Holy crap, /u/LaraStardust! Thank you for filling in! Your posts are an excellent addition and I'm truly humbled that you took the time and effort to write them out. I'm touched, truly touched.

And that goes for the rest of you as well. I haven't responded...at all...because I didn't want to touch this account. But that's because I needed some time to compress and deal with some mental health issues--issues I'm still dealing with.

So what's next for the Peanut Gallery? In a word, I don't know. I'm going to play it by ear.

I’m still taking a break from writing daily about the Russo-Ukraine War. There’s some life issues I need to hammer out before I can consider picking up a regular release schedule again. War is…hard to write about and toxic to one’s mental health. I’m not overly eager to throw myself back into that daily meat grinder.

While I sort myself out I’ll be using this space as an area to share my other work. Think of it like a personal blog. Sometimes it’ll be a story, sometimes it’ll be political commentary, sometimes war.. Release will likely be irregular for a while until I feel a bit stronger.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following story. There’s no deep meaning, just a quick fable about a dolphin.

Once upon a time there was a Dolphin, just an ordinary dolphin. Oh, Dolphin thought he was extraordinary. He thought himself the fastest, the strongest, and the cleverest creature in all the Seven Seas, and he wanted to prove, so one day he went looking for a challenge. 

“Hello Whale,” Dolphin said, darting up to the plodding behemoth.  “Would you care for contest?” 

“A contest? Of what sort?” Whale asked. 

“Why, we shall hold our breath, and the one who holds it the longest wins.”  

Whale lost interest almost immediately. She breached (for it was time) and responded, “I breathe when I must, only when I must. This is how it’s always been. Why control that which my lungs manage well enough on their own?” 

“To do it better,” Dolphin answered with ill-disguised eagerness.  

“I do not wish to play this game.”  

“Ah! But I do!” Dolphin said and quickly took his own breath.  

Whale sighed with a shower of bubbles and returned to her business of eating krill, deciding it best to ignore Dolphin’s silly antics.  

Hour after hour she ate, and while she ate, Dolphin followed, watching and waiting. His lungs burned, yet he stayed below. He stayed below even as his vision grew dark and the ocean distant. He stayed below even after he ran out of bubbles to release. He stayed below so long he wondered if he would ever see the surface again. Each time he nearly rose for a breath he stopped himself thinking, ‘No! I must beat Whale! I must prove that I am the strongest in all the oceans!’ 

Eventually Whale surfaced with a great plume of white mist.  

“Ah-ha!” Dolphin cried. “You took a breath! That means I win!”  

“I wasn’t competing,” Whale said.  

“Tell yourself what you must.”  

Whale didn’t care, so quickly returned to her feed. Krill wasn’t going to eat itself, after all.  

Now without challenge Dolphin quickly grew bored, so he went in search of a greater contest. He swam through the oceans until he reached Shark’s hunting ground, mightiest of the ocean’s predators. It wasn’t long before Shark cast his long shadow ominously across the sea floor.

“Hello, little Dolphin. Have you come to deliver my lunch?” Shark asked.  

“Hello Shark! Why nothing of the sort! As you know, I am much cleverer than the fish you snack on. I don’t believe I can be caught.”  

“Perhaps,” Shark said, and darted to take a bite from Dolphin.  

Dolphin swum quickly out of the way. “I have not come to be eaten, great Shark, but to challenge you to a contest. I believe that I am cleverer than you and I wish to prove it.” 

“Oh?” Shark asked.  

“We shall have a contest. Hunting means outthinking one’s prey. We shall each hunt and the one who hunts the most fish shall be declared the winner!”  

Shark chuckled in wry amusement. “I eat when I am hungry, Dolphin. That is how it has always been. Why should I gorge myself when my stomach knows perfectly well when it is full?”  

“To do it better,” Dolphin said.  

Shark snagged a passing fish and ate it in a single bite. “I will not play this game with you.” 

“Ah! But I wish to play with you!” Dolphin announced, chasing down his own fish.  

And so it went. When Shark ate, so too did Dolphin. Fish by fish; bite by bite; Dolphin ate and ate and ate and ate.  He continued to eat even when the fish ran low and Shark switched to strange creatures Dolphin had never tried: Octopus; Eel; and Crab; Shark ate them all, so too did Dolphin. He ate until he felt bloated and fat, yet still he continued because he knew that he could win.  

“I’ll eat you too, little Dolphin,” Shark promised just before he dashed in for a bite.

This time Dolphin was too full to dodge and so Dolphin fled. He swam as fast as his fins could carry him, down into the depths of a deep, dark cave with a narrow mouth. Shark slammed against the rock. Again. And again. Shark beat himself against the cave entrance, but he was too big, far too big to fit inside. Meanwhile, deep in its depths, Dolphin curled into a ball, trembling.  

Eventually Shark tired and closed his eyes, swimming gently as he drifted off to sleep.  

It was many hours before Dolphin felt his stomach empty enough to leave. He departed the cave carefully and swam past Shark, but as he did he noticed that despite his silence Shark watched him with one eye cracked open.   

“You cannot catch me, Shark. I am cleverer than you by far. I have won our little contest. I am cleverer than you,” Dolphin proclaimed.  

Shark shook his head in wry amusement. “Come on back if you should ever wish to play again.”  

Dolphin’s experience with Shark certainly shook him, but it wasn’t enough to ward him from his goal. He would prove himself the best—the cleverest, the fastest, the strongest—whatever it took. And he was so, so close, for he had already proven himself both clever and strong. Now there was only speed, so Dolphin went searching for a fitting challenge.  

Dolphin found it in Salmon, whose scales glittered in the sun. The determined fish slowly circled at the mouth of river as it released itself into the ocean. “Hello, Salmon!” Dolphin began.  

But Salmon had a mind only for her estuary.  

“Salmon, can you hear me? I said hello!” 

At last Salmon turned a lazy eye towards Dolphin and answered, “Hello, Dolphin. Unless you have come to eat me, I am not interested. I wish only to prepare for my journey.” 

“A journey! How fortuitous, for I have come to challenge you to a contest.”  

“I’m not interested.”  

“But I have even described the terms!”  

“Please leave me in peace.”  

Dolphin was stumped. Disagreement he could handle; exhausted sighs and indifference were standard answers to his shenanigans. Outright refusal, however? This confused him so he asked, “Why does this river fascinate you so?”  

“At the top of this river is a lake. There I was born, and there I will spawn my young...just as my parents did to me, and their parents before them. It is my purpose. The reason I live.”  

“Ah!” Dolphin exclaimed. “Then we shall race to this lake. That shall be our contest.” 

But here too Salmon shook her head. “I do not make this journey for fun, Dolphin. I do so because I must. I shall reach my destination, no faster and no slower. The river will dictate my pace for that is how it has always been. Why should I hasten my journey when there is no need?”  

“To do it better,” Dolphin answered eagerly.  

“Such a goal would be foolish for I know what lies at the end.” 

Dolphin snarled in sudden frustration. “You will play with me, for if you don’t, I shall eat you and you will never reach your spawning grounds. What say you to those terms, little Salmon?” 

Salmon considered Dolphin. “I say that you are finally beginning to understand. You may accompany me on my journey, Dolphin, but it will not end the way you envision.”  

“Of course it will. I bested Shark and I bested Whale, so I can certainly best a tiny fish.”  

“We shall see.”  

And with that Salmon drifted into the estuary. Thousands of Salmon’s kin followed —millions, pulled from every corner of the world. There were so many that the water frothed with their sleek bodies. Dolphin lost himself in the mass, but it didn’t matter. He knew his goal: to reach the lake at the top of the river. 

But Dolphin quickly realized this was no ordinary race. The current pushed hard and fast so that every stroke of his fins was a struggle. He stopped for even a moment the river would carry him all the way back to the sea. He huffed and he puffed until he was exhausted, and several of Salmon’s kin fell behind, but not Salmon herself, so he pressed forward. ‘I must keep going,’ he thought as he redoubled his efforts.  

That’s when the killing started. Eagle swooped low to take one of Salmon’s kin. Mountain Lion scooped another from the water. Bear snatched them from the air. There was no hunt, no game of wits, only long, sharp teeth and claws—pits of spikes to catch the unaware. The water reeked with the stench of blood and meat.  

Exhausted, terrified, Dolphin came at last to a place where the river went vertical: a sheer waterfall of rock and white water. He stared at it in disbelief.  

“What are you waiting for, little Dolphin?” Salmon mocked. “The lake lies at the top.”  

This was not the first waterfall Dolphin had faced in his race, but it was the largest, and he knew he couldn’t climb to its top. Still he tried. He hurled himself at the waterfall. He tried and he tried until he expended the last of his strength. Eventually he fell back, realizing that if he kept trying then he would die. “I cannot do it,” he admitted.  

Salmon laughed in exhausted glee and threw herself at the waterfall, leaping from the current only to come down slightly higher. Bit by bit she pushed herself until she reached the water’s top, and there she called down, “I see the lake, as beautiful and serene as in my memory. Alas the effort to reach it took everything from me and I shall soon die, yet before I do, I shall lay my eggs. My children will know this lake’s beauty and the cycle will continue. I have accomplished my purpose.”  

“I will join you,” Dolphin asserted.  

“Will you? Though it will cost your life? Though you’ve lost your race? Is this your purpose? Is this why you exist?” 

Dolphin fell silent for Salmon was right. His race was lost. He was not the fastest, nor the strongest, nor the cleverest. He had deluded himself—he saw that now, competing with those who simply lived as nature intended. At each turn he asserted his superiority, and at each turn he had almost lost his life. His bones ached with a weariness born from swimming against the current. “I want to win...” 

“Someday you might. But it will never be a contest. Your victory will come to you as naturally as this journey to me. Go back to the sea, little Dolphin. Go back home.” 

And reluctantly, Dolphin allowed the current to carry him back to where he belonged.  

“I must see this place,” the philosopher pronounced, and so he set himself to the task. From his shelves he poured over tomes on shipbuilding, woodworking, and astronomy. He read accounts of those that came before and dreamed of sailing in their wake. And when at last the philosopher felt confident, when he had read all that he could read, he worked to build himself a boat.

Months he spent in ceaseless toil. “The journey is dangerous,’ he whispered while he worked. “If I am to reach Xanadu, then my vessel must be perfect.”

Eventually the fateful day arrived, and the philosopher dragged his creation to the beach. It was a magnificent ship, a true work of art. Each plank aligned with those that came before; the mast, so tall and strong, with a sail that could harness the winds; he need not bend to the currents, for at the vessel’s keel was a stern and uncompromising rudder. The Philosopher knew his destination, and he knew that this vessel would carry him to it. How could it not?

But as the philosopher put his masterpiece into the water for its maiden voyage, a monkey wandered from the jungle, dragging a bit of driftwood. The monkey dropped its driftwood in the shallows beside the philosopher’s vessel.

The Philosopher could not help but stare. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I will sail to Xanadu,” the monkey said.

“With that? Where is your rudder? Your mast? Your ship? Driftwood cannot carry you to Xanadu.” 

The monkey nodded, for the philosopher was right, yet he pushed himself from the shore all the same. The Philosopher watched the monkey for a time, before, eventually, he too unfurled his sails and set his course for the horizon.

The Philosopher’s trip was easy. The wind was gentle, the waters smooth, and his vessel cut a clean line through the waves. ‘This is delightful!’ he thought to himself. ‘Why I shall reach Xanadu in no time at all!’

But the sun was hot, and there was very little to do but listen to the screech of gulls. The philosopher let his fingers trail over the side of his boat as the gentle lap of the ocean against its hull slowly lulled him to sleep.

Hours later the philosopher woke to a sharp sting in his hand. He yelped, or tried to, and found that he could not speak. He had been poisoned by a jellyfish. For three days and three nights the philosopher lay paralyzed, and on the third night his boat was beset by a sudden squall. The wind roared, and the philosopher, unable to move, could do nothing.

When dawn came and the winds died, the paralysis left the philosopher and he rose to find his sail in ribbons. He cursed his fate and chastised himself, “If only I had stayed just awake, if only I were stronger, then none of this would’ve happened. It was my weakness which cost me my sail.” And with the cause decided, the philosopher drew out his oar and resolved to maintain vigilance.

But without the sail the journey was not so easy. Whereas before the wind sped his vessel along, now he sweated for every knot. Our philosopher did not curse his fate, for work had never been his problem; he had, after all, spent many years building his boat. The sail had simply been a tool of expedience.

Each day the sun beat down, and each night the philosopher looked to the stars to find his way. As he toiled, rowing with back to the relentless sun, a peculiar sensation took hold: a current, subtle at first, drew his vessel with escalating insistence.  At first the philosopher thought, ‘Oh good! This current will substitute for my lost sail!’

Eventually, however, fear replaced joy as the tide proved inexorable, drawing him to some unknown destiny. Our philosopher abandoned his oar and seized hold of his rudder. He hauled and strained and pushed, and for a time it worked.

“I will not let this current control me! Only I decide where my boat will go. I am the master of my fate! I am the captain of my soul!” He chanted these words to himself, even as he bent to the current to speed his journey.

Each dip brought him deeper, which made each shift of the rudder all the more difficult. The philosopher put his back to the gunwale and pushed with both feet. Sweat poured from his brow. Gently, slowly, the vessel began to turn, and for one exultant moment the philosopher believed he had won. then...snap. And the tiller obeyed his whims.

The philosopher shook with horror. “The wind can blow, the sea can tug, but I will survive what is to come,” he whispered.

But as the philosopher’s despair plunged to its nadir, he noticed a shape bobbing closer to his vessel. It was the monkey, clinging desperately to its driftwood, waterlogged and worse for wear. Slowly the current brought the two together. Two voyagers, one a sailor of a fine ship, the other an animal on a floating log.

They drifted in silence for a time as the current carried them where it willed. Eventually the philosopher asked, “Do you regret sailing for Xanadu?”

The monkey cracked a weary eye. “Do you?”

“I don’t know…I suppose that depends on where this current leads.”

The monkey nodded for the philosopher had said all that needed to be said.

As the pair drifted, the sea began to churn with violence. Ahead, the water darkened, and the air filled with a deep, resonant thrum. The philosopher’s heart sank as he beheld a maelstrom so vast it swallowed the horizon, its maw held wide as if to consume the sky itself. Panic gripped his heart. Such a sight was beyond anything the philosopher had read in his tomes or dreamt in his wildest nightmares. The tide’s pull was inescapable, drawing them towards an eternal abyss.

The philosopher looked to the monkey, expecting fear. But instead the animal’s eyes shone with wild abandon.

Down they spiraled into the heart of the maelstrom, faster and faster. The current smashed the philosopher’s boat and ripped the monkey from its log. The maelstrom was a tumultuous roar, yet paradoxically the philosopher found peace. The storm above may rage, but below the waves there was only quiet.

Then through the watery veil, our philosopher glimpsed a gilded flash. There, at the bottom of the maelstrom, lay Xanadu, bathed in the ethereal light of the ocean. Golden towers sparkled like stars, marble fountains cascaded with quicksilver, and the streets shimmered with the promise of untold wonders. Paradise exceeded even the philosopher’s lofty expectations. It called to him, a sonorous siren which filled his heart with yearning. He reached…but as he extended his fingers the tide ripped him from the vision and dragged him down into the depths.

The water carried him through caverns and halls, through stone gardens lost to eternity; faster and faster, his lungs burning for a gasp of air. ‘I’m going to die,’ he realized. ‘I have reached Xanadu and yet I’m going to die…’ Darkness choked the edge of his sight, creeping towards its center. He pushed against the black, fought for every instant of consciousness, yet slowly, irrevocably, death came for him.

Then the current shifted and the philosopher rocketed upwards. He jetted to the surface with enough force to send him cartwheeling across the sky. Gravity exerted its will and he fell, only to careen into a sand dune. He gasped and air—wonderful, glorious air filled his lungs.

“Where am I?” the philosopher asked, slowly coming to the realization that the maelstrom had deposited him on the beach from whence he’d come. A moment later the monkey slammed into the dune beside him.

The monkey hacked up a lungful of sea water, then slumped with exhaustion. The pair panted in silence, staring at the eternally blue sky.

Eventually the monkey rose, dusted the sand out of its fur, and marched towards the shoreline. It was low tide, and in the water’s wake lay the shattered ruins of a thousand ships, each more glorious and magnificent than the last. There were triremes; caravels; galleons and rowboats. There were destroyers, corvettes, battleships, and yachts—an endless, sunken flotilla. The philosopher thought he even saw the ruins of his own vessel, such that it was.

“Where are you going?” the philosopher called to the monkey’s back.  

“To find a better piece of driftwood.”