RE: Journal of Sociology [S!6] - [Round Two: Ryburg Ritz]
12-12-2013, 07:37 AM
Nemo chewed meditatively on a sandwich, sitting on a chair the wrong way round and staring out the second-story window from his new apartment. It had been raining pages for the last twenty minutes, papering the roofs and lending some thin dignity to the corpses in the streets.
Season's greetings, Nemo would've told himself were he listening. The snow was yellowed moleskine, amputated from the spine at surgical right angles, scrambled and decontextualised and with a dry not-warmth that couldn't make Nemo feel anything in particular, much less numb. This place reminded him more than anything of winter in Kansas, the kind of idyllic that made you almost stop breathing, it was that fucking intolerable. It never bothered to snow there, either, winter just sharpening the world's ugliness than making any real effort at shame, at hiding it and laying a shroud over it.
The Spire had done him the courtesy, at least, of feeling alive again. The glass and the steel and death at every turn, foes worth pulling out a stop or two for. This apartment, 2DK, great central location, one floor up and overlooking a dreary fucking market road and dreary fucking paper-dusted roofs with an endless grey deader-than usual urbanity sprawling drearily out, this apartment made Nemo want to track down one of his co-battlers, restrain them, and piss in their throat.
First things first.
Nemo eased the bathroom door open, muttered "excuse me" to the dessicated corpse in the bathtub, and started looking through the cabinets. He found hair dye, gloves, chatted quietly to the dead woman as he discovered the taps weren't working and went and fetched a bottle of water out of the fridge. It looked like a fridge and it worked like a fridge, even if it was thanks to a rune on the top and not a plug in a wall. The rune contorted itself into something illegible at Nemo's touch, the box expelling a final whoomph of lukewarm air.
The wordrain was letting up, missives and minutiae trickling from the clouds, landing too lightly on the cold, damp ground to disintegrate right away. Nemo had bleached his hair (and brows, if you don't tell yourself "it pays to be consistent" that'll be the thing you pay for) and was shivering as blonde dye dripped upon a towel around his shoulders. He flicked through the woman - Ada's - mail, self-conscious for a moment at this domesticity, this vulnerability in the middle of what was a fight, even though he would've heard anything alive and approaching in the deserted city. Nemo relaxed back into his seat again.
Was it Sunday here? It felt like Sunday. All rest and reflection that your magnum opus was done, the only road from here down into mortals and mire and all humanity's gross little inadequacies. Generations upon generations of men as each others' keepers, short-sighted and incompetent and ugly little tangles of need.
---
Robots and wish-witches. They were new things, curiosities. Not urgently fascinating, but for the way she looked at him.
Nemo glittered at Blacklight, all his hostile edges turned keen toward her and arrayed with reds and golds and greens. His desires were stars in a void, arranged on those edges of his like an omen eclipse; they were bright and tiny like beads of sap in just-gouged bark, or, perhaps, like enormous burning spheres of light scattered isolated in an even greater darkness.
His soul was a void, or bore the scars of having been one. Nemo would've laughed, unsmiling, if he could see it. Prison does that to you, and where are your manners? What the hell are you looking at?
His desires were crystalline, cultivated to exacting standards with frivolities weeded out. Blacklight could tell just from the measure of him that if she took one, he'd know.
"You're strange company," he smiled, nodding to the trio. There was no illusion that he wasn't of this tower, but tipping his hand right now would be similarly pointless.
"Are- are you going to jump? Please don't jump." Jean didn't really like this guy, nor his gloves (which seemed the only part of his outfit which really fit him), nor this place, but it wasn't in her to be actively malicious. The whole situation was, frankly, giving her the pills.
"Not to worry," Nemo chuckled, tugging at the strings. "I'm properly equipped."
"Are you sure? It'll be cold outside, I can give you a scarf, or maybe a warm hat, I think I had one that would match your gloves-"
Nemo flinched a bit at that, stared dead at Blacklight as the clear leader of the troupe, then gathered up the swarthes of parachute a bit faster.
"No, thank you. It's fine."
"Please wait," said Miss Blacklight, running her eyes over the rows of sparks, searching silent vain and frantic for the man's deeper desires.
Nemo tossed out the parachute, then stepped out into the void.
---
Nemo felt untouchable. He was still making his mind up on which way he meant it as the last few sheets fluttered down, and his hair had been scoured at enough with Ada's towels that it was just unpleasantly damp and not in real danger of freezing. Nemo closed the door behind him, adjusted the cloth over his face and Ada's clothes on his back, shouldered his pack, and picked up a sheaf of papers littering the doorstep.
Homo sapiens sapiens as Multiversal standard - an analysis of socio-cognitive adaptation and radiation across Multiversal Subcluster 2068
A review of Interstial acoustics - the memetic/receiver-centric approach
Entropics as cultural-conceptual reservoirs - a response to Amaryll et al
Looking at the dates gave Nemo a headache; gently curling the paper into a tube within his hand and tapping it on his forehead alleviated matters. This world felt like one big distraction, the limp threat of being stuck in this idyll for a decade or more, searching the streets for some clue to destroy his captor or the competition. He set off at a suitably-looterish prowl, stopping despite himself and often to peruse the streets of sheets. All of it was fascinating, but nothing strayed from the dry-leaf academic.
He continued in this fashion until one shop stood out in the street like a gold tooth; the lights on, the windows unbroken, and with a conspicuous space around it buffetted free of the Sociologist's notes. He peered through grimy windows and past merchandise into an antique store, which come to think of wasn't really all that unusual in a town like the one Nemo had been stranded in. The sign in the window told him "OPEN", and the compliant little squeak of the door handle didn't tell him any different. The place was weird, failed to fit the street's other buildings in Nemo's well-trained eye. With a quick glance about the deserted street, he opened the door and slipped in.
Season's greetings, Nemo would've told himself were he listening. The snow was yellowed moleskine, amputated from the spine at surgical right angles, scrambled and decontextualised and with a dry not-warmth that couldn't make Nemo feel anything in particular, much less numb. This place reminded him more than anything of winter in Kansas, the kind of idyllic that made you almost stop breathing, it was that fucking intolerable. It never bothered to snow there, either, winter just sharpening the world's ugliness than making any real effort at shame, at hiding it and laying a shroud over it.
The Spire had done him the courtesy, at least, of feeling alive again. The glass and the steel and death at every turn, foes worth pulling out a stop or two for. This apartment, 2DK, great central location, one floor up and overlooking a dreary fucking market road and dreary fucking paper-dusted roofs with an endless grey deader-than usual urbanity sprawling drearily out, this apartment made Nemo want to track down one of his co-battlers, restrain them, and piss in their throat.
First things first.
Nemo eased the bathroom door open, muttered "excuse me" to the dessicated corpse in the bathtub, and started looking through the cabinets. He found hair dye, gloves, chatted quietly to the dead woman as he discovered the taps weren't working and went and fetched a bottle of water out of the fridge. It looked like a fridge and it worked like a fridge, even if it was thanks to a rune on the top and not a plug in a wall. The rune contorted itself into something illegible at Nemo's touch, the box expelling a final whoomph of lukewarm air.
The wordrain was letting up, missives and minutiae trickling from the clouds, landing too lightly on the cold, damp ground to disintegrate right away. Nemo had bleached his hair (and brows, if you don't tell yourself "it pays to be consistent" that'll be the thing you pay for) and was shivering as blonde dye dripped upon a towel around his shoulders. He flicked through the woman - Ada's - mail, self-conscious for a moment at this domesticity, this vulnerability in the middle of what was a fight, even though he would've heard anything alive and approaching in the deserted city. Nemo relaxed back into his seat again.
Was it Sunday here? It felt like Sunday. All rest and reflection that your magnum opus was done, the only road from here down into mortals and mire and all humanity's gross little inadequacies. Generations upon generations of men as each others' keepers, short-sighted and incompetent and ugly little tangles of need.
---
Robots and wish-witches. They were new things, curiosities. Not urgently fascinating, but for the way she looked at him.
Nemo glittered at Blacklight, all his hostile edges turned keen toward her and arrayed with reds and golds and greens. His desires were stars in a void, arranged on those edges of his like an omen eclipse; they were bright and tiny like beads of sap in just-gouged bark, or, perhaps, like enormous burning spheres of light scattered isolated in an even greater darkness.
His soul was a void, or bore the scars of having been one. Nemo would've laughed, unsmiling, if he could see it. Prison does that to you, and where are your manners? What the hell are you looking at?
His desires were crystalline, cultivated to exacting standards with frivolities weeded out. Blacklight could tell just from the measure of him that if she took one, he'd know.
"You're strange company," he smiled, nodding to the trio. There was no illusion that he wasn't of this tower, but tipping his hand right now would be similarly pointless.
"Are- are you going to jump? Please don't jump." Jean didn't really like this guy, nor his gloves (which seemed the only part of his outfit which really fit him), nor this place, but it wasn't in her to be actively malicious. The whole situation was, frankly, giving her the pills.
"Not to worry," Nemo chuckled, tugging at the strings. "I'm properly equipped."
"Are you sure? It'll be cold outside, I can give you a scarf, or maybe a warm hat, I think I had one that would match your gloves-"
Nemo flinched a bit at that, stared dead at Blacklight as the clear leader of the troupe, then gathered up the swarthes of parachute a bit faster.
"No, thank you. It's fine."
"Please wait," said Miss Blacklight, running her eyes over the rows of sparks, searching silent vain and frantic for the man's deeper desires.
Nemo tossed out the parachute, then stepped out into the void.
---
Nemo felt untouchable. He was still making his mind up on which way he meant it as the last few sheets fluttered down, and his hair had been scoured at enough with Ada's towels that it was just unpleasantly damp and not in real danger of freezing. Nemo closed the door behind him, adjusted the cloth over his face and Ada's clothes on his back, shouldered his pack, and picked up a sheaf of papers littering the doorstep.
Homo sapiens sapiens as Multiversal standard - an analysis of socio-cognitive adaptation and radiation across Multiversal Subcluster 2068
A review of Interstial acoustics - the memetic/receiver-centric approach
Entropics as cultural-conceptual reservoirs - a response to Amaryll et al
Looking at the dates gave Nemo a headache; gently curling the paper into a tube within his hand and tapping it on his forehead alleviated matters. This world felt like one big distraction, the limp threat of being stuck in this idyll for a decade or more, searching the streets for some clue to destroy his captor or the competition. He set off at a suitably-looterish prowl, stopping despite himself and often to peruse the streets of sheets. All of it was fascinating, but nothing strayed from the dry-leaf academic.
He continued in this fashion until one shop stood out in the street like a gold tooth; the lights on, the windows unbroken, and with a conspicuous space around it buffetted free of the Sociologist's notes. He peered through grimy windows and past merchandise into an antique store, which come to think of wasn't really all that unusual in a town like the one Nemo had been stranded in. The sign in the window told him "OPEN", and the compliant little squeak of the door handle didn't tell him any different. The place was weird, failed to fit the street's other buildings in Nemo's well-trained eye. With a quick glance about the deserted street, he opened the door and slipped in.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow