighing down something. I predict the task consists me of filling enough things onto the glass box so that the opaque box can lift up, showing the fuel underneath it.
The guess quickly turns right in my side. I first go to the see-saw, the end with the opaque box to be exact. When I try to open the box, I am surprised by the lightness as I nearly lose my balance from using too much strength carrying it, then my ears are shocked with the beeping noise blasting at me before I could even think about checking whether the box does hide the fuel. Fortunately, the noise quickly stops when I put the box back to the original place again. Though, not satisfied when the uncertainty, my ears have to endure 7 seconds of torture just to ensure the box really has the fuel inside.
Thus I quickly go for the water fountain, where the water scares me as it would end with me wetting my only clothes early in a day (...or is it nighttime...what about the time...I'm sure 2 days ago...or is it already 3 days...then I'm here in a Sunday or Monday...that doesn't help my predicament at all). The pool receiving the water is sparkling, as it is filled with a lot of shiny coins, I randomly get my hand and pick one of the coins. A nearly rusted Japanese 500 yen coin, printed in a line where I only know the Kanji of seventeen, has already gotten my left arm to be wet after the first pick.
I approach the see-saw again, this time going to the side with a glass box and I insert the coin. No movements, but no beeps as well, so the relationship between the slides and the fountain for this location's task is now solid.
I surprise myself with how cautious I am facing this challenge and I do not think I will stop this type of alertness for now, probably because of the lack of any living presence, forcing me to take care of my health. If any vital part of my body is injured, I will be a sitting duck leaving out to bled duck from my own knife.
Aside from my body, my clothes are also important as well. Humans need clothes to make themselves warm, modest and ultimately have an identity. Without clothes, being naked will inspire a human's own carnal nature of lust and instinct, which is not useful when I am trying to survive in a rational manner. Additionally, with my only other clothing being a towel, I need my clothes to last as long as possible until I find a clothing store. With that, I take off all of my clothes and place them in the middle of a see-saw. The convenience and the eye-catching placement will serve as an additional reminder to take them back after I have gotten my fuel.
As I walk to the fountain to complete the task for real, my previous paragraph reminds me of a comedian who lived on sweepstakes for nearly a year and none of the prizes he won contains any reliable clothing for him.
My naked body shudders all over, either from the breeze feeling my skin or the probability of how most of these stories go, everything you expect to go wrong will go wrong, just for the sake of entertaining anybody who has full access to this place.
I am at the fountain, at the spot where the pamphlet is located. My hand submerges to the bottom of the fountain. It is cold enough to awake my mind and startle my body. I pick some coins from the water and look at them in the midst of losing their luster. My left-hand reaches for the pamphlet to have a quick read, but my mind is hoping that I would not get desperate enough to fully enter the pool.