{"id":424,"date":"2024-03-02T03:32:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T03:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/?page_id=424"},"modified":"2025-08-14T23:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:51:09","slug":"the-dock","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/adrift\/101-2\/destination\/the-dock\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dock"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Somehow, there was literally always an open position for a dock worker. In any harbor, from here to there, and from now to the distant past and the endless future, with all likelihood, there was an available position for someone willing and able to take the time and effort to pick up a box from one place, move it a certain distance and direction, and place it, with professional care, in another selected place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lalslan exploited this career opening potential and began a new life as a dock worker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first task involved the most ridiculously heavy crates, an endless quantity one after another, delivered by an endless series of trucks parading past the warehouse he now called home. He learned later that the tremendous weight of the boxes was usually due to chocolate covered peanuts, which when layered together past the height cubed of an average person involved a fairly hefty poundage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Day after day went like this, and the former scoundrel began to appreciate the simplicity of the labor. His own energy went directly to moving some item, whether it was candy or bandages, rice or shuttle parts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never in a million orbits would he have dreamed he would willingly trade his life of daring and danger for one of repetitive drudgery, but there it was. It was calm going through the entire day with no one shooting you, it was relaxing eating lunch without having to sit in a corner to cover your back. It was serenity to walk the palm lined street<\/a> to the spacedock, punch in, and know that more or less the same things would happen today as they had yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn’t long before Lalslan’s charm and well-timed and visible hard work won him promotion after promotion, till he found himself unloading directly from the star freighters themselves, managing a team of six humanoids from…wherever they were from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It seemed to take forever, but really, in the space of his life, it was the blink of an eye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was finally getting close now. Only one step in the warehouse laborer’s hierarchy lay between his position and soaring through space. He would finally be off this unknown planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He still, though, after all this time, had not heard anyone mention a single star, planet, race, starship manufacturer, anything. The fact that the language was identical was astronomically perplexing. There had to be some contact. This many people couldn’t be gaslighting him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It almost made him start to wonder if he was the odd one. Maybe his entire past…was a dream. Maybe he had forgotten everything of his real<\/a> life. Maybe someone knew the answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe he would find it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow, there was literally always an open position for a dock worker. In any harbor, from here to there, and from now to the distant past and the endless future, with all likelihood, there was an available position for someone willing and able to take the time and effort to pick up a box from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":425,"parent":248,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-424","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions\/804"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mleyartanddesign.com\/state\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}