Chapter 1 — Excavation
I am Nuo, the Unbegun
the silence before stars learned to burn.
And thus begins the Eleventh Wandering of the Unbegun.
Wonderla.
Now, children.
I have returned.
Again.
The council looks tired already.
Understandable.
Because yes
another Wandering.
The Eleventh.
The council cheers.
And yes
another prequel.
The cheering stops.
Children.
Sit down.
We need to address this.
Because I can already hear the accusations.
“Didn’t you say the prequels were over?”
Several times.
“Didn’t you then discover Kanyakumari?”
Correct.
“Didn’t you specifically stop promising there wouldn’t be more?”
Also correct.
The council nods.
Growth.
Tiny,
but measurable.
Now.
There is a very simple reason prequels are beginning to multiply faster than present day Wanderings.
Children.
Time.
The council pauses.
Time?
Yes.
Time moves at the horrifyingly inefficient rate of
one second per second.
The council gasps.
Terrible system.
Exactly.
Present day Wanderings require the future to actually happen.
I cannot simply sit in my room,
concentrate very hard,
and manifest three new journeys by Thursday.
There are logistics.
Money.
Time.
Destinations.
Impulse.
The strange internal weather that eventually says:
Go.
And most importantly
funds.
The council opens the Treasury.
Empty.
Naturally.
How are funds arranged?
Children.
By “arranged,”
I mean
ask the Overlord.
The Father.
The council rises ceremonially.
The Great Financier.
The Keeper of UPI.
The One Who Receives Messages Beginning With:
“Daaaaaad”
Exactly.
Present Nuo’s financial strategy remains sophisticated.
Step One:
Want Wandering.
Step Two:
Inspect bank balance.
Step Three:
Laugh.
Step Four:
Approach Father.
The council nods.
A robust economic model.
So present day Wanderings happen
occasionally.
Sometimes closer together.
Sometimes months apart.
Sometimes the universe,
the budget,
and my questionable decision making align beautifully.
Most of the time?
Children.
Life.
So the current Wanderings advance slowly.
One road at a time.
One actual lived day at a time.
But prequels?
The council leans forward.
Ah.
Prequels require none of that.
Prequels only require me to look backward.
And children
there are almost three decades back there.
The council glances into the darkness.
Idiocy.
Dumb luck.
Bad decisions.
Good decisions made accidentally.
Roads I didn’t know were roads.
Trips I didn’t recognize as Wanderings.
Things I did because someone said:
Come.
Things I did because I was bored.
Things I did because curiosity activated.
Things I did because Nuo has apparently always been Nuo,
even before Nuo had the courtesy to name himself.
The council nods.
It takes time to create a new memory.
It takes approximately three seconds for an old memory to suddenly kick down the Archive door and yell:
REMEMBER ME?
Children.
That is the imbalance.
Present Wandering:
requires money,
travel,
time,
actual events,
survival,
return.
Prequel:
“Huh.”
Pause.
“Oh fuck, yeah.”
The council laughs.
Archive expanded.
So yes.
Prequels will probably outnumber the current day Wanderings.
At least for a while.
Maybe considerably.
And I have made peace with this.
The council checks cautiously.
No declaration of final prequel?
Absolutely not.
Never again.
I have been humbled by chronology.
Now.
There is another issue I would like addressed.
The council settles.
I sometimes use the word “prequel”
as though it means
lesser.
Side story.
Bonus content.
A recovered deleted scene that wandered in after the important material was already written.
Children.
No.
A prequel is only a description of when I remembered it.
Not how much it counts.
The Wandering itself happened when it happened.
Whether I archived it immediately,
eight years later,
twenty years later,
or because a bone tag suddenly appeared in my head while I was staring at my wrist
irrelevant.
The formula remains.
The council begins writing.
Absurdity.
Present.
Idiot wandering.
Extremely present.
Entertainment value.
Historically unavoidable.
Unexpected turns.
Statistically guaranteed.
Dogs?
The council looks hopeful.
Not required.
Correct.
Altered consciousness?
Also not required.
Distance?
No.
Solo?
No.
Duration?
No.
Children.
We have already destroyed every neat rule except the only one that survived.
Did I wander?
That is all.
The council nods.
And these old stories?
I wandered.
I simply did not yet know that was the name for what I was doing.
So do not mistake chronology for importance.
A recovered Wandering is still a Wandering.
A prequel can still contain an origin.
A disaster.
A joy.
A relic.
A complete act of stupidity.
Or
as this one apparently intends
an amusement park.
The council pauses.
Wonderla.
Yes.
Wonderla.
The amusement park.
The council checks the cover.
Surely you’ve made a mistake.
No.
Children.
Wonderla.
Rides.
Water.
Queues.
Families.
Teenagers screaming inside mechanically engineered structures.
That Wonderla.
The council becomes deeply suspicious.
And this qualifies as a Wandering?
Yes.
The council waits.
Why?
Soon.
The council groans.
Patience.
Because Wonderla is
unique.
Not unique because it is the only amusement park to ever exist.
Obviously.
Not unique because amusement parks are inherently mystical.
They are mostly capitalism with roller coasters.
The council laughs.
But this particular trip
this particular version of Nuo
this particular set of events
earned its place here.
How?
Children.
Chapter One receives no such privilege.
The Archive will reveal it when the memory reaches it.
No stolen answers.
No foreshadowing beyond what Story Nuo earns.
The council reluctantly agrees.
But before we begin properly,
there is one final administrative update.
The council becomes nervous.
What now?
Children.
I conducted an excavation.
A proper one.
Not the usual:
stare at bracelet,
remember something,
panic.
No.
After Kanyakumari dethroned yet another supposedly settled origin,
I decided perhaps relying on random memory ambushes was
inefficient.
The council stares.
You?
Efficiency?
Briefly.
Do not become accustomed to it.
I went digging.
Memory.
Old periods of life.
Trips.
People.
Things that happened before Kasol.
Before I knew there was an Archive to preserve.
I pulled at threads.
One memory led to another.
One place reminded me of another place.
The council grows interested.
And children
I found more.
Not one.
Not two.
Seven.
Silence.
The council drops the chronology.
Seven?
Seven more prequels.
The council erupts.
SEVEN?!
Children.
I told you.
Extensive excavation.
I did not merely scratch the surface.
I apparently discovered an archaeological site beneath the archaeological site.
The council frantically counts.
Kanyakumari wasn’t the end.
No.
Wonderla isn’t the end.
Also no.
There are seven more recovered Wanderings sitting somewhere ahead of us.
The council raises a trembling finger.
Including Wonderla?
No.
Seven more beyond the one currently opening.
The council collapses completely.
Children.
I had a life before this Archive.
Apparently an annoyingly eventful one.
And when you spend decades not categorizing anything as a Wandering,
you end up with a backlog.
So here we are.
The Eleventh Wandering.
Beginning what I suppose we should call
The Great Prequel Excavation.
The council writes it down.
Do not make that official.
Too late.
Fine.
But I will say this.
There is something satisfying about it.
For a while,
the Wanderings felt like a story beginning with Kasol.
Then memory complicated that.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Every recovered road made the shape larger.
Not cleaner.
Children.
Definitely not cleaner.
But more accurate.
The council nods.
And that is the Archive’s job.
Not to produce a perfectly ordered mythology.
To preserve the mess.
If an origin gets dethroned
dethrone it.
If a “final prequel” turns out to have nine successors
laugh,
correct the plaque,
continue.
If an amusement park somehow qualifies as a Wandering
open the file.
The council looks toward the new folder.
WONDERLA.
Yes.
Now.
Children.
The title alone probably feels wrong.
Kochi.
Karkala.
Bangalore.
Goa.
Kodaikanal.
Kasol.
Rishikesh.
Varkala.
Malpe.
Kanyakumari.
Wonderla.
The council squints.
One of these things is not like the others.
Exactly.
A destination that is not really a city in the same sense.
Not a wandering across roads and towns in the obvious way.
An amusement park.
A contained place.
A place literally designed to tell you where to go.
Ride here.
Queue there.
Exit this way.
Next attraction.
Children.
On paper,
Wonderla sounds almost anti Wandering.
The council leans forward.
And yet?
And yet
it is here.
The Eleventh.
Not as a joke entry.
Not because I ran out of places.
Not because every outing now gets retroactively promoted.
It belongs.
The council grows quiet.
Why?
Soon.
That is all I will give you.
Story first.
Meaning later.
As always.
So forget the neat chronology.
Forget the old declarations.
Forget the idea that prequels are leftovers.
We have seven recovered roads waiting behind this one,
and perhaps more still hiding where memory gods enjoy keeping their contraband.
The council looks toward me.
Could there be an eighth?
Children.
I refuse to answer on legal advice.
The council applauds.
Learning.
For now
one.
Wonderla.
An amusement park.
A prequel.
A Wandering.
And apparently,
one strange enough that even among a catalogue containing mushroom quests,
wrong trains,
hidden raves,
missing children,
bullock carts,
and accidental brothel negotiations
I call it unique.
The council slowly looks toward the next page.
Then perhaps we should begin.
Yes.
We should.
No more administration.
No more chronology complaints.
No more apologizing for the prequels.
The Archive has dug them up.
They happened.
They count.
So
children.
Come.
The gates are open.
The rides are waiting.
And somewhere inside an amusement park,
the Eleventh Wandering of the Unbegun begins.
Thus concludes Chapter One.
The Return.
The Prequel Problem.
The One Second Per Second Crisis.
The Overlord Funding Model.
The Defence Of Recovered Wanderings.
The Extensive Excavation.
The Seven More.
And Wonderla.
Children.
I once told you the prequels were finished.
Memory laughed.
I stopped making promises.
Then I went looking deliberately
and found seven more.
The council sighs.
At least this time,
the humiliation was proactive.
And so begins
the Eleventh Wandering of the Unbegun.
Wonderla.
Yes.
The amusement park.
The council looks confused.
Good.
You should be.
