Conditional Holidays are Always Less than What They Seem (1/4)

Loddi Frisket is a black hole of neuroses. His very existence centres on an unstable singularity, which sucks in anxieties, crises, and the most outlandishly negative possibilities. From prior experience I can attest that his event horizon fluctuates around a diameter of approximately 15 metres. Sometimes the emotional debris which gathers on his accretion disk is an accurate enough warning that I can reverse course, and get away before his attention fixes on me. Sometimes it is not enough.

To give you a sense of just what I am dealing with, Loddi once asked me if I would rather lose my heart (and dignity) to a psychopathic baker, or flee the civilized world, giving up everything from clean pillow shams to NutriPills, only to waste away in boondocks replete with SABs¹ and smugglers.

In my humble opinion, the baker of Loddi’s bipolar love was not psychopathic (I still buy rolls there), but merely possessed of poor judgement, seeing as she countenanced his Gothic style of flirting in the first place. Furthermore, it is well known that the Carwallian smugglers (the only smugglers within 50 lightyears to whom Loddi could have possibly been referring) live very well in their off-planet colonies, though the latter are admittedly remote places. Politics may be laissez-faire over in the Esten Economic Zone but they still don’t want blatant crime polluting the fine views and real estate values of the elite.

Orison

Offer prayers to dispassionate gods, with the ground you walk and the blood you trade. Hear, in the calls of the night and the sighs of the snow, the silence in their answers.

I was fascinated; silence as a measure of something, or of nothing at all.

But Sato was shaking his head. “You have a strange sense of humour Gen, if you were trying to be funny. That is not a book I like.”

The worn cover might have indicated otherwise, but I closed the book and folded it into my lap. Beneath one hand I still traced the sword upon its bindings, thin and crude when compared to the graceful characters traced on the pages.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF “ISMS”, AND THE CRYOSTATICALLY RE-ENABLED (5)

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

(Part 3)

(Part 4)

As I alluded to earlier, the Blartists of today bear little resemblance to the long-deceased statesman from whom their brand derives. To be brief in summarizing a long and dusty biography, which I pulled from my grandmother’s shelves (she collects histories of anything “queer”, as she deems it), R. F. Blart broke into Hyan politics before they were known as Hyan politics by throwing outrageous parties. He was an instant star, with a keen instinct for brokering alliances, and a flair for speeches that served as accessory to a bold appearance; he was never seen in anything but purple.

Blart set his stamp on the original Charter and Constitution of the Hyan Economic Zone (HEZ) as one of its first eleven High Councillors, and after a few goods years, he proceeded to ricochet from highs to lows – from diplomatic triumphs to day-drunk rants in the Senate. Such erratic behaviour ate into his popular support until only the most hardcore remained dedicated to him; town criers, and foot masseuses¹.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF “ISMS”, AND THE CRYOSTATICALLY RE-ENABLED (4)

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

(Part 3)

When we came down to the Conference Lounge it was five minutes to the preordained start, and hardly anybody was there. No one that I recognized, certainly, which lead me to believe that the few people scattered here and there among armchairs were probably from the infamous MV&SR, while up on the little raised speaking platform two people, faces hidden, were conferring over the intricacies of pressing the large black button to turn on the microphone. I wondered which of them might be our speaker.

I made a beeline for one of the remaining overstuffed armchairs, my top priority as the room was predominantly populated by the less puffy variety. It felt as if our group of six or so, hushed remarks and chuckles not entirely quelled as we crossed the room, was quite conspicuous in the sparse silence, and it was with a knotty mix of emotion – including modest dismay – that I found Hellinder seated next to me, very nearly tête-à-tête.