A Diary in Captivity

by Clark Young

This old and tattered journal is comprised of several sheets of scrap paper, many of them clearly salvaged from other places and chalked over to be reused. It is written in a neat calligraphy, but very densely, to make the most of the scarcity of space available. The pages are folded in half and held together by a piece of string and covered by piece of sack fabric.
This was the diary Yarik kept as a teenager while in slavery in the mining caves, it documents his longing for freedom in the hardest moment of his captivity.

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A Diary in Captivity

... I feel like at my birth I have been handed the key of a magnificent castle, of my true home.
But instead of being born there, the loved heir of an estate that is my birthright, I was born in the courtyard of a different castle that is not mine. I can't enter it and enjoy the pampered life or its inhabitants. I can only stay outside and watch them going about their life.
Unreachable.
I keep trying the key but it never opens the door for me. So I live outside, I built a little shack and scrap a living here, in this wasteland where hardly anyone spares a glance for me. I managed to grab the attention of a few people, I have some loved ones.
But they all belong to a differend world and it feels like they can spare at most some charitable sympathy for me.
I need to get to the other castle, the one I have the key for.
Reclaim what's mine.
But the road is long and full of danger and I am scared of walking there and find out that I lost everyone on my way and have to live the rest of my life surrounded by luxury, but alone...

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Type

Journal, Personal

Medium

Paper

Location

Hottest Spices

Authors

• Yarik