Monday 30 July 2018

Creative Journal Entry #1: The Game of Life, Meaningful or Meaningless?
Riding the Lost Horse, illustration by me.


This series of posts will be to document my thought process of moving from something horribly meaningless and useless to something hopefully meaningful and useful to myself and society. All the following ideas are based upon my belief that life is fundamentally suffering, and as human beings we have a responsibility to try and decrease the suffering in what ever way we can.

I am consistently angry with myself for being useless at making money, but I have to remind myself that the main reason that this is so, is because my ethical framework prevents me from engaging in rent seeking endeavors. I am too lenient to my clients to charge the price I am due and I refuse to do anything that exploits the environment or other people for my own benefit. This rigidity has led to an almost crippling analysis paralysis which I am attempting to alleviate through this creative journal.

The question is always: Do I do something I am good at, but not passionate about to help people?
OR Do I find where passion, meaning and usefulness intersects and try dam hard to make it work?

I've chosen the second question as my path.



The Function of this Blog is the following: 

1. To explore the idea of educational, ethical, and practical Computer/mobile/board Games.
2. To question the value of Games in general, art, and literature in a world which needs more practical solutions.
3. To prevent my life from being a cautionary tale.
4. To iterate a project before it begins, therefore preventing lost time and valueless endeavors.
5. to explore the question:can played games be used to iterate our current real life games?

Game Proposal Outline: 

The basic outline of my project is to create an educational strategy game for young adults and adults. It will be based around sustainability and ethical decision making within a story based context. I hope this will be the first of many such games to come, therefore this one will be limited in its scope. I have plans for MMO's, VR, and Augmented reality applications. This game will also feature as a design in my Permaculture Diploma process.

I hope that the game will be fun and educational, but ultimately it must be applicable to real life situations. This is the biggest challenge, I want to avoid time wasting addictive behavior. Ideally the game should be used as a tool to enhance a parallel educational process such as a Permaculture Design course, or ecological degree, political sciences or city management etc.

Game Story Proposal:
It is sometime in the future, the effects of global warming have caused mass exodus of peoples. The rich have barricaded themselves in cities and are defending their borders against the poor and disenfranchised. The game centers around a landowner(you) who has to turn his derelict, infertile plot of land into something sustainable without the help of our previously functioning industrial systems. The primary foe/ally would be the weather and encroaching wildlife and bands of roving people.

There will be the potential for cooperative play on a board game(card game) type scenario, or on computer multiplayer based systems. I want the story to be somewhat realistic, or at least a potentially real situation that may happen in the future.

Ethical + Skill Explorations, Teaching Points, Problems the game will address: 

1. Systems thinking, intelligent resource management and strategy.
2. basics of Permaculture design and implementation from a pioneered system to an established system over simulated time.
3. working with chaotic weather and understanding seasonal patterns.
4. Human conflict resolution.
5. Community management and governance. Horizontal or Hierarchical? 
6. Mutually beneficial relationships between  humans and ecosystems.

Creating this game is both a way to address my own meaninglessness in life, as well as to address the problem of our increasing distance from natural systems and subsequent decrease in biodiversity around human based habitat. As a side benefit, perhaps it could address the meaninglessness in the current game industry.

Some Problems and questions I'd like games to address in general: 

1. What is a meaningful life? 
2. Where does a personal meaningfulness intersect with a public meaningfulness? 
3. What do we value as a society? 
4. Where does personal value and public value intersect?
4.What is the maximum benefit that a human being can achieve for society, what should we be doing to improve the net situation of beings on our planet?
6. What is the most useful problem to try and solve today?
7. Why can't I decrease suffering for all beings on the planet, do work I enjoy, AND MAKE MONEY at the same time?

Why I decided to Make These Games: 

I have spent a great deal of time in life playing games that are fundamentally meaningless and purely entertainment based. There are skills that I have developed from them, such as reflexes, strategy and resource management, cooperation within a team that has limited methods of communication. Decision making under pressure and of course the consequence of bad decisions. Perhaps the most important thing is how to correctly orient action towards a goal efficiently. I've played very creative games too that train a sense of design and systems thinking. 

What I have observed is that the iteration speed of a good gamer's learning curve can be extremely fast and immensely sophisticated. There seems to be more blogs and youtube channels focused on particular games than there are on practical skills like growing food or treating a wound for example(this is just a guess). In short, games have taught me how to learn. The goal of winning and dominating enemies in high pressure and high skill environments has shown me how to leverage my own learning. I can pick up any game in any context very quickly, I'm able to identify the goal of the game, and find the shortest most efficient path to that goal.  This doesn't mean that I am always successful or that I always correctly identify the goal.

When I look at human systems and society, I feel that we are also playing games with each other and our environment. Whether its the game of negotiation or the strategy of out competing your co-worker.  Much like the gaming industry there are often backwards, impractical and exploitative games that people play on a daily basis. What I also find interesting, which applies to both real world games and entertainment games, is that they aren't always fun, yet something about them compels us to play.  Perhaps there is meaning in the struggle to out compete your enemies and to cooperate within a human community or team. Either way, how can we take this understanding of our nature and leverage it to a more beneficial goal? As I mentioned in the outset of this post, my personal goal is to decrease suffering in the world. How can we assign value to this goal so that people are able to make a living while decreasing suffering ?

Unfortunately or fortunately, people seem to be good gamers in reality too and tend to be extremely good at leveraging their learning curves regardless if the game is useful or not. In my opinion this leads to a tremendous waste of energy. Very sophisticated and skillful people who ultimately exploit the environment or their fellow humans. I am not slanting people and their choices in profession, I'm trying to look at things objectively and solve the human tragedy of a useless job. I'm going to avoid giving examples here, but it doesn't take much imagination to think of a job which doesn't decrease net suffering. Even if it is decreasing the suffering of the person who takes home the money, it may increase suffering somewhere else, or degenerate the environment which will lead to future suffering. If there are holes in my argument here please feel free to point them out in a comment.

To summarize my position, I see games as a metaphor for life.
In my view we need to decrease the amount of zero-sum games that we play and increase the cooperative based games. With the two additional factors of decreasing suffering and increasing regenerative ecosystems. By my estimation, in the same way that a good design can save endless toil in the wrong direction, a good game can iterate out and solve a lot of problems before a system is implemented.  

A last idea to add to this endless post, I postulate that psychological data and information can be gathered in an MMO type of scenario, especially where ethical decision making processes are simulated. Perhaps an expedient MMO that explores ethical ideas can be exploited for their purposes of gathering data on player decisions and their consequences on a simulated ecosystem.

 This is only my first step in a much larger process. I've been researching people and movements like Jane Mcgonigal, Serious games, gamification. Some of my heroes at the moment are Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and an endless list of people trying to win the war of ideas. I like them because they have cut through a lot of nonsense and even sacrificed some of their own interests to address what they believe to be real problems in the world. Perhaps I need to do the same thing. 
If you've read this far,  I thank you for your attention. Please leave a comment!

Find my illustrations here: 
http://keeganblazeyart.strikingly.com/
https://www.artstation.com/keeganblazey

 









Thursday 1 March 2018

Are you safe in your Gas Heated house?


Illustration of my Future house and Garden. done by me.... of course





So I'm writing this post as a cautionary tale for anybody who thinks they are safe and comfortable in their gas heated house. Sitting in sub zero temperatures in the north of UK,  I was shocked to realize that my boiler was not working. Since I am from South Africa I am not sure how the system works so I spent about 2 hours calling the gas supplier which only sent me through a labyrinth of robotic button pressing. This gradually spiraled into a cacophony of options and questions which I knew nothing about. When I eventually reached an actual phone line to a human being I was put on hold for 20 minutes due to a high number of calls. I am a working man, 20 minutes I do not have, I have clients waiting for artwork and students who want me to tell them how to speak English.  But I can't do either of these things with frozen fingers.

Needless to say, due to my superior Googling I figured out how to check my gas supply and my balance. Which were both functioning fine, and I thanked all the gods that I didn't have to deal with the supplier. Next thing to do was to check the boiler and figure out why it wasn't working. After some inspection, I realized it was an engineering problem and so I had to contact my landlord to get an engineer over to fix it. So three frosty hours later an engineer arrives and takes it apart. Basically the condensate pipe was frozen. He did nothing I couldn't do myself.

Ironically the thing that is meant to keep me warm in freezing conditions had stopped operating because it was frozen. So this may be my fault since I am a silly warm climate mongrel who has no idea how to survive under sub zero conditions. Stupid me, I had my boiler on a timer so it turns off when I don't need it. How ridiculous of me trying to save money and the planet at the same time. So now I have to have my boiler on all the time to make sure it doesn't freeze. So this isn't a problem. If this is how people have learned to survive here then that's what I have to do. I am a foreigner after all, I can't impose my warm climate ways on a temperate one. So funnel in the gas please. Because that's what the world needs right now. More gas.

Aside from the boiler problem, my house also has badly insulated windows. Which basically means its windy when the window is closed. So why am I writing this post? is it because I am a mongrel Zaphor who can't operate a boiler? well partly... I take responsibility for letting it freeze.

BUT, the main reason I am writing is because the whole system is badly designed. And I am not the only one who is outraged by this. Of course not, I can guarantee there is a medley of people who have the same opinions as me.

I have spent a lot of time living in sustainable systems where I have control over every aspect of my environment. I hate not being able to solve a simple problem, and having to wade through hours of crazy red tape to have a simple boiler fixed. Everything is fine while it works, I'm comfortable and well fed. My clients are happy, and my students are happy. Even my landlord is happy.

But what happens when it doesn't work? What happens when the store runs out of food? or the gasline stops operating, or a severe storm knocks out the power? Am I to sit idly by and wait for rescue? I'm not this type of human being. I don't want to sit idly by and let the environment savage me! This is not how humans made it this far. We made it this far by dominating the environment. I don't want to do that either. So something has to change.

I don't like the current state of affairs at all. If they had any sense of design, they would have designed it to deal with sub zero conditions, or simply let the outlet pipe to go down the sink indoors. Anyway, enough ranting. What is to be done about this? How can I take charge of my own resources and stop having to pass the buck to landlords and engineers and other people who are only doing the bare minimum to solve the problem.

Everyone is trying to cut costs and use the cheapest possible material. If they had installed a larger pipe for example, or added a simple device that allows the condensate to run through the hot inlet valve we wouldn't be having this problem now. At a time when the heating is needed the most. Arguably the only time that I need heating. I made the mistake of trusting this system and not paying it any heed because it always seemed to quietly boil away in the background. Well I have a feeling that we are all doing this. Outsourcing our vital systems to companies and corporations who mainly care about the bottom line, and don't mind fudging the design. Or even worse, designing flaws into the system to allow for continuous profit.

SO, my reason for writing this, is that we need to be ready people. Shit is getting real now. Cape Town is running out of water, it's snowing in Barcelona for the first time in 5 years. The entire northern hemisphere is freezing over while I am writing this. The centralized utility companies are not going to be able to deal with all the complaints about faulty boilers and condensate pipes. And most of all, you aren't going to have time to deal with the suppliers. You will be too busy trying to figure out how to chop a tree down with a  kitchen knife and how to keep your Carbon Monoxide alarm from going off while you burn your rent agreement for warmth.

We need to be ready and equipped for disaster. It's not your landlords fault, it's not your suppliers fault. If you end up freezing to death or dehydrating, its YOUR FAULT. Take responsibility for your own resources and stop waiting around for the government to sort out problems. Learn Permaculture. Take control. And START NOW. If you want any advice on how to get started please contact me at keeganblazey@gmail.com , I will not charge anything and this is not an advertisement for my services. In fact, I don't want to be doing this. We should have sorted this problem ages ago. But anybody with the knowledge of regenerative and sustainable systems needs to speak up. NOW. I have these skills, but I want to be an artist. I like stories. But right now, this is the most important story.

As Elon Musk Says: "If we're all in a ship together and there's some holes in the ship, and we're bailing water out, and we have a great design for a bucket, even if we're bailing out way better than everybody else, we should probably share the bucket design."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=savSlk-eot8

 He shared the designs to all his cars. While I don't know if I agree with everything he does, I agree with the idea of sharing useful information that leads to sustainable systems.


I'm trying to help and to do something useful for everyone here. I don't know what the solution is for my situation, so if anybody knows, please help! The problem with renting is that if you don't own the house, it doesn't serve you to make any changes from your own pocket. Since the renter pays for the gas and electric, it doesn't matter to the landlord that you pay through your teeth due to bad insulation.

Apparently my house meets the average U.K energy standards. Which means that the standard is bogus. This is a clear indication that we can't rely on the government.

The way I see it, my way forward is to save a boat load of cash and buy land somewhere. Or to opt into an intentional community. Both of these things have their inherent risks and quite frankly I don't look forward to freezing to death in a poorly organized community or taking out a mortgage. I'm not saying that it isn't possible to live in a community or buy your own land, but it is a long process and I don't think that all of us are in the position to do this right now. Especially not in the face of a disaster. Actually, it's already too late.

So we have to figure out a way to improve the current system, and quickly. In permaculture circles I have heard people saying "Go straight to the solution", don't try to change the system. While I agree, the possible disaster really hit me today when I realized that I could freeze to death in my own home while on hold to a gas supplier.

While I am open to change and perfectly willing to go out alone and brave the struggles of a new piece of land, or a sustainable community, I don't know how this would go with the average person in my neighborhood. People simply aren't ready. So START NOW spread the word. And please let me know if you have any ideas. In my current situation, I have no money because I have spent it on traveling to India for the Permaculture IPC. I have no property. All I have are my wits and skills. So this is why I am writing, it is what I can do to make a minuscule difference.

Here are some useful links if you want to get involved in Permaculture(which I think has the most meaningful solutions to these problems):
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/what-is-permaculture
https://permaculturenews.org/

Monday 12 February 2018

The Cloud People, A Cautionary Tale(Short Story)



The Cloud People

 

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a city above the clouds. One day, growing curious of the spaces below she queried her father: “Pa, why do we live so high, high above the fishes in the ocean?”
“My dear daughter, do not ask such silly questions, we live here because that’s where we have always lived” he smiled dismissing her plea and continuing with his work.
“But pa! there must be a reason for us being so high high up in the clouds?!”
“I am busy my dear daughter, I don't have time right now to answer your strange questions, go and ask your grandmother”
The little girl scampered off to find her grandmother. She was sitting in an old rocking chair knitting a hat from dragon sinew.
“What brings you here deary?” she said looking over her knitting.
“I want to know why we float on the clouds?”
“ooohh what an inquisitive one you are deary.. “ she chimed
“Tell me grandma, please please!” she begged grasping her grandmothers knees in her customary way.
“well, there is an ancient tale which my grandmother told me many cycles ago, we cloud people never used to live in the clouds, in fact, we used to live underneath the sky, on the GROW-UND...”
“Grow-und!! What's grooow--uuunnnnd??” she intoned.
“That is where we come from my dear, long long ago our ancestors lived on the grow-und where there is solid rock for homes and trees for shade from the sun'
“What is row-ck grandmother?”
“Tis a very hard substance me dear, such that even dragons couldn’t break”
“Wow! That sounds wondrous! but why do we live up here then if there is such loveliness down there?”
“That my dear is the big question.. Why do we live up here where the sun simmers our heads and the winds cut our teeth?”
“Do you know why grandma??!”
“Well deary, there is an old legend...”
“Wahhah! I want the truth grandmother no more tales!!”
“Shhhh.. deary, Legends are all we have left me dear, let me speak... Once humankind prospered on the surface of the earth for generations and generations, but then one fateful day, a foul and gigantic demon travelled from places unknown and made the earth its home. Men fought bravely for many years but eventually the demon exiled humankind to the cloudlands”
“But grandma! If we truly are grow-undlings then why don't we sink down like the fishes?”
“Still to this day, nobody knows, but it is said that the demons breath is so hot that it keeps us afloat in the sky”
“but why is the demons breath so hot Grandma?”
“Because he is very angry my child”
“but why is he angry?”
“Because he is a demon little one, they are angry by nature”
“But it’s not his fault that he is a demon, or ours.. so why did he come and steal our home?”
“No one knows little one, for centuries we have lived here and now it is our home, no one ventures to the demons lair anymore. It is too hot and arid”
“I want to go and tell him a thing or two!” she said with a look of determination, the type of determination one sees in the brilliance of youth, so bold, so truthful, but woefully harmless.
“hooh hahaha!”  her grandmother laughed and kissed her on the head.
“My dear child, it’s only a story, if the demon really existed, I'm sure he wouldn't change his mind about Humankind anyway”
“what did he say last time they spoke to him?”
“He didn't speak my child, he is a demon”
“Well that’s very rude of him! Well then perhaps we could send him a letter?”
Her grandmother chuckled at the childish notion
She sniffed and stomped off, her gait betraying her thoughts. She menaced this way and that, squirting spittle and making unpleasant faces at hapless passersby she sauntered in this haphazard way towards the gateway of the ancients, where it was said that her ancestors had first arrived at the city of the clouds. She sat on the precipice of the arch and looked over into the vast ocean of greyness that was the sea below. It didn't look all that scary she thought. After a few minutes of staring intently she became quite sleepy. Her eyes began to droop and her posture relaxed, she leaned comfortably into the archway of the great gate and she slowly slipped into the sleep realms. 
 

She found herself slowly floating towards the moon, with her body weightless, a curious sensation that filled her with fear. She remembered a similar event happening to her when she was only three cycles old, if it weren’t for her father’s brilliant grappling skills, she would have died out in the ether.
Children of that age had been known to float away if un-tethered; it was a young mother’s nightmare.
It started to get colder and colder and darker and darker as she floated higher and higher in the highest of high clouds. She opened her mouth to scream but there was no air to breath, she had left the clouds behind and the air along with it. Now the little girl was truly terrified and she began to cry.
‘Surely this is just a nightmare’ she mouthed noiselessly. 

Suddenly she felt as if she had moved through a barrier, some sort of membrane. The air became warmer again. She clasped her belly button, she knew that if she pressed it she would go back home.
She began to fall and fall and fall. Far far down she fell, the air rushing past her ears, the clouds wetting her skin and clothes. Her tears turned into screams as the earth approached like a slamming door.
She impacted the earth like a shooting star leaving a crater as big as a proud cumulonimbus. Her ears were ringing and her body was sore, but curiously, she was alive. Had she floated into the ether? Surely she was too old for such a thing.
 She gradually came to and gingerly raised herself to her haunches. She wiped the strange substance off her face and clothes and looked at it inquisitively.
“This must be the groow-uunnd.” she said like a mewing fish. She tried to stand up but she couldn't muster the strength. She flung herself left, then she flung herself right, but the grow-und tugged too hard on her little body. 

“I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming! “she screamed as she flailed left and right, scuffling around in the dirt.
“I must be dreaming...” she sobbed as she collapsed onto the floor.
“what are you doing?” came an enquiring voice from the edge of the crater. The girl looked up abruptly. “A talking fish! I MUST be dreaming!” she said impertinently.
“I am not a fish, I am a bird, a rather proud one at that” said the voulcher.
“No you're not, you're a fish, I have seen you swimming in the sky below us many times”
“I assure you.. you.. whatever YOU are.. I am a Vulcher, son of Trillkin The Third, in the proud clan of TallFeather.”
“Don't you mean TAILFEATHER!” she said with a giggle.
“NOT TAIL! TALL, TALL ahh! Tail Feathers!!!”  he strutted about in a peculiar manner with jaunty movements scratching at the debris with his talons and then jerking his head in oddly angular movements. 

The little girl jumped up and started imitating the Vulcher, “Tail feather, tail feather!”  she taunted between prances.
Then suddenly she realized that she was walking around without a problem.
“Vulchar, why does the ground tug at me so hard?” she said shaking a leg.
“ Well, thats a good question... considering the way you entered this world, I would say it’s because you come from the sky”
“but I am not from the sky, I am from the clouds, you are from the sky, fishy fish!”
“ I'm not a fish! ahhh...”  he sighed and shook his head raising a wing to cover his bald head.
“ if you come from the sky, then surely you can fly?”
“I can’t fly, I can only float”  she said innocently.
“well then, scratch a feather why don’t you?!”

The girl scratched her head, 
“You are very confused fishy... I have no feathers to scratch”
“Float! Float! For all the slim pickings and dead mice!”
“ but.... I normally float on the hot air....”  she said dismayed.
“ hhhmmm.... yes I know the hot air, it looks like your creator forgot to give you wings” he pecked at the girls arms.
“ow! stop that!” she squirmed. 

“Are all of your kind as wingless as you? I meant that in a strictly literal way of course” said the Vulcher clearing his voice awkwardly trying to disguise the insult.
“ Yes I suppose so”
“Are you all as large?”

“NO silly fish! I am only one kind of Human, I am still a young girl. There are boys too and men and women, aren’t there different kinds of fish?”
The vulchers neck vibrated with suppressed anger,
“There are many kinds of BIRDS, to be absolutely proper, we refer to them as Avions! but none as proud and as dignified as we Vulchers, we soar high above the planes and attend all funeral rights, we are the keepers of death and the concierge to the underworld. No other pheasant could boast such a regal task as our own. What do you huh-mahns do?”
“Well we live in the clouds, we can float, we hunt dragons for food and clothing.... We used to live on the Grouu--nd but the demon came and got angry with us and now we have to float around up there.”
“WHAT!? Great Carcassess! The plague The plague!”  The vulcher ran around in circles wildly flapping his wings. “The plague has returned! The prophecies were true I must warn my clan!” He ran for a short while and then broke into an odd kind of gallop. It was as if his mind had taken off before his body could catch up, then he was away as abruptly as he came. The broad strokes of his wings vaulting him higher and higher as if he were climbing the rungs of a ladder.
 The little girl watched as he became a speck in the sky and then finally disappeared. She collapsed into tears, feeling lonely and scared. She was certain now that she was not in a nightmare, she could usually wake herself up from a nightmare. She had fallen to the ground and there was nothing she could do about it. She cried and cried and cried until she had no more tears, she watched them vexingly as they formed balls of dirt in the hydrophobic dust. She curiously prodded them with her smallest finger and giggled as they rolled around and stuck to her skin.
“What a curious sensation this grow-und is” she thought.
Finally, after the entertainment of the sand had exhausted itself, she decided to climb out the crater and see what was on the grow-und. For the first time she noticed that the sun was nowhere to be seen, she looked in all directions including down, where it sometimes was, but today it was just greyness. She thought that this is what clouds must look like from underneath. “No wonder that fish thought he was a bird”. She thought, “Even uneducated children know that all the great birds exist in the sky and the fish in the sea. She looked around again, “The sky does look like the clouds from down here” She decided.
She clambered to the top of a small hill where she could see in all directions. The grow-und was extremely dry and loose. She had slipped and fell many times on her way to the top. The dust stuck to her skin like hunter to dragon.
There were some gentle slopes with speckles of brown boulders here and there. She didn't know what to do, she knew that she had to find the demon and ask his forgiveness but she didn't know where to find him. She wished the fish would come back and help her.

It was so dark down here, she could barely see anything. She looked this way, and that way, but all looked the same. Barren brownness... very different to the legends her Grandmother had told her at bedtimes, in those fanciful stories there were lots of green things called Trees and large bodies of something they called water.
She peered around the sterile haze for a few more moments in despair, and then finally, way off in the second east she saw a scraggly mountain. It loomed like a giant sleeping on the edge of the horizon.
When she saw it, she knew in her heart of hearts that that was where the demon lived. So she set off in the direction of the mountain. Saying only this to keep herself company:
“Why do you lie there so lazily in the shadow,
when I must labour hastily to reach your peaks,
 come over here dear mountain of mist,
so I may touch your glorious cheeks!”
In an instant her wish came true and she was standing at the bottom of the mountain. She fell backwards in surprise and looked around her in amazement. ' But how did I get here so quickly?!'
“I took pity on you my dear” came a voice from behind a great rock.
“Grandma?”
“No my dear, I only sound like her. I have a story to tell you, listen carefully and never forget a word. AND DONT INTERRUPT!”
“ You must be..”
“AHH BBu Bu! NO INTERRUPTIONS!”
“Once there was a planet full of beings who resembled sacks of water. They arose from the oceans of their planet and when they were spent, they returned to the earth to fertilize the next cycle. Their whole lives they would endeavour to maintain their seal and to keep from leaking. But some of them were intent on controlling the substance of life, they began puncturing others, and so.. they spilled each other’s water for millennia. Until one day, after using their planets life-force to destroy their enemies, A great demon was born, it spoke of a day when all seals would be broken and the sun would dry up the watery beings. They would become like the clouds and be confined to those spaces of thin air until they were ready to descend, and take part once again in the lessons of flesh and mortality. You my dear must help your people descend”
There was a silence in which the drone of the universe could be heard.
“Are you the demon of the mountain?”  Asked the girl, cautiously, afraid the answer would be yes.
 “No my dear, I am the spider in the tree”
“But there are no trees!” she said, looking around for the source of the voice.
“Not yet... not yet...”
“Did you bring me here?” she asked while tiptoeing to the other side of the rock.
“Your heart brought you here my dear”
“But how?!, I was far far away!”
“The heart cares not for distance or time my dear”
“Why did you tell me the story then?” asked the girl suddenly suspicious when she discovered nothing behind the boulder.
“You tripped on one of my magic webs, so I brought you here to eat you, but when I saw that you were a cloud creature, I decided to help you instead”
“I'm not a cloud creature! I'm a human”
“Oh my poor dear... You have been deluded so cruelly, With my eight special eyes, I can see the true nature of things, with my magical webs I can feel the fatal bonds between all beings, you are indeed a cloud creature”
“Then why do I have arms and legs like a human?”
“The same reason why you thought the Vulcher was a fish”
The girl scratched her head and peered at her arms.  
“But if the Vulcher is a bird, then is a spider a rock?”
The voice laughed. “Now you are thinking my dear”
“ Where can I find the demon?”  She asked finally.
“You must go to the top of the mountain and descend through the centre of the abyss. Be careful not to think of home my dear, or you might vanish into thin air” said the spider.
“But I love my home! How will I stop from thinking about it?”
“Before you descend into the mountain, you must seek out the.... the oh goodness me! Farewell my dear... I must away”
There was a sound like a musical chord and the voice was not heard anymore.
The girl scratched her head again. All this talk was confusing. Perhaps she could go to the mountain and think of home, that would end the dream and she would wake up safe and sound in her bed.
She decided that this was a most devious strategy and she set off for the top of the mountain. The terrain was tough and rugged and she struggled under the tug of the grow-und and the slippery arid dust. Everything so dry... so terribly dry...
 Eventually she grew weary and she decided to take a short sleep.
She lay down next to a tall thing which she thought might be a tree, but it had no green on it. Perhaps it’s another type of grow-und animal she hadn’t heard about during her bedtime stories. Nonetheless, the stark figure with many arms gave her a sense of safety as she began to count her sleeping rhymes.

“One cloud like a sheep of old,
two cloud like a ray of light,
three cloud like a dragon bold, 
four cloud like a glorious fight,
five cloud like a tear for love,
six cloud like a good intention,
seven cloud like the stars above.... 
8 cloud like focused attention..
nine cloud... nine cloud.... ni...' 

The little girl drifted off to sleep floating on the ninth cloud. Few children even remembered what the tenth cloud was, partly because they always fell asleep, mostly because the parents didn’t know either.
Sometime later she awoke to a shuffling noise. She opened her eyes and she saw a monkey playing in the tree. She had never seen a monkey from the clouds.. they were only remembered in artistry and tales of old.  
“Oh monkey! You have disturbed my slumber! What are you doing up there?”
The monkey said nothing with its voice but gestured that the girl should follow.
She obeyed and climbed a little way up the dead tree, she struggled and toiled and finally reached the first arm. The monkey put her on his back and they began to jump and swing from tree to tree. The little girl began to laugh at the way the monkey jauntily swung around. Seemingly haphazard but always as deft as a seamstress sews the next stitch, and so he clung to the next branch and the next and the next, they flew up the mountain at an incredible speed. She wondered how he always knew that the next arm would support their weight, as dry and brittle as they were.
Finally they reached the top after what seemed like an endless blur of brittle branches. The little girl jumped awkwardly from the monkey’s back. She turned to see where they had come from. There was a hazy landscape, hot and dry with looming shapes standing lonesomely sparse from each other in the looming dust. Their limbs were contorted and stunted in painful ways, as if they had been slowly leeched of their life. It filled the girl with an uncontrollable sadness, she had no idea why she was sad, but she felt as if these beings had once been great and tall like dragons. Powerful and majestic, she was sure that they had pooled around them the most wonderful creatures. Now they were left to starve and die without honour, the power of a warriors death stripped from them by slow attrition.
Was this the great forest her grandmother had spun tails about?
 Behind her there was a gaping hole that stretched as far as the eye could see towards the centre of the mountain. Down into the depths the darkness went like a coiling snake eating its own tail. It reminded the girl of the mouth that swallows stars when little girls go to sleep.
The girl became excited because she was very close to home. The monkey went ahead of her beckoning warmly for her to follow. She giggled with glee and began trundling down the haphazard rocky steps.
She played with the curious feeling of going downwards. Slowly but surely It became darker and darker until the monkey’s shape was a phosphorescent gloom ahead of her. She turned to peer up at the light when she suddenly bumped into the monkey ahead of her. She stumbled and caught her footing on a root and tumbled to the floor. The monkey helped her up by her arm, she felt his firm grip knowing that he was very strong.
When she tried to continue walking she realized that the monkey wasn’t letting go. Her heart raced with fear as she saw murder dancing in the monkey’s eyes. She struggled to pull free but the monkey was too strong. His mouth had begun to foam and his eyes gleamed with hunger. The girl fumbled around on the floor as she pulled away and thankfully found a rock. She violently smashed the monkey over the head and screeched in terror. The monkey loosened his grip in surprise and she pulled free. She turned to scamper up the stairs when her heart sank into her stomach.
She could hear them then, shrieking and hooting like savages as their silhouettes cavorted in the light from above. The monkeys began closing in on her, she turned to go down, but the murderous brute was waiting for her. She had nowhere to go. The monkeys circled her calling and crying in a chilling display of dominance, their teeth bearing bright like flashes in the gloom.
The little girl despaired and thought of home intently, as hard as she could, she even pressed her belly button. She didn't care what the spider said, she wanted to go home.  Why should she be responsible for helping the cloud people? She is only a little girl!
She thought of her lovely comfortable bed, she thought of her grandmother and her father, she thought of her mother’s grave in the clouds and all the lovely stars. She thought of the sun. She thought of her favourite games that she played with her friends. How pleasant her life was up there. Up.... she had never known the word to carry such meaning.
The monkey barring her way suddenly leaped forward and seized her arm, he bit into her soft flesh in a shriek of starved hunger. The little girl let out a yell of pain and tried to beat it again with the rock but he wouldn’t let go. The other started coming closer. She yelled again and pulled with all her might until her body was leaning over the edge, only the monkey to keep her from falling. In that moment she saw fear in the monkey’s eyes, she seized it and pushed with her legs with all her might. But the monkey didn’t let go, too greedy in his grip he went tumbling down with her as they fell into oblivion......

Then suddenly she was in a strange cavern with candlelight and a fire burning in the centre. She had never seen fire before but her father had told her stories of the dragons being able to make it. 
She walked closer to the fire and sat down. It was warm and welcoming but when she ventured too close it became unpleasant, it was only nice at a perfect distance. She cradled her wounded arm and looked desperately behind her for the monkey, but he wasn’t there.
“What a wondrous light this is, it burns like the sun, what sort of magical creature could make such a thing?” She was entranced for only a few moments until she remembered her thoughts of home.
“But why oh spider am I not at home!? My home is in the clouds, where the sun shines and the wind blows and the stars twinkle their secrets at night.”   She started sobbing violently and put her hands to her face and cried and cried and cried. Her tears mingled with the sand and soaked away.
“I don't want this place anymore, I don't like the GROW-UND! It pulls me too hard, its dark and the fish think they are birds! I don't like it here!”
She opened her eyes and put her hands in her lap. There was an old man sitting on the other side of the fire.
“Greetings brave little one” he said with a compassionate smile.
“Try not to despair too much” he said with sadness in his eyes
“Who are you?” she said between sobs.
“I am alone” he said with a reassuring smile.
 “I want to go home! Please take me home Mr. Alone”
“It’s time for change little one, everything must change.”
“I don't want to change I want my father and grandmother”
“I know.” He said soothingly. “Change is hard, Change is painful, change is daunting, change.... is” he sighed looking wistfully into the fire “ sometimes considered evil, but..... if embraced.... change will turn you into a flower that never fruits, into fruit that never falls and the seed that never grows”
The girl continued to sob and choke on air, her body convulsed with her sadness as her tears watered the barren earth.
“I didn't ask for this!” she raged.
“Oh but you did my little one, we all did, in the time before time, we all made a promise to learn the lessons of the flesh. It is time to go back to the flesh my dear, the time for fruiting has come”
“I don’t want your flowers or fruits! I want to go home!”
“When it is difficult to go on, we will think of home and of comfort and of the past. But we must have courage, think only of the moment. Remember that the past will always be with you, carried in you in every step of the moment at hand. You must speak with the demon my little courageous one. It will listen only to you. Your heart alone is warm enough to contain him”
“Here take this with you”
The hermit leaned into the fire and fetched glowing ember. He offered it to her and watched keenly for her reaction. She clasped it to her heart and said her thanks with tears flowing. She was not afraid of the heat because she had never known it. The little girl felt the wound in her arm knit together and the pain ebb away.  
“Remember to walk with your heart and good intentions, the strength of your family will take you right to the depth of the demon. If you hold this in your left hand, you will not need to think of home, you will KNOW that it is always with you”
“Mr. Alone why is being alive such a burden?”
The hermit smiled and embraced her compassionately.
 “Because suffering is the greatest of teachers”
“I don't understand.....” said the girl softly.
Slowly the fire faded away and the hermit laughed with tears in his eyes, they began to stream forth into the cavern filling it to the brim. The girl splashed and gasped as she tried to swim above the tears.
“There is no death my dear, only transformation!” he said as everything faded to black.
The girl blinked her eyes and she was back in the chasm, descending towards the demon. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and clasped the ember to her heart with her left hand.
She strode boldly down the treacherous path using her heart to see the footing.
After some time she became conscious of a faint red glow. The heat became more and more intense and it became hard to breathe. Oddly her steps became lighter, as she came closer to the glowing light she felt herself floating away, for an instant her mind almost thought of home, but she saw the impulse before it was a thought and she focused on the ember instead.
Her footfalls became heavy once more and she continued towards the red glow. As she reached the bottom she saw the blood of the grow-und flowing slowly like a sated snake.
She followed the snake down a narrow corridor until she reached a big cavern which stretched so high up that she couldn’t see the end.
In the centre of the grow-und’s blood was a clearing and a big rock. Sitting upon a large throne was a little man. He was reading a book with rather small spectacles. He had a tufty beard and a bald head.
“Are you the demon?” asked the girl in a faltering voice.
The little man calmly looked at her over his spectacles, closed his book and laid it carefully on the arm of the throne. Then his expression changed and the lava at his feet began to glow, giving his face goulish under-lighting. Steam flew out of his ears and his head expanded. The blood of the ground flowed towards him and fused with his body, he grew in size until he was at least twenty times the girls height, the bright red and yellow essence flowing through his veins. 

“WHO DARES DISTURB MY MEDITATIONS!!!!' ' I HAVE BEEN CALM FOR CENTURIES AND YOU COME DOWN HERE AND CALL ME..... THAT.... THAT NAME..... I AM NOT A DEMON!!!!!” he boomed. 

His speech was like fire and it made the little girl cower in the corner of the cavern. 

“But.. but the legends tell of a demon that threw humankind off the grow-und....” 

“DEMON!!! DEMON!!!THE ONLY WORD THAT ISSUED FROM THEIR REDICULOUS MOUTHS!! THEY DIDN"T EVEN ASK MY NAME!” 

“What is your name good sir?” 

“MY NAME!!”  YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF KNOWING MY NAME! YOU WORTHLESS WISP OF VAPOR! YOU ONLY KNOW PILLAGE HATE AND ANGER” 

“That’s not true! We know love compassion and joy as well! You’re the one who seems angry to me!” she said clutching her ember. 

“COMPASSION?! AFTER DOING WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME HUMAN, YOU SPEAK OF COMPASSION??! IF I HAD NOT EXILED YOU, WE WOULD HAVE BOTH PERISHED, YOUR RACE IS NOT MATURE ENOUGH TO HANDLE MY FIRES” 

“That’s not true! The hermit told me that my heart is warm enough to contain you!”

“IF YOU BELIEVE SUCH NONSENSE, THEN IT WILL BE YOUR DEATH!” 

The little girl caught herself and suddenly became fearful again, she looked uneasily around her and began to cry, it was so hot that her tears evaporated as they arose. She saw that her skin was starting to evaporate too and she began to float. 

“JUST AS I THOUGHT, ALWAYS AFRAID, THINKING OF COMFORT AND OF HOME, SHUNNING THE UNKNOWN, NEVER EMBRACING FEAR, YOU HUMANS, EITHER MURDER OR FLIGHT, NEVER A THOUGHT OF COOPERATION”

“We are not murderers!” she said vehemently as she grasped the ember to her heart.  I will prove to you that we are ready to embrace you!”

She sprang forth and ran across the ground’s blood in a moment of extraordinary courage. She leapt up to the demons heart and she embraced him with her own. In that moment there was a blasting of steam and a shaking of the earth. The elements began to dance around them as they intertwined and began rising.  

The little girl, no longer little and no longer a girl, began to float up and up through the chasm, boosted by the demons breathe she threw her ember into the ground’s blood, she didn't need it anymore. 

She floated high into the sky and watched as the Vulchers did their death dance for her.
She said softly but proudly: “My name is Rain” 

She began to dissolve into her tears as it began to Rain and Rain and Rain...... and thus, the world fruited humans once more.

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Thank you for reading! This is the first draft of this story, please leave some comments and criticisms below. I am playing with the idea of Illustrating the rest of the story, but I don't want to put too much effort in unless there is a good response from readers.

You can see more of my creations here: 
https://keegan-b-lazey.deviantart.com/gallery/