"Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we'll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I'll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, "my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour." --Robert Frobisher, "Letters" (Mitchell 471)
Proposition: I have fallen in love with Cloud Atlas.[1]
I must admit, I have been on quite a ride for the past week. It's been jaw-dropping, head-spinning, blood-tingling, breathtaking, and yes, mind-blowing to the extent of which I am currently emotionally and mentally unstable. David Mitchell is clearly a genius and a master of word and story manipulation (after all, is that not what a book simply is?). Cloud Atlas was beautifully and delicately crafted, and has something to offer to each of our lives. Trust me, your perception of life will change after you read this book.
As I mentioned in the second post, after the "Sloosha's Crossin'" story (which was just confusing and difficult to read due to the strange language and vernacular used), the stories are ordered backwards. Next came "The Orison" story, and even though there were some nice, philosophical phrases that I will most definitely quote later on in this post, I was disappointed at the end. SPOILER ALERT: Sonmi-451 reveals to the Archivist that the entire Union organization is in fact orchestrated by Unanimity (the government) in order to show how "dangerous" fabricants were to society and crush all hopes of equality (I believe this is the true climax of this story). Now, this is completely different from the movie. In the movie, Sonmi-451 and Hae-Joo (a pureblood working for Union and who has a brief relationship with Sonmi-451) are in it 'till the end. Both of their goals are to achieve equality for all fabricants. Meanwhile, in the book, Hae-Joo is merely a "hired actor", who pretends he believes in "equality for all", but is truly working for Unanimity. My reaction was "Ugh. What a terrible ending to the story I was most looking forward to reading when I picked up this book at Barnes&Noble." Moving on to "The Ghastly Ordeal" story, I especially enjoyed Timothy Cavendish and other seniors escaping the wicked nursing home (this story really makes me think about what my children may do to me in the future...terrible). Even though Cavendish does not reunite with his past lover, Ursula, as he does in the movie, I still loved the bar scene fight in the book (imagine a sea of Scottish people raining hell upon three annoying Brits from the nursing home and glee fills you up, doesn't it?). In the "Luisa Rey" story, there was much more blood being spilled than I anticipated, which is totally fine by me, but I was hoping that Isaac Sachs wouldn't die in a plane bomb (movie...) and guess what happened...? Yep, Sachs died. Honestly, I was much more happier with the "Letters" story. Frobisher is finally creating his masterpiece, Cloud Atlas Sextet. I was surprised when he fell in love with Ayrs's daughter, Eva, who he despised in Part 1 of the story, but it was one of those moments, the kind that comes and then goes. I must say, I was definitely waiting for his suicide, although the reason why was not as clear to me as it was in the movie. Was it because Frobisher was afraid of Ayrs's threats? Was it because Frobisher's vivaciousness died when Eva dismissed him in the ballroom? I may never know. Finally, in the "Adam Ewing" story, I must say, I was bored by the description of the cruelty of the Indians and the other characters. Sure, the part where Adam realizes Dr. Goose has been poisoning him was interesting, but the other parts...not so much. If I had time, I would definitely read word for word, but I must admit that I skimmed the parts that just rambled on and on. The language was also difficult for me to understand, since the story took place in the 1800s, and I have spent many nights looking up words and deciphering the meanings of the sentences.
As in the first and second posts, I described the connection between all of the stories. As I learned in the Part 2's, there are still more reasons as to why Part 1's ended the way they did and why upcoming Part 2's began the way they began. Before Sonmi-451's execution, in Part 2 of "The Orison" story, Sonmi-451 requests to finish a film that she started a long time ago (referring to "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish"). Again, the reader's perspective and the text/film that he or she is reading is aligned with a character's perspective. Although in the second post I wondered about the authenticity of Cavendish's story, I soon realize, as I flip the page and come across the Part 2 of "The Ghastly Ordeal", that Cavendish likes to refer to "Lars". Cavendish imagines that his story will be made into a film and Lars is Cavendish's imaginary director. So you can see that this further links Sonmi and Cavendish together. During the Part 2 of "The Ghastly Ordeal" story, Cavendish reads Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery and finds that half of the manuscript is missing. His copy ends with Luisa being pushed over a bridge (which is where Part 1 of the "Luisa Rey" story left off). At the end, he is finally able to secure Part 2. At the end of the "Luisa Rey" story (Part 2), Luisa receives the rest of Frobisher's letters to Sixsmith, which leads into the Part 2 of the "Letters" story. I already described the connection between the "Adam Ewing" story ending and the "Letters" story in my second post, but I did not describe how the beginning of Part 2 was connected to Frobisher. In the Part 2 of "Letters", Frobisher happens to find the missing half of the journal of Adam Ewing stuck under his bed. He picks up where he has left off, just as the next story is the second half of the "Adam Ewing" story. Still very complicated, as I remarked in the second post, yet still very connected.
A theme of "six" ripples throughout the novel and further connects the stories/characters. There are six stories, a character named Sixsmith who is sixty-six years old, the Cloud Atlas Sextet, Six Catechisms in "The Orison" story, and on and on...
Ready for some Kurt Vonnegut story arcs? The information given may be redundant, so go ahead and skip it if you feel like it. Here we go (I'm only going to include Vonnegut story arcs for my favorite stories so as not to make this post longer than it already is):
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery":
Luisa goes through a roller coaster of dangers and threats throughout her story. In the exposition, she is merely a diamond in the rough. As the story unfolds, the reader watches Luisa plow through obstacles persistently and quite stubbornly, determined to expose the illegal doings of a particular nuclear company. In the end, she succeeds and becomes known in the world of journalism.
"The Orison of Sonmi-451":
The story begins in a futuristic world of inequality and prejudice against those who were not born naturally (known as "fabricants"). Sonmi-451 aligns herself with Union, a group rebelling against Unanimity, the government. She is determined to make things better for fabricants in this cruel world, but things get worse and worse. First off, Union does not exist. It is merely imaginary; it was created by Unanimity to show how dangerous fabricants could be. And second off, Sonmi-451 is sentenced to execution just because she fought for her rights. It really couldn't get any worse.
"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish":
Timothy starts out in the exposition as a publisher who unexpectedly makes big bucks out of an unfortunate incident. But soon, in the inciting moment, "thugs" begin to indignantly hassle him for their money, which he does not have. The lowest point of his journey is when his brother sends him to a nursing home, which is one of the cruelest experiences Timothy has to go through. However, he and a few others manage to escape and flee from the "prison" in which they were held, and finally, he is a free man.
Picture Source: http://happynicetimepeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vonnegut-graph-3.jpg
Also, as I started explaining in the second post, human nature is the universal theme in the novel. Mitchell conveys through his stories how human nature is recycled and repeated over and over again across history and time. A quote from the movie that reminds me of this theme is (from the “Luisa Rey” story):
Javier: "What are you reading?"
Luisa: "Old letters."
Javier: "Why do you keep reading them?"
Luisa: "I don't know. Just trying to understand something."
I must admit, I have been on quite a ride for the past week. It's been jaw-dropping, head-spinning, blood-tingling, breathtaking, and yes, mind-blowing to the extent of which I am currently emotionally and mentally unstable. David Mitchell is clearly a genius and a master of word and story manipulation (after all, is that not what a book simply is?). Cloud Atlas was beautifully and delicately crafted, and has something to offer to each of our lives. Trust me, your perception of life will change after you read this book.
As I mentioned in the second post, after the "Sloosha's Crossin'" story (which was just confusing and difficult to read due to the strange language and vernacular used), the stories are ordered backwards. Next came "The Orison" story, and even though there were some nice, philosophical phrases that I will most definitely quote later on in this post, I was disappointed at the end. SPOILER ALERT: Sonmi-451 reveals to the Archivist that the entire Union organization is in fact orchestrated by Unanimity (the government) in order to show how "dangerous" fabricants were to society and crush all hopes of equality (I believe this is the true climax of this story). Now, this is completely different from the movie. In the movie, Sonmi-451 and Hae-Joo (a pureblood working for Union and who has a brief relationship with Sonmi-451) are in it 'till the end. Both of their goals are to achieve equality for all fabricants. Meanwhile, in the book, Hae-Joo is merely a "hired actor", who pretends he believes in "equality for all", but is truly working for Unanimity. My reaction was "Ugh. What a terrible ending to the story I was most looking forward to reading when I picked up this book at Barnes&Noble." Moving on to "The Ghastly Ordeal" story, I especially enjoyed Timothy Cavendish and other seniors escaping the wicked nursing home (this story really makes me think about what my children may do to me in the future...terrible). Even though Cavendish does not reunite with his past lover, Ursula, as he does in the movie, I still loved the bar scene fight in the book (imagine a sea of Scottish people raining hell upon three annoying Brits from the nursing home and glee fills you up, doesn't it?). In the "Luisa Rey" story, there was much more blood being spilled than I anticipated, which is totally fine by me, but I was hoping that Isaac Sachs wouldn't die in a plane bomb (movie...) and guess what happened...? Yep, Sachs died. Honestly, I was much more happier with the "Letters" story. Frobisher is finally creating his masterpiece, Cloud Atlas Sextet. I was surprised when he fell in love with Ayrs's daughter, Eva, who he despised in Part 1 of the story, but it was one of those moments, the kind that comes and then goes. I must say, I was definitely waiting for his suicide, although the reason why was not as clear to me as it was in the movie. Was it because Frobisher was afraid of Ayrs's threats? Was it because Frobisher's vivaciousness died when Eva dismissed him in the ballroom? I may never know. Finally, in the "Adam Ewing" story, I must say, I was bored by the description of the cruelty of the Indians and the other characters. Sure, the part where Adam realizes Dr. Goose has been poisoning him was interesting, but the other parts...not so much. If I had time, I would definitely read word for word, but I must admit that I skimmed the parts that just rambled on and on. The language was also difficult for me to understand, since the story took place in the 1800s, and I have spent many nights looking up words and deciphering the meanings of the sentences.
As in the first and second posts, I described the connection between all of the stories. As I learned in the Part 2's, there are still more reasons as to why Part 1's ended the way they did and why upcoming Part 2's began the way they began. Before Sonmi-451's execution, in Part 2 of "The Orison" story, Sonmi-451 requests to finish a film that she started a long time ago (referring to "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish"). Again, the reader's perspective and the text/film that he or she is reading is aligned with a character's perspective. Although in the second post I wondered about the authenticity of Cavendish's story, I soon realize, as I flip the page and come across the Part 2 of "The Ghastly Ordeal", that Cavendish likes to refer to "Lars". Cavendish imagines that his story will be made into a film and Lars is Cavendish's imaginary director. So you can see that this further links Sonmi and Cavendish together. During the Part 2 of "The Ghastly Ordeal" story, Cavendish reads Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery and finds that half of the manuscript is missing. His copy ends with Luisa being pushed over a bridge (which is where Part 1 of the "Luisa Rey" story left off). At the end, he is finally able to secure Part 2. At the end of the "Luisa Rey" story (Part 2), Luisa receives the rest of Frobisher's letters to Sixsmith, which leads into the Part 2 of the "Letters" story. I already described the connection between the "Adam Ewing" story ending and the "Letters" story in my second post, but I did not describe how the beginning of Part 2 was connected to Frobisher. In the Part 2 of "Letters", Frobisher happens to find the missing half of the journal of Adam Ewing stuck under his bed. He picks up where he has left off, just as the next story is the second half of the "Adam Ewing" story. Still very complicated, as I remarked in the second post, yet still very connected.
A theme of "six" ripples throughout the novel and further connects the stories/characters. There are six stories, a character named Sixsmith who is sixty-six years old, the Cloud Atlas Sextet, Six Catechisms in "The Orison" story, and on and on...
Ready for some Kurt Vonnegut story arcs? The information given may be redundant, so go ahead and skip it if you feel like it. Here we go (I'm only going to include Vonnegut story arcs for my favorite stories so as not to make this post longer than it already is):
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery":
"The Orison of Sonmi-451":
The story begins in a futuristic world of inequality and prejudice against those who were not born naturally (known as "fabricants"). Sonmi-451 aligns herself with Union, a group rebelling against Unanimity, the government. She is determined to make things better for fabricants in this cruel world, but things get worse and worse. First off, Union does not exist. It is merely imaginary; it was created by Unanimity to show how dangerous fabricants could be. And second off, Sonmi-451 is sentenced to execution just because she fought for her rights. It really couldn't get any worse.
"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish":
Timothy starts out in the exposition as a publisher who unexpectedly makes big bucks out of an unfortunate incident. But soon, in the inciting moment, "thugs" begin to indignantly hassle him for their money, which he does not have. The lowest point of his journey is when his brother sends him to a nursing home, which is one of the cruelest experiences Timothy has to go through. However, he and a few others manage to escape and flee from the "prison" in which they were held, and finally, he is a free man.
Picture Source: http://happynicetimepeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vonnegut-graph-3.jpg
Also, as I started explaining in the second post, human nature is the universal theme in the novel. Mitchell conveys through his stories how human nature is recycled and repeated over and over again across history and time. A quote from the movie that reminds me of this theme is (from the “Luisa Rey” story):
Javier: "What are you reading?"
Luisa: "Old letters."
Javier: "Why do you keep reading them?"
Luisa: "I don't know. Just trying to understand something."
Javier: "What?"
Luisa: "Why we keep making the same mistakes...over and over."
Luisa: "Why we keep making the same mistakes...over and over."
Movie Quote Source: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_%28film%29
Greed, hunger, desire, cruelty, kindness, sympathy, etc. All of these human qualities are in each of us. Cloud Atlas just expands these emotions throughout time and explores them in every character. Consider these quotes:
"'…What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions, and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be. War, Robert, is one of humanity's two eternal companions.'" – Dr. Egret, "Letters" (Mitchell 444)
"Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities." -- Archivist and Sonmi-451, "The Orison" (Mitchell 326)
War and revolutions will occur over and over again in the history of mankind due to our "will to power" and the cruelty in our manner. Each main character in the novel is battling a war: Adam Ewing vs. "The Parasite"/Dr. Henry Goose, Robert Frobisher vs. Vyvyan Ayrs, Luisa Rey vs. Seabord Power Inc., Timothy Cavendish vs. Nurse Noakes & other nursing home staff, Sonmi-451 vs. Unanimity, and Zachry & Meronym vs. Kona. Some come out successful, while others do not. It is simply human nature to oppress and take advantage of the weak. As Dr. Goose so elegantly put it: "'The weak are meat, the strong do eat.'" (Mitchell 503)
When the words "cloud" and "atlas" came across the television screen, I was absolutely and positively flummoxed. What does "Cloud Atlas" mean? After reading the novel and seeing the movie twice, I finally understand. This quote, said by Zachry in the "Sloosha's Crossin'" story, exemplifies the meaning of the title (that is, if you can comprehend Zachry’s complicated language):
"I watched the clouds awobby from the floor o' that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where a cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrorw? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds." (Mitchell 308)
Just as clouds drift across the sky and take on various shapes, souls wander through space and time and are re-transformed and redefined. As one dies, he or she is reborn as another. The theme of reincarnation and resurrection as another person permeates throughout the novel, especially through the characters with the comet-shaped birthmark (Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Sonmi-451, and Meronym). All of these characters share a similarly-structured life story. They are all explorers and creators, yet they are all facing problems, obstacles, and various insurmountable issues. Some come out on the winning side, while others do not.
"But I saw you, my dear, dear fellow! How touched I am that you care so much! On the belfry's lookout, yesterday, at sunset. Sheerest fluke you didn't see me first...One more step up, you'd have seen me crouching in the shadows. You strolled to the north side--one turn my way, I would have been rumbled. Watched you for as long as I dared--a minute?--before pulling back and hotfooting it down to Earth." --Robert Frobisher, "Letters" (Mitchell 468-469)
Fate is a funny thing. Here, Sixsmith never realizes that he is being watched by his lover. If he did, if he by chance turned around and saw Frobisher, then Frobisher's destiny would be different. Instead of shooting himself with a Luger through the roof of his mouth, Frobisher could have still been alive! If only, if only...Each of us has our own destiny. Our paths may cross others, but our destiny is what it is. There's no changing fate and there's no turning back. Deep concepts like this are peeking out at the reader in the pages of the novel, just as Frobisher was peeking at Sixsmith. These concepts are explored to the point where the reader will have reached, perhaps, a so-called "nirvana" or enlightenment at the end of the novel. This is not easy for me to describe, but after the last page brushed past my eyes, I teetered on this stage of pure enlightenment. Did and do I still fully understand the full meaning of our souls, humanity, and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth? I'm not so sure. But I know for sure that I have not lost that touch of inspiration, of pure awe that Cloud Atlas gave me.
Even after watching the movie and reading the book, my "soul" (I guess that's what I should call my inner-self and deeper-conscience from now on) and heart still holds tight to this novel of Russian nesting doll stories. I guarantee, there is definitely something that anyone--everyone--can take away from Cloud Atlas. I always like ending with a quote, so here goes:
“I recall a yesterday and see a tomorrow. Time, no arrow, no boomerang, but a concertina.” – Timothy Cavendish, “The Ghastly Ordeal” (Mitchell 354)
Picture source: http://recordinglivefromsomewhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cloudatlas.jpg
[1] This is from the quote on page 393, written down in a journal by Isaac Sachs: “Proposition: I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey.”
Greed, hunger, desire, cruelty, kindness, sympathy, etc. All of these human qualities are in each of us. Cloud Atlas just expands these emotions throughout time and explores them in every character. Consider these quotes:
"'…What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions, and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be. War, Robert, is one of humanity's two eternal companions.'" – Dr. Egret, "Letters" (Mitchell 444)
"Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities." -- Archivist and Sonmi-451, "The Orison" (Mitchell 326)
War and revolutions will occur over and over again in the history of mankind due to our "will to power" and the cruelty in our manner. Each main character in the novel is battling a war: Adam Ewing vs. "The Parasite"/Dr. Henry Goose, Robert Frobisher vs. Vyvyan Ayrs, Luisa Rey vs. Seabord Power Inc., Timothy Cavendish vs. Nurse Noakes & other nursing home staff, Sonmi-451 vs. Unanimity, and Zachry & Meronym vs. Kona. Some come out successful, while others do not. It is simply human nature to oppress and take advantage of the weak. As Dr. Goose so elegantly put it: "'The weak are meat, the strong do eat.'" (Mitchell 503)
When the words "cloud" and "atlas" came across the television screen, I was absolutely and positively flummoxed. What does "Cloud Atlas" mean? After reading the novel and seeing the movie twice, I finally understand. This quote, said by Zachry in the "Sloosha's Crossin'" story, exemplifies the meaning of the title (that is, if you can comprehend Zachry’s complicated language):
"I watched the clouds awobby from the floor o' that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where a cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrorw? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds." (Mitchell 308)
Just as clouds drift across the sky and take on various shapes, souls wander through space and time and are re-transformed and redefined. As one dies, he or she is reborn as another. The theme of reincarnation and resurrection as another person permeates throughout the novel, especially through the characters with the comet-shaped birthmark (Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Sonmi-451, and Meronym). All of these characters share a similarly-structured life story. They are all explorers and creators, yet they are all facing problems, obstacles, and various insurmountable issues. Some come out on the winning side, while others do not.
"But I saw you, my dear, dear fellow! How touched I am that you care so much! On the belfry's lookout, yesterday, at sunset. Sheerest fluke you didn't see me first...One more step up, you'd have seen me crouching in the shadows. You strolled to the north side--one turn my way, I would have been rumbled. Watched you for as long as I dared--a minute?--before pulling back and hotfooting it down to Earth." --Robert Frobisher, "Letters" (Mitchell 468-469)
Fate is a funny thing. Here, Sixsmith never realizes that he is being watched by his lover. If he did, if he by chance turned around and saw Frobisher, then Frobisher's destiny would be different. Instead of shooting himself with a Luger through the roof of his mouth, Frobisher could have still been alive! If only, if only...Each of us has our own destiny. Our paths may cross others, but our destiny is what it is. There's no changing fate and there's no turning back. Deep concepts like this are peeking out at the reader in the pages of the novel, just as Frobisher was peeking at Sixsmith. These concepts are explored to the point where the reader will have reached, perhaps, a so-called "nirvana" or enlightenment at the end of the novel. This is not easy for me to describe, but after the last page brushed past my eyes, I teetered on this stage of pure enlightenment. Did and do I still fully understand the full meaning of our souls, humanity, and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth? I'm not so sure. But I know for sure that I have not lost that touch of inspiration, of pure awe that Cloud Atlas gave me.
Even after watching the movie and reading the book, my "soul" (I guess that's what I should call my inner-self and deeper-conscience from now on) and heart still holds tight to this novel of Russian nesting doll stories. I guarantee, there is definitely something that anyone--everyone--can take away from Cloud Atlas. I always like ending with a quote, so here goes:
“I recall a yesterday and see a tomorrow. Time, no arrow, no boomerang, but a concertina.” – Timothy Cavendish, “The Ghastly Ordeal” (Mitchell 354)
Picture source: http://recordinglivefromsomewhere.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cloudatlas.jpg
[1] This is from the quote on page 393, written down in a journal by Isaac Sachs: “Proposition: I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey.”
As always, you include sooooo many amazing quotes that sound so incredibly deep, but I don't understand them completely because I haven't read the book yet. I will though! :D I thought your explanation for why the book is titled "Cloud Atlas" was interesting. I was wondering the same thing when you first told me about the movie. And I probably should not have read about the part where Frobisher shoots himself with a Luger because I want to read the book myself, but interesting ideas you have about "souls". I'm glad you were mindblown. I'm sure I will be too!
ReplyDeleteI admit that I may have skimmed past some of the last post and a bit of this one, but I still found your posts very intriguing. I'm not sure that I would read this story because it's not the type of book that I'm usually interested in, but it does sound like one of those books where, after you finish reading it, it just kind of makes you sit there and question the meaning of life simply because it's so 'mindblowing' and enlightening. Reading your included quotes, the language definitely seems like it might be somewhat of a challenge at some points, but the lessons and ideas that can be pulled out of them make it worth the read.
ReplyDeleteI think you've done a great job of describing this story and identifying some of the main themes - whenever the revelation of human nature is an integral part of a novel, and it's a good novel, it's pretty definite that the reader will come out of it with some new perspective - your blog posts are sharing those new ideas without making me read the entire story...
By the way, you mentioned how the Part 1's are past to future and Part 2's the opposite - so do they kind of retell the same story in a different way, or do the timelines meet in the middle? Or is it just woven together and intersects at some points and not at others?
Anyway, this is a pretty long comment, but I hope you enjoyed the story!