as we know it

I started writing a novel in English. It's kind of a prequel to The 4 Books of Immortality. I just don't seem to be able to conceptualize any book that is not somehow related to the 4. It's almost as if once the 4 seeped into me, that's it, that was all there was. The 4 and then some, but all related. In a way it's good, because it really reflects life, where everything is connected. But it also frustrates me a little because then that may mean I'll never stop writing this book and it will by definition never be completed. This type of sprawl is similar to the ocean faced by the stupid protagonist in the paragraph that follows. This is from the first chapter of the novel, which is titled "As we know it". Let me know if it makes you feel like wanting to read on.

Here goes:

 

as good a reason as any

They fly toward grace.

Against the day

Thomas Pynchon

Stupidity. You could chalk it up to that. Another one for the history books, the latest so far in a long line of fabulously stupid undertakings. Seriously, we are talking the likes of which are seldom seen throughout the ages. Even though Gato would not really be aware of the actual magnitude of such stupidity until much, much later, when it would arguably be too late, he could already actually sense the hugeness of it, its sheer, dizzying vastness, not unlike the endless stretch of water before him.

And lunacy too, of course. I mean, he had only to look at that prolonged waterscape all around him to see how futile his enterprise was. How could he have thought that floating aimlessly about would improve anything? Who could possibly be out there, looking for random survivors? The sudden, rapidly budding nostalgia for the insanity of the island caught him off guard, which in turn only helped to increase his feeling of stupidity. Running out of water the previous evening was also playing a big role in the way his helplessness seemed so certain, so final. It overwhelmed him; the sun, the sea, the whitecaps flourishing across the surface in every direction, the harshness of the horizon and how it felt like a snare.

He realized then what a horrific irony it was to become aware of one's own stupidity just before dying, and how he had in fact hurried his own demise upon himself. Was the island really all that bad? Were the nighthoppers really that unreasonable? The world had ended after all. He knew it. Others saw it differently, but he remained steadfast in his belief. He may have been only thirteen when it happened, but he remembered plenty from the previous life to know what a drastic change it had been. He'd seen enough TV back in the day, and had been connected enough times to the Internet, to know first hand how bad things currently were. He was one of the last ones to remember the time before, and that had been enough for him to attempt, at the very least, an oceanic route of escape. It seemed almost impossible that the 'previous' world was completely gone. Something somewhere had to have survived. After all, they had, hadn't they?