What Are The Rampant Lands?

I probably should've done this first

A few days ago I dropped the first chapter of my new ongoing fiction project The Rampant Lands, which you can read for free.  I wanted to release it and let it sit on its own for a little bit, before I came along and put together this little explainer.  

The beach was of rounded stones, smoothed by the waves rising up to make themselves known.  Crashing with a celebration of mist and foam.  Then, as if ashamed by their performance, they’d recede back into the ocean to become once again indistinguishable from the rest of the currents and flows.

Me - The Rampant Lands

I actually went back and forth about whether or not I wanted to write this, but in the end I decided that it would be best if I at the very least, talk about some of my intentions with this project.  The Rampant Lands isn’t really something that will have spoilers, but regardless, I’ll do my best to not show my hand too much here just in case you’re the type who likes to read things as untainted by the creator’s thoughts, as possible. 

So, what is The Rampant Lands?  To answer this effectively, I have to go back in time, not too far though, so you won’t have to worry about a random dinosaur or army clad in newly discovered bronze.  Nope, we’re going back to the equally as terrifying year of 2016.  That’s right we’re going back to that fateful year when the death of a gorilla apparently kicked off the apocalypse and it took the promise of tiny monsters on our phones to get us to actually walk a little. 

A blinding revelation of the unfamiliar world around them kept them from rising to their feet as soon as their unhindered breath reminded them that they still lived. 

Still me - The Rampant Lands

But for me, these things were pretty far down the list of importance (okay, maybe briefly the Pokémon Go thing was mid-tier).  I was in the midst of a failing relationship that had long passed the point of no return, but we were stubborn and more uninterested than angry with each other. On top of that, I was working a graveyard shift at a casino in a middle management position and struggling with figuring out a sleep schedule that allowed me to not sleep through the later portion of my 20s  What this all resulted in was many minutes of the day being spent on daydreaming and reminiscing on better days and decisions that led me to where I was, while in a state of sleep deprivation induced delirium. 

These fantasies were beautiful, abstract, symbolic, surreal, but they existed behind a filter of dissatisfaction.  It was like looking back at my own life through the eyes of someone who was more willing to let the chemicals in their brain to flow freely without the need for interpretation. It was only after the fact that I would remember that I was that person. Then as time went on I realized that these thoughts were changing from memories to these strange attempts to add a concreteness to ambiguous concepts like nostalgia, belonging, effort, and confusion, You’d really be surprised where the brain can do when surrounded by slot machines in an empty room.

This is what living really was.  With nothing of their past worth paying attention to, there to tell them otherwise, the castaways howled out a song of victory

Guess who - The Rampant Lands

Okay, I don’t want to ramble on and on about my history here, so I’ll get to the point.  Basically, I decided that I would try and take these thoughts I had, combine them with these distorted versions of my own life and slam them together.  It would be my weird little memoir/journal.  The problem was, that damn filter of unsatisfaction that just dulled everything and turned the idea that was supposed to make it all better into just another tributary to that depression river.  Well, flashforward seven years and things have gotten quite a bit better.  Not perfect, but enough to burn away that filter and dam up that stream. 

So, I figured I’d give it another shot. The idea being that I would take these thoughts, these stories, these memories, and transform them into scenes from a strange world.  One where metaphor manifests itself and emotion exists in a pure state without judgement. Some of these chapters will tie into each other in very obvious and traditional ways, while others will appear to exist on their own, just know that everything that you read is part of the same world.  Also, just know that some of these chapters will come straight from my own life, yet it won’t be obvious, so don’t waste too much time trying to interpret things “correctly”, pull what you can from them and let them be what you need them to be in the moment.

I just hope you enjoy what you read and I encourage you to share them and spread the word, if you want, maybe you want to keep it all to yourself.  That’s fine too, you selfish bastard.

Acceptance of being taken once again by the waters was a choice made by a few.  Most though resigned to another option, they would move on, into the woods and then onward into whatever laid beyond.

Jonathan Cadotte - The Rampant Lands