Mind Like a Hive – Part 2
Not going to lie, Wednesday was… rough. Not in the sense that I or my family suffered privation, starvation, or imminent bombardment or other physical atrocity. Thankfully, my days are not that rough. Mentally, I was unwell. It sounds… whimpy of me? It’s really not, it’s a horrible burden that I fight against daily, but sometimes I lose the battle.
Before I hit the next stage of Mind Like a Hive, let me elaborate on the ‘losing’ or what it means when I have a ‘rough’ day. I suffer from long term manic depression, with bouts of extreme depressive episodes / incidents. It’s been a blessedly long time *cross fingers* but I haven’t had an acute depressive incident in quite some time. They get bad though. Screaming fits in the middle of the night, a complete and utter breakdown of higher order mental functions under the suffocating weight of my own sadness. It’s serious business. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t had to deal with one of those.
Yesterday, I missed a medication dose. Usually, I can recover from such a thing with minimal downtime. I have extended release medication specifically to avoid situations like yesterday, because to top all this off, I also deal with ADHD Type 2. So, yeah. I hyper-focus and forget stuff. I leave the fridge open, food on the counter, and wander back to what I was focused on first. That sorta thing. However, yesterday I was not so lucky. Either I was having an off day, or my body was just way out of whack. I had to fight every single one of my own demons, blindfolded, with one arm tied behind my back. Armed with a spoon.
When I get like that, I question everything about who I am and what I do. I’ve been at this writing schtick for the better part of six months now. I’ve been very consistent, barring a few instances outside of my control. I felt yesterday that I was the biggest fraud, the most severe waste of time, to have ever existed. Despite loads of evidence to the contrary, by people who either read or teach literature professionally, I knew, deep in my bones, to the core of my being, that I was a sham. In case you were wondering, the core of my being is where all this comes from. I am 100% reliant on a healthy mental state to produce anything. I managed to edit a little on Temple, but other than that, yesterday was a complete wash.
So sitting down here, a few hours post medication, with the better part of a workout under my belt to give me a boost on that front, I’m in a proper position to create. The reality is that this is how I’ve lived my whole life, from puberty onward. It will most likely always be how I live my life. I don’t want that to be the case. I try my hardest to avoid days like yesterday. They aren’t good for you, because I can’t do anything. And they sure as hell aren’t good for me, because I feel that I can’t do anything either. And nothing could be further from the truth. I may not be at Pulitzer Prize winning material production yet, but I’m certainly no fraud sitting in a coffee shop, telling anyone who will listen about the book I’ll never write.
Without further justifications…
Mind Like a Hive – Part 2
Sheraith Bohigdon clutched at her thigh, holding the arrow fast as Guyver slowly made his decent towards the forward command post of General Hawthorne. Guyver, having seen Sheraith’s injury, was doing everything in his power to keep jostling to a minimum. Given his need to keep at least two of his wings going at all times to stay in the air, ‘minimum’ was a loose term. Sheraith gritted her teeth, and tried to focus on just how little she wanted to give the General her report. She is going to be so very upset.
The tents, made of interlocked chitin plates, were the usual riot of colors denoting every tree family that had flocked to the defense of Hivemother El’yntis. Every time I see them, it gets harder to bear. Sheraith’s own colors, teal and royal blue, were noticeably absent. They should’ve made up the largest contingent, as the Bohigdon’s were the oldest family in Tree El’yntis. Worries for another time Sheraith though as she closed her eyes. She was starting to lose concentration as she continued to seep amber blood from between her clutched fingers. It wasn’t a heart pulse, thank the Hivemother, but it was bad enough to be going on with.
A young squire waved her into a spot on the flying grounds, and Guyver set down with hardly a bump, his six legs expertly spreading the sudden weight. He looked back at Sheraith, his eyes now a deep azure of concern. Sheraith waited astride him until the squire could help her down, but no force on all of Gaia could keep her from consoling the blue out of Guyver’s eyes. Sheraith hugged the triangle of Guyver’s face, burying her own into it’s warm hardness, arms wrapped around him as they squeezed for all she was worth. Guyver eventually let out a barking chirrupy laugh, and nudged Sheraith away. His eyes were a playful purple, a sign that his concerns had been lifted. She scratched under his chin, making him close his flight lids as he let out a low warbling hum.
Guyver nudged her with one of her legs, reminding her that she still needed to see the General, and that her leg was still very much injured. “Squire Rea’ma, isn’t it?” The young squire, huffing slightly under her weight, nodded. “You might not be a solider, but you’ve a battle to fight yet young man. I need you to help me to the General’s command tent on the double.” The Squire paled, but his mouth drew into a grim, determined line, and his eye whiskers didn’t even twitch with discomfort.
Sheraith made slow but steady progress through the ranks, successfully snagging a young page and directing him to have one of the medics sent to the command tent with a porrebug and some hot tchurr for her to drink. Sheraith needed all the fortification she could get. Finally, General Hawthorne’s tent came into view. Not a moment too soon. Sheraith was beginning to tremble slightly, and it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. Poor Rea’ma was puffing like a bellows under her weight, but he continued plodding forward with her.
The two man honor guard for the command tent, upon seeing Sheraith approach, dropped their manta-scythes and hurried up to her haggard party. The Squire, relieved of his burden, promptly fell backward onto the grass, sucking wind as fast as his tortured lungs would allow. “The General” Sheraith gasped, head lolling as she fought to remain conscious. The guards, eye whiskers fluttering with their concern, hauled her bodily into the tent, shouting her arrival to the gathered Lordfathers and Lordmothers who were bent over a map of the Hy’shuu valley and the river Nall.
Bent over the map, hands astride the large table, was General Hawthorne. Easily a head taller than every other Kova present, General Hawthorne’s whiskers were set in a stern line of concentration across her cheeks. Upon the dramatic entrance of Sheraith, they shot up in alarm and back into concentration almost too fast to notice. She gestured imperiously towards the corner of the tent, and a Kova in the white chitin of the Medical Corps hurried over carrying a carved camp chair, with a porrebug draped across her neck and shoulders, antennae and feeler tentacles dangling in front of her legs.
To be continued…
Squirefully,
Justin
