Chapter 3 (Cont.)
In Sojourners, it seemed like some excitements from the old world had survived, albeit in miniaturised scale... I keep making wishful thinking... Nothing survived the great war but artificiality... The flowerbeds of humanity, despite careful nurture, had failed to keep the innate thorns retracted. Hyacinths, Orchids, Chrysanthemums— the great flowers! Complaint with serenity... Roses, beauty and pain. Nightshade: the last kiss... When the compliant flowers died, or bored with the artificial sun, came to hate the chlorophyll stimulation they desired, there were corpses and other undesirables in the wake. New flowers, with their vibrant colours, but with invisible skidmarks from artificial placentae, were soon gathered to replace them. But how to deal with the corpses? Drown them in the disposer, no clue of them ever remains, maybe only in photographs or in lingering associative memory-blocks of a viewer; the latest disposal technology had made sure to completely dispose of things, not even the Bosons and the Masons remain... But how about the living undesirables? With inadequate rows of plantation and scarce resources of sustenance, sacrifice had to be made. Throughout troubling times of the old world, as I recall from reading history, sacrifices which were made ruthlessly, often proved to be justified in the long run. The great leaders were pragmatic and narcissistic yet not completely detached from humanity... The governments across the New World Federation never made earnest justifications, no remorses; only parrot-like propaganda. We could be inclined to think, that in post-apocalyptic world, sacrifices have become so ingressed in things that they should be taken as the default, the norm. It's a forced deformation on the collective consciousness and that's how the government of Tatterstown saw, and arranged things: the icy-smiling Horseshoe authority. Sojourners was not a bar where the delinquents hung out, it's not a place for the rebels to get passionate in. Sojourners, among others, was an area near the outskirts of Tatterstown where the less favoured took refuge.
Funtitled #13
Affairs Mk. 3 VI / À bout de souffle