Rarities, dins i fora

The Self-Lionisation of Ms. Five

In his college days, “Five” was perceived as quite the dweebish fellow, mainly because he was, in fact, a dweeb. Just socially awkward enough to repel immediate company at any given moment, yet he was self-satisfied enough to avoid self-betterment beyond any narcissistic concerns. His penchant for showing up in cape and goggles as a self-styled superhero was met with wry amusement by the gang down at Vesterino’s, as the mien of Five’s alter ego was wry and tongue-in-cheek itself. But it garnered him attention he would not find elsewhere. Better than nothing, right? Suffice to say, his luck with the ladies was practically nil, with one exception (and emphasis here on the word ‘luck’).

  From a distance, Angata might have turned heads on campus, with her shapely front (and admittedly flat back, as is common in Midwestern phenotypes). But in true bakku-shan form, she had the stony countenance of a Rapa Nui moái wearing a blonde wig.
  “Here’s ten bucks for each of you,” Five told his flatmates Manford and Stoddard. “Angata’s coming over tonight so you guys gotta crash somewhere else. Bye!”

  Days later: “It was great, guys,” Five crowed to his friends. “It was so great, she wrote to her mum about how great it was. Because it was great!” Manford raised an eyebrow. (Overcompensation much?)
  “She wrote about how we were ‘swaying to the ancient rhythms, so timeless, yet so fresh,’” as Five depicted the evening’s events. The flatmates side-eyed each other with scepticism. Nice wordsmithing, but there’s no way to corroborate such a claim (without getting a slap to the face, one might imagine). As if they wanted to; it wouldn’t have changed anyone’s perception of Five — he was still a dweeb.
  The reality is that Five suffered from a particular Identity Disorder (diagnosed without dispute) and wore women’s clothing. No judgment from anyone, then or thenceforth, mind you. Nobody gave a damn about it because nobody gave a damn about Five.

  Years passed, and Five eventually made The Transition.
  But those old fogies at work couldn’t get over Five bringing his new persona to the office out of the blue, and he was wrongfully dismissed.
  Bad move, guys — these are the days where someone making a spectacle of themselves clearly takes priority over lousy job skills and decorum. And those priorities are legally actionable. But what an opportunity for a narcissist!
  So Five milked that case all the way to High Court to win plaudits from a media seeking the latest Victim of Society.
  Today Ms. Five can be found on social media as a self-proclaimed ‘civil rights pioneer’ and is no doubt lapping up the attention ‘they’ craved all those years. Strong and empowered!
  Maybe.
  But you’re still a dweeb — just one that chopped off his own dangly-bits.

Cue for the Aromas: Assortment β

Faerie Floss: Carnival on the asphalt of Platt Plaza or the parish pageantry of San Giuda?

Diesel Exhaust: Heady whiff of polyaromatic hydrocarbons takes you to Central London. Or perhaps Paris?

Wet Concrete: Petrichor heralding a summer shower or the echoing roar of the fountains at Richly Rhell?

Man of [F]Utility

Tech Valuations: Who Has What... and When?

“Time is like a freeway with an infinite number of lanes” — Virgil

Those “in the know” widely debate technology valuation as an integral part of R&D management, as the topic has been subject to research for some time. Nonetheless, there are still gaps in Earth’s body of knowledge, and technology transfer is hotly contested amongst practitioners trying to understand and properly develop anti-grav/superluminal, CHRONO, and other non-market technologies.

  It is known that several factions within the United Planets concordat have possessed these technologies but consider Earth under a ‘technological quarantine’ with the exception of certain organisations under the Orville Corporation umbrella. Limited disclosure informs us that Project: HORLOGE is one such operation engaged in R&D as well as surgical “chrono-corrections” of the “current” timeline.
  “I’d call it a fool’s errand but it’s much more dangerous than that,” points out long-time Orville critic Dr Allende Benton. “Remembered History has been extruded, kneaded, and repaved repeatedly by parties known and unknown. It’s a mess.”
  The good doctor is correct. The current timeline is but a temporal offshoot of a pre-existing timeline, due to repeated chronological meddling by various agents.
  Research into the origins of this inevitably leads to paradoxes, dead ends, and Oneirophrenic Venn Conflicts. Even timebots and field chrononauts can do little to enforce the oft-ignored Rules of Causality. In addition to that, Dr Hasslein’s points of “infinite regression” further complicate many CHRONO excursions (Meta-Scope, and Meta-Scope Once Removed). But one facet scientists can agree on is that a main Point of Divergence occurred during the mid-20th century.
  Theories and rumours have abounded for years — gifted tech (more likely stolen), desert encounters, classified test vessels — all interesting, but all paths traced backwards lead to fractured and contradictory timeframes.
  But the fact still stands that the tech currently exists.

Apocrypha of Current Timeline — Testimony of Courier Prime
DATELINE: [REDACTED] Ship Yards, Stratum -XXIX

“...I stood on the slip at the salvage yard as the crew took their break. The weather was warming up. I was looking across the harbor at a docked destroyer escort wondering what the thick cables draping up to it were for — they weren’t fuel lines. I could hear a low hum and noticed the smell of ozone. A mist began enveloping the ship, obscuring it from sight. I could no longer see it but it had to be there, right?
  “The hum increased to a sizzling sound — then, suddenly there was a blue flash, like lightning. Klaxons on that side of the shipyard began sounding and all hell broke loose. Personnel began scurrying alongside the dock in a panic — they were Navy, not salvage. I really couldn’t tell what was going on. I glanced at my wristwatch and noticed that it had stopped...” [end transcript]

Hats Off to First Responders

The maple tree listed at a 45-degree angle, its bark sheared off of one side exposing the raw phloem underneath. On the sidewalk lay a hairbrush, a torn purse strap, and broken beer bottles scattered about. Under those were spatters of dried blood. Looking closer, it was clear that there were many of these rust-coloured stains upon this stretch of footpath on the edge of Sheffield.
  The boys stared at what was obviously the aftermath of a horrible accident. Drunk teens carousing in the back of a pickup hurtling down the road from Hurffville. Supposedly Pal’s sister was among the revelers.
  But this was the yard of Mrs DeJung. What dumb luck! She happened to be the nurse at Academie Cloches. The boys wondered aloud about the scene the night before. The screeching of brakes, impact of metal against wood, teenagers screaming, and the eventual sirens and flashing lights of first responders.
  But the responder who acted first had to be Mrs DeJung herself.
  There were no reported fatalities from the incident. Surely Mrs DeJung deserves some credit for that.
  Hats off to quick-thinking bystanders!

“A Guy Walks into a Bar...”

DATELINE: Classic City, Stratum XLIX
  Stoddard strolled into the tiny Brooklyn Café and took the bar’s corner stool.
  “Bitters and soda, please.” The sad silence of an ignored jukebox paired well with the the waft of stale popcorn.
  “This place is dead.” It wasn’t a complaint.

DATELINE: Piazza Mercato, East Cobb, Stratum XXV
  Stoddard and Veronique walked into the windowless neighbourhood tavern and seated themselves at the bar.
  “Pint of draft and whatever she wants.” He casually gazed about the room. “Place used to be a pizza joint back in the day. Pretty crowded for a Thanksgiving.”

  Veronique looked around. “People come here when they’re tired of being around their families. Or don’t have families.”
  “Or,” Stoddard quipped, seeing vaguely familiar faces, “Local nobodies come here to hold court after their high school glory days have faded away.”

DATELINE: Quartier Latin, Montréal, Stratum XX
  At the completion of the balance audio, Stoddard unplugged himself and strode across the dim, cavernous interior of Les Foufounes Électriques. He made his way up a graffiti-lined stairway to a bar tucked into the shadows of a mezzanine.
  “Une bière, erm...please,” Stoddard muttered. The buxom barmaid slid a glass of draft across the bar to him, her eye still on the televised hockey game.

DATELINE: The Bowery, NYC, Stratum XIX
  Stoddard stepped into the bodega, trailed by Lester and that Sky City fellow. “The cheapest bar in New York City... is the streets of New York City,” someone had muttered. “Brown-baggin’ forties beats paying seven bucks a beer at the club. No band discount, plus there’s dog faeces everywhere.” The cashier nodded, probably not understanding them.
  “We can chill in Graudonner II in the car park,” they agreed, not realising Michelle and Condor were already there dabbling in Coat Cheque.

DATELINE: LAX, Stratum XVII
  Stoddard dragged himself and his luggage into the airport’s Mesosphere Club.
  It was late morning but the jet lag from the Asia jaunt left his body thinking it was still in the wee small hours of the night before. He sidled up to the gleaming bar.
  “Michelada, por favor,” Stoddard tepidly said to the bartender, who quietly procured his beverage. The weary traveler eyed the surrounding lucite, chrome and flourescent blue decor as he sipped his drink. The atmosphere was not unlike the Shinjuku nightclubs he was visiting mere evenings ago. “Clean, but this place is contrastingly well-lighted,” he mused.

DATELINE: Victoria, London, Stratum XI
  Stoddard walked through the pale lit taproom up to the barman and said, “Coke, please.” He studied the oaken beams and tarnished brass of The Albert Pub (or was it the Royal Albert? Prince Albert? The Consort’s Clanger? Never mind...) ...And there was his beverage in a small tumbler.
  “Orange slice. Classy garnish.” He stood near the entrance watching traffic as the dopplerised wail of a hi/lo siren rung his ears and the grimy air of diesel lingered about the threshold.

Single chapters in the Akashic Archives may narrate repeated thematic iterations within one lifetime. But the remaining contents (“multiple else-bodies”) of one soul’s anthology are on “restricted shelving" — a “need to know” basis not decided by mortal men.
  Lateral quantum realities indeed have transpired/transpire/will transpire, but on this side of the dimensional vale, all we have is speculation of possible episodes.
  Let us indulge:
• The Roman foot soldier gives the mead-wench several denarii for a beverage in a tavern-hovel in provincial Rhaetia.
• Tribal artisan trades a carved mask for a jug of barley water at market in the Ugandoid Colonial Prefecture in the Middle Ages.
• Earth crew member 227 requests hydration cannister from host Ebens on the arid high plains of Planet Serpo.
• Thirsty baby grasps for mother’s breast, time immemorial.

Jared Gutts Forms Busking Support Network

Jared Gutts, a man with more spare time since his “time-out” after the Baxter Street bio-contamination fiasco, has decided to come to the aid of his fellow “creative types” — buskers and street performers who face public criticism for simply pursuing their dreams.
  It all started with a brusque comment from a passer-by.
  “I was playin’ ‘We Built This City’ on guitar and this Suit pointed at my tip box and asked, ‘Is that money going towards music lessons?’ That was a really harsh thing to say, man.”
  The local culturati are known to fawn over all sorts of artists, but he says it’s all just lip service. “BärteHansa tastemakers prefer even the most talentless to get out there and make noise rather than get a real job. It’s all out of spite against The Man, even though they’ve been The Man for a long time, man.”
  Gutts gets to the point: “I want to help the talentless. I think I’m pretty qualified.”
  Gutts has started the Classic City Busking Support Network to help the talentless in their quest to garner and maintain attention. A clinic on guitar basics is one such service offered.
  “I can show them how to play an ‘E chord.’ You put your middle finger on the second string on the second fret, and then you put your third finger on the first string on the third fret — I mean, on the third string on the second fret... I think.”
  He also has helpful tips for percussion enthusiasts: “I got some bongos from the Potter’s Haus. I learned to keep time by playing along with Guitar Hero and ‘Athenian Idol’ on TV. It’s very geo-cultural.”
  Gutts’ last foray into local politics was a proposed ordinance that would require obese people to walk single file whilst using Classic City sidewalks. It failed to pass in a recent city commission meeting.
  Response to his Busking Support Network initiative has been positive and Gutts remains optimistic.
  “I remain optimistic,” he said cheerfully.
  Jared Gutts invites the marginally talented to come down to Town Square on Thursday afternoons to develop camaraderie and ‘skillz’ in growing as artists.
  “Bring your own instrument, or just bum one from a friend. It’ll be great!”

Cultivate the Fragility

Middle Kingdom familial professionals have liaised with Orville’s Emotive Response System to provide a support network for Western báizuǒ birthing persons. Experts exhort quasi-involved parental units to heed the sage teachings of Nánjué Monkhouse, Enlightened Polyhistor of Ōuzhōu.
  They will be guided to raise offspring to be dependent and sensitive caitiffs, thereby giving said parentals an indefinite sense of purpose. And thus overburdened parentals can depend on the judicious oversight of local Hukou Co-Prosperity Council agents.
  The circle will then be complete. In the wise words of Monkhouse, “The eternal teat will never go unsuckled.”