Something Old Something New Something Borrowed Something Blue

[Luna]

Yeah, sorry about the 8 months of not working on this.     

You've been busy.

[Freeky]

Yeah, sorry about the 8 months of not working on this.    

You've been busy.

Oh, Luna.  You're sweet.  Wrong, but very sweet.

[Freeky]

flip


He asked a bunch of questions I can't remember now, and sometime in there a bunch of angry looking people showed up and had us surrounded, and I know that because I all of a sudden knew they were just standing there.  It was really creepy, and I'm pretty sure if Trevor, that's the big guy's name, Trevor, if he hadn't eventually believed us, we'd have probably been killed.  So he says for us to follow him, so we do because we don't see any other choice.  I looked at Jake, and he looked scared, like I was.  So we go, and he leads us to a bigger shack, it was pretty big.  He said, "this is our town hall."  He sounded kind of bitter when he said it, kind of derisive about it.  He told me later he'd used to live in Avondale before they'd shipped him down here to Arivaca Junction.  My gramma told me about Arivaca Junction once, though she was pretty vague;  "There was a railroad with blobby black rocks around it.  Also I think there was a ghost town somewhere around there."  I asked him about why did he have to come live here and he said to me, he said "Kid, questions like that are what get you a ticket to being underclass."

He had brought us to his City Hall because he wanted to talk to us, and there was enough furniture for us to sit I guess.  I can't remember exactly what he said, but I remember the first thing he said was "Big ideas have big consequences.  Didn't you know?"

We talked for a while, and he told us what was up with this place, and it was different from what I'd been taught about the underclass and where they chose, or didn't choose I guess, to live.  He said that most of them that live here were deemed unfit for society, which lined up with what I thought I knew, but his explanations were different.  They might have said the wrong thing in the wrong person's ear, or they might have stood up for themselves versus the Pigs, he said.  They might have been too smart for their own good, they might have made a ruckus about a family member disappearing, he said.  Well, I guess that does sort of align with what I thought I knew, it's just phrased differently, to make them, the underclass, look like the victims in the situation.

[Freeky]

I'll finish it, but is it just me or did I pick a really stupid way to go with it?

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I don't think it's stupid at all. Keep going!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What makes you think it's stupid?

Is it that it's not going where you had planned for it to go? Or 

[Juana]

I like it!

[Freeky]

What makes you think it's stupid?

Is it that it's not going where you had planned for it to go? Or  

I dunno.  I know what it is and where the end is, but I don't have a beginning or a middle, and I didn't want to get into dialogue or large sections of details.  It helped with the ambiance, those short bits of detail that don't really add up, but I also do want to tell a good story, too.

ETA:  BLAAAAARGH.  Ah well, maybe is just this section that bugs me.  The sooner I finish it, the sooner I can move on.

[Freeky]

Note:  Edited a name for preference and ...thingy.  That thing that happens where it is the same throughout and doesn't change back and forth.


THINGY.    <- can't remember.

Continuity?  Maybe.

[Pæs]

Continuity?

This. Yes.

[Freeky]

Continuity?

This. Yes.

Ah, excellent. 

[Freeky]

flip

As much as I wanted to believe this guy, who was nice enough, that he didn't really do anything wrong, how could the higher ups tell that big of lies?  How could everyone believe them?  It still boggles my mind.  So I just nodded politely.  He talked about how a lot of people here just wanted things to change, and I guess that explains a bit why me and Jack are getting chased.  I'm still not sure I get it.

A gaggle of underclass refugee whoever were hanging around just outside the door.  I still don't know what they wanted, it was kind of weird.  But other than that, people were kind of... nice isn't really the word.  A lot of people seemed beaten, and from that they were subdued and meek.  Others were angry, more than a few got in our faces with a load of belligerence.  Nobody really seemed happy, everyone had some level of distraught just emanating out of them.  Even the people who just sat against their houses buildings (they aren't really houses, but shacks is a bit cliche for what they are).  ESPECIALLY them.  It supports Trevor's point of view and undercuts the one I always had, but we're always told in school and everywhere about how the underclassmen aren't like us citizens, because they don't want to work, and they're selfish and smug and right shameful bastards.  Nobody here acts smug, though, and it doesn't seem like they could work if they wanted to, unless you count burying their dead (Trevor tells us that there's a weekly rotation).  It makes me really uncomfortable to think I might have swallowed such heinous lies all my life without really thinking about it.

Trevor said we wouldn't be able to leave.  That freaked us both out, we thought they were going to keep us hostage so that they could regain their citizenship.  No, he said, we wouldn't be able to leave because nobody is allowed to leave an underclass town.  We pointed out that we were still citizens, we were officially on a vacation, but he just laughed.  It wasn't a very nice laugh, it was an angry one.

[Freeky]

flip

The thunder me and Jake had been hearing all afternoon swelled noticeably and then died back down, which made me scoff outwardly.  What the hell kind of storybook had I landed myself in, I thought, that the fucking weather would participate?  At least I wasn't scared anymore.  It was clear to me that these people were just trying to mess with us.  I don't think anybody noticed, because I did it quietly.  Probably for the best.

Trevor told us that their town had been under supervision for about a year, since some nut case who didn't know how things really work tried to go back to his home.  guy said he didn't do what they said he did.  I doubted that.  The higher ups had the pigs publicly bastinado the guy and made him walk home, the whole eighty miles.  Standard punishment for attempted underclass escapees, but I remember that because it happens so rarely.  I guess what doesn't get told is that whenever an attempted escapee gets back, the whole underclass town is flogged.  This is to keep the underclass keep each other in line, Trevor said.  I doubt that.  It's a bit too contrived, a bit too insane and cruel. 

My gramma told me once a few years back that once they didn't used to have such big knives when they bastinadoed someone.  How big were the knives, I asked her.  They didn't use knives at all, she said.  Just big sticks.

That's ridiculous.  How can you properly slice open all the creases in a person's feet with a stick?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

<shiver>

Keep going...

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Damn. Just, damn.