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Emotion 365: Rocky Anticipation and the Stairway Down to the Mine Uncertainty

Visitors make strenuous climbs up rocky cliffs searching for the gemstones of Anticipation. Collectors gather agates, quartz, and marble chips. Anticipation borders the ocean. Lighthouses send beacons over the water. Conch shells lay upon the black, white, and pink striped sands. The restless folk of Anticipation wander. Beachcombers search in early morning and late at night. Some tend the lighthouses and wait for visitors.

“We left disappointed. We were expecting more,” travelers say.

“It’s best to visit in spring and wait patiently,” says Miss Emeline. “The flowers bud and nearly bloom forever. It's the most beautiful sight. Miss Doe Friend is working on a painting.”

Doe dips her head shyly, "I don't know if it will ever be finished. It was much to capture: the green, the pink, the white."

"You are modest, Doe," says Miss Emeline. "The painting is coming along wonderfully."

From Anticipation a long staircase leads down to the mine Uncertainty. There’s a channel that opens up into a vast cave beside the sea. The water rushes in. Waves crash and splatter.

"The staircase is slippery and there is no handrail," says Miss Doe Friend. "There’s nothing much at the bottom of the staircase and little reward for making one’s way down."

"But the sides of the stairwell are smooth and contain beautiful veins of quartz, agate, and marble," says Miss Emeline. "And there are markings on the sand and etchings in the wall below as though someone was imprisoned here once and trying to make their mark."

"It promised much," write Miss Doe Friend to her lover, Alobar. "But there wasn't much to be seen in the empty chamber except for a few other visitors searching for meaning. There was no one to greet us. I thought, 'This cannot be the capitol of Anticipation. We have gotten lost." But you know Miss Emeline never gets lost, on accident anyway. The descent into Uncertainty inspired another painting anyway: of the staircase and a secret room below filled with elders and treasure. What we didn't find, but I imagined. The painting is coming along quite nicely and I like it better than the one I am doing of Anticipation which Emeline gives me encouragement about but I feel is not my best work. I have not shown anyone my Uncertainty. I am saving the unveiling of it for you, my love."


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