Good morning everyone. I had a very strange dream about Sea turtles last night. I was on a ship that found an island where the endangered species thrived in larger numbers than anyone thought still existed and me and my ship’s crew had to defend them pirates who wanted to steal them for the King’s feast. Not sure what feast, or even what King for that matter. It was strange and I woke up still fighting pirates. But pirates or not, it is time to start the day. Are you ready? Good. Then let’s go.
It took me a while to get into this one. I think I started fumbling with generalities and only hooked onto something specific towards the end. I think when going back to this I’d start with the Geradan Fields, whatever they turn out to be…
Thursday, June 2nd: It became the standard.
It became the standard. It was the goal all hoped to reach and strutted about in the most self-important style when they did. The thought of exceeding this standard, of working to improve the standard over the base minimal set, never seemed to occur to anyone.
Trevor studied the statistics. He read them. The standard wasn’t all that high. He looked back through the records and found the standard was set by a man named Gerard Harrison. He found the library numbers for Harrison’s original report and dug deep into the archives to bring it to light.
Harrison was one of the brightest stars of his class. His feats were still talked about. His athletic prowess caused his name to be listed on several trophies in the corridor. His feats in fields where he cared set the highest of standards. His family money and later his own money earned thorough his feats of brilliance caused the name Harrison to be emblazoned on several buildings and numerous scholarship awards.
However when Trevor found the report, the pages were disheartening. This was not a field Harrison cared about all that much. In fact he had, judging from the breakdown of the elements, rather a distain for the whole thing. He simply hadn’t wanted anything to do with it. After reading the report, Trevor leaned back in his chair. It was as though the exalted Gerard Harrison had a distain for the very topic and had been insulted by the notion that he would be asked to spend his time and brilliance even thinking about it.
After reading the report, Trevor felt…dirty by association. He frowned and pushed the pages a little further away from him. Despite the distain and the lack of effort it was easy to see why Harrison’s efforts became the standard. He exceeded the norm in everything else he did. It would be natural to assume that he tried his best and this was the height of what could be done.
The fact that no one who came after tried to do better bothered Trevor. He looked at the findings of the reports. All of them acknowledged Harrison and those working on projects involving the Geradan Fields reached the conclusion that as long as they came close to Harrison’s epic standard, then they had done enough. It was clear that no one assigned the subject really cared for it and no one pushed harder than they had to.
‘I wonder,’ Trevor thought looking down at the pages. Given what he found no one had really taken on the subject of the Geradan Fields, not in a serious way. No one had actually put in the effort. “I wonder what would happen if we cleared away all of the assumptions…”
He stared at the pages, not really seeing them. All of them used the same facts an figures. Trevor gathered up the reports and returned them to the librarian for reshelving. He gathered his notes and decided it was time to pay a visit to the deep archives, the place where the actual records were stowed. It was time to look at the raw data instead of reworking the information the others used.
Trevor crossed campus and entered the building the archivists called the Tomb.
Ten til Midnight 