2 June

Nothing in my fever-tosst somniloquies has prepared me for the awful spectre of Mount Misery, a mist-shrouded canker ominously glowering at my wretched frame. My feeble flame flickers, straining to draw sustenance from fuel that is, like everything about me, perpetually damp. The fire my fellow, it nears its spluttering end; the ensuing darkness will bring conclusion to my pathetic attempts to document my first hours in this gloomy land.
Though you may not believe it, I stumbled ashore with my spirits aloft. Nothing, I counselled myself, could be as terrible as my passage here. The vessel was a creaking hulk with tiny slits in its exterior passing for windows. Even if one could make out something beyond the greasy smudges left by desperate fingers and unkempt hair, it was only that unremitting grey that passes for colour in this part of the world. The air did not circulate but sat around, outstaying its welcome like a fat cousin. The ablution area was fashioned from left over space behind the scullery - I've seen more roomy broom closets, and the company would have been more amenable and of a more pleasing odour.
For when I say the vessel was fit only for livestock, I am being unfair to the brutes of this world. Beasts dumbly bear the vicissitudes of the universe; they seldom take refuge from their fate in the evils of fermented beverage. I pleaded with the steward to be quartered in my rightful place, on the fore deck with the merchants and people's advocates, they whose only vice is a mean sherry in the evening - but only after a grueling day in service of humanity. I insisted that there was an error in the paperwork; the Brethren would not countenance their representative quartered with society's dregs. Behold, I pointed out, they continually jabber ill-educated nonsense, hold second-hand opinions on the terpsichorean merits of a cipher whom they address by Christian name but have never personally encountered, wantonly consume the poor victuals desultorily thrown before themselves and have not the will to control the inevitable digestive consequences. Certainly, when I arrive at my destination questions will be asked. The Brethren will not stand for such miscegenation. My rant had little effect and I was forced to endure the rest of my journey engulfed in a plebeian miasma.
Understandably, then, I alighted the vessel convinced that the worst was behind me. I was a little disconcerted by the atmosphere that greeted, nay ambushed, me. Dr Mugg had informed me that the colony air would aid my recovery but all I encountered was a damp thug that snuck up behind me and threw a thick blanket of suffocating moistness over my head. It smelt of a rotting vegetation that had spent too much time sitting around engaged in mindless pursuits. My priority was rescuing my baggage. I was able to take a tiny selection of my precious books on board - these had become slightly damaged by the need, brought about by space restrictions and suspicion of my fellow-travellers, to secrete them on my person (later I realised that I should have hidden them amongst the safety instructions and advertisements for cut-price wares in front of me, for no one dares venture there) - but I was most keen to rescue Suki, my beloved goat, from the hold.
Suki was to be my animal saviour in the new world. Supplier of nourishment, guardian of the crops from the ravaging vermin that swarm over the land, beast of burden (I have a patent on a goat-operated plough), and constant companion, it was to horny Suki's face I looked in my hours of greatest need. It was distressing, therefore, to learn that she had been lost in transit. The locals, who seem to treat all matters with the greatest of indifference, were little concerned and refused to allow me to search the hold. They uttered a peculiar phrase that I did not totally comprehend because the vernacular mortally bastardises the English language, but in essece they said that the universe could be balanced and all wrongs emended if I filled in a three page form. How this was to locate my precious Suki I did not know, but I deferred to their superior judgement, counselling myself, though now it feels more like kidding, that they must be competent people to reach such an official position.
Passage to my new residence had been formalised weeks ago. I waited an eternity, but nothing turned up. A passing character - who may have been an inebriate, but it is difficult to tell if his slurred speech was the result of alcohol or merely being reared in this land - informed me that a national event was taking place and such was the level of participation that almost everyone would be secluded in their dwellings for the duration. I dragged my heavy chest, the wheels having fallen off the moment they touched the ground, to a dimly illuminated sign bearing the news that a form of public transport would soon arrive to take me to Mount Misery. I would still be standing there now if I had not been offered a ride by an unaccountably cheery figure, who lent out his vehicle to offer deliverance from the fierce gale that had unexpectedly whipped up and threatened to separate me and my hat. I felt not in a position to refuse his offer of passage to Mt Misery, though soon I was in fear of my life, seated in a vehicle piloted by a man in leave of his senses. The driver appeared to have as little sense of self-preservation as he did of passenger comfort, hurtling around corners oblivious to other traffic, attempting (apparently) to hitch his vehicle to that of another to form a long train- all the while cursing the inability of others to match his prowess.
I had heard from a university chum a concept of time relativity popular in the more atheistically inclined sections of the intelligentsia, in which time is not a constant controlled by the Unspecific Deity as Universal Watchmaker, but that it operates differently in varied locations. I concluded that time in this land moved at a quicker space, that people here had shorter lifespans that would be considerably diminished by waiting those few extra seconds to confirm if a manoeuvre could be executed safely. I supposed that life in such a land, though it be initially discombobulating, would be immeasurably more exciting and vital, and that Mt Misery may be just the tonic I need to awaken my deadened soul. I now know that supposition to be the musing of an idiot.