The golden island drifted on through the storm, and for a while, Noah simply sat with his elevated Intent and his finalizing Pantheon and his thoughts.
Then he spoke to no one and to all of them.
"There is an old myth I always think about. The myth of Sisyphus." His gaze rested on the raging horizon.
"A king who offended the powers above him, and was sentenced to roll an immense boulder up a mountain. And every time he neared the peak, the boulder would roll back down, and he would descend, and begin again. Forever. That was the entire punishment. Not fire, not blades. Just effort, rendered meaningless, repeated without end."
Emotive had gone still beside him. THE Infiniverse listened without moving.
"The lesson, as it was taught, was about futility. The cruelty of labor that arrives nowhere! And when I heard it while I was young, I pitied him. Endless hardship, endless struggle, a mountain that never stays climbed. What existence could be worse?" Noah's mouth curved faintly.
