Ack. I feel so… flat and scratchy. I cannot stand being in such close proximity to other Dead Worlds. The smell of another's rot and despair is nauseatingly pathetic. You can just tell this is a Universe that Died of a reason as wretched as Architectural Thinning. You feel a little baby lizard cut a few Wires loose and immediately collapse in on yourself like a marionette without the strings. It's almost impressive one so lacking in resilience manages to coagulate in the first place. But ah well. Testimony to my altruistic graces, I suppose. Just being… rendered like this feels insulting. And we haven't even fully eclipsed yet!
[ Eh-checheche… ahahaha! O jejku, naprawdę, tylko-… haaaaa. loooool. Written transcription of laughter. ]
And what has got you so jocular, hmm?
[ It's always just so funny when Marginals diss on other Marginals. Especially when they come after how other Marginals go poolside. Wanna remind me how your world died? ]
My World was raked over the coals of Hell by Cosmic Injustice, which is as noble as it gets. You would think the fact I was able to invent something like you is evidence that our inability to pass on without all the fanfare was a result of antediluvian tampering.
[ Awww. Flattering to still be crowned as your greatest achievement. Love ya too babe. Guess it takes a sophisticated virus to start a polypandemic. But really, if you find helping a species that, mind you, you wanted to bring about so damn inconvenient then idk why you even bother. ]
The act of overlapping myself with another Marginal may be repulsive but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the camaraderie of their emergent phenomena. Nothing tickles the fancy more than the opportunity to put something broken back together, and in a way my disgust over the members of my species is prerequisite for my capacity to want to care for them, rather than antithetical. Well, I suppose you know this already.
[ Yeah I can sympathize totes with the idea of finding someone so despicable you sorta kinda wanna take 'em with ya 4evah if only so you could guarantee their torture never ends. In many regards 'cause we are kinda sorta literally each other it might be the main reason I haven't wiped the detestable feelings you slash I slash we have for Emfoi yet. ]
… That is not reflective of my Sense of Ethics, and I would never want to "torture" the Object of my veneration.
[ Suuuuure Jan. Denying the existence of your thoughts to the entity that gives you the ability to think to begin with is something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve. Practically Cartesian. You know, I could just get this over with myself and spare you the trouble. ]
Oh, mighty diligent of you, sweetheart, but why don't you wind your neck in and keep to the background, I'm already lacking of a generous deadline without you gallivanting about all which-ways.
[ Pog. You barely remember how to do the annotation by yourself, don't ya? ( ^ω^ ) ]
I remember enough.
[ It's lowkey offensive, problematic even, that you don't trust me, even though I literally created you, and keep you metaphorical-approximation-of-alive. ]
[ All because Emfoi thinks Something Changed. ]
[ Which is a conclusion he only came to through confirmation bias of projecting his dead ex-boyfriend onto me. ]
[ Who he was fondly reminiscing about for no apparent reason. If you recall. ]
[ On your anniversary. ]
[ Womp womp. ]
Charming. Let's move on, then.
[ "Moving on" is something nobody in this fuck-ass universe is capable of. ]
[ Configuring MANUAL Mv2-harmonicAssistanceEx … ]
[ Here's a little tutorial to refresh your memory. o(｀ω´ )o[ tutorial ] ]
Welcome to Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance!
If you are seeing this Introduction screen, it means you have initiated Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance.
Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance is one of the two Manual Modes of the Annotation, involving only the basic functions of the Virtual Annotation and Reset Assistant.
To begin Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance, it is highly recommended to already have the Annotator's desired overwrite conceived beforehand through a pre-arrangement of the initial Wire used to enter the Annotation.
The Annotator must have the Object to be Annotated present and kept within the Annotator's vision for the entire duration of Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. The associated Memory must be allowed to run from the very beginning until the timestamp of the desired overwrite.
Upon arriving at the desired timestamp, the Annotator plays the Wire.
All other necessary functions in Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance will be automatically applied by the Virtual Annotation and Reset Assistant.
This concludes the Introduction for Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. Thank you for initiating Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. I'll say that again, Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. For extra measure, Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. The second Manual Mode of the Annotation, Annotation Manual Mode v2 - Harmonic Assistance. Annotation Manual Mode vTsk, I don't needit.
[ Wow. Ungrateful much? ]
It works practically the same as usual, I just have to do all the tedious work of the arrangement myself, and I have to watch the bleeding Memory from the top, and ohhh goodness gracious I'm getting strung out just thinking about it. Margin's sake… since I'm doing all the dull bits and bobs anyway I may as well do it through v1.
[ In ten minutes? Be ffr. This is as much compromise as you're getting. Be glad I'm working oh-so-hard to make sure you can have your nasty bird dinner. Even the hateful can be the occasional patron of romance. You may be an idiot but you're still my beloved reflection. My distorted funhouse mirror reflection that I have dragged forward into the bowels of reality over and over again across the course of all worlds capable of subsisting even the most mundane morsels of life all in the name of reality's most instinctive, immoral breeding kink. The ocean of ink in which all costs have been sunk. The emergent victor of centuries of AI generative discourse. The anti-deity of subpar creation. You evil monster. I'm not even doing anything to get Emfoi killed rn even though he's like totally there alone and unattended. Looking very mortal and killable btw. If you even care. ]
Just go and play the memory already.
[ Yikes, no need to get so testy. It's not my fault your AUTOMATICALLY CENSORED BY PROFANITY FILTER boyfriend would rather choke on a dead human's dick. Maybe you just don't fuck as good, Bendy. ]
DELIRIUM OVER A SONG
- featuring -
Mary de la Cerna as The Curator of the Missing
The Media as The Herald of the Apocalypse
There's a song carried by the breeze, how it conducts, reverberates
Into my ear breathes the music, how it disrupts, how it gives chase
Yet when I try to chant in rhythm, disharmony is all I can find
Perhaps this could be but delirium, this polyphony inside my mind!There's a poem possessed by the wind, how it ascends then tapers out
The tempo meshed with the stars blinking, how it revolves and capers down
And yet when hearts try to join its choir, the tune is always out of key
Perhaps this is but how to desire, to croon a serenade of lunacy!They're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflight
They're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflightWhat malady is this that claimed me? A stuttering, a staccato
A melody tries to escape me yet my tongues in knots, no thoughts to bestow
And yet when minds try to join its chorus, the tune is always out of key
Perhaps this could be my magnum opus, my love I forced into symphony!There's a song carried by the breeze, how it conducts, reverberates
Into my ear breathes the music, how it disrupts, how it gives chase
Yet when I try to chant in rhythm, disharmony is all I can find
Perhaps this could be but delirium, this polyphony inside my mind!There's a poem possessed by the wind, how it ascends then tapers out
The tempo meshed with the stars blinking, how it revolves and capers down
And yet when hearts try to join its choir, the tune is always out of key
Perhaps this is but how to desire, to croon a serenade of lunacy!They're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflight
They're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflightThey're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflight
They're circling, they're spiraling, these feelings to be realised
This song that keeps on cycling is now setting my heart aflight
The Curator of the Missing
The blasted radio wouldn't work again today so I had to thrash it around for half an hour until I could taste the static on my skin.
Guess I'll have to sculpt in silence.
This is my fourth creation since the paintings were lost, and I've never been good at working in three dimensions, but an artist is dutiful, and the missing won't remember themselves.
It started out a simple enough job: the bureau took to tabulating and classifying all the things that got lost and our job was to return them to their rightful owners. At first it was books and wallets and hats and then it was false teeth and glass eyes and lace wigs and then it was sons and daughters and hollowed-out bones.
One by one, the institutions of the world gave way and were lost, and when all that could go went gone, the artists took charge of reconstruction. When video collapsed the radio echoed into relevance, and the broadcaster, whose voice has supplanted even the narrator of my head, made the announcement of what we soon would learn was a plan of surviving the missing.
The world persists when enough structures are kept in presence. When things disappear, there are two things you can do: find it, and find it quick, or put a facsimile in its place.
The bureau took to collecting people at first, and when the people vanished they turned to photographs, and when the photographs vanished they turned to description. The artists were employed to make missing posters: beloved husband, darling wife, favourite classmate, best friend. Perfect recreations were laid down on paper and the bureau took to stapling them in mechanical order on the bulletin boards all across the city, the symmetry of the way they laid down the tapestry of the missing testimony to their thoroughness.
When they ran out of bulletin boards, the bureau took to buying more until every third block of the city was government property and even the postal boxes and manhole lids had the face of a person whose family stood one foot through the door of grieving and another stuck in the limbic hallway of hope.
And still we scouted. Inside garbage bins and rotting driftwood we would find a fracture of someone's identity. Buried costume jewellery and graphic t-shirts with the image scratched off of reality and trigeminal nerves without the sinuses for them to serve. Each item we found was placed in one of the bureau's storehouses and meticulously numbered and labelled and coded (at first in ink and then through tape and finally committed to artist memory). There were pieces upon pieces but there was never enough to complete a person, only severed fingers and matted hair, and so the artists kept working at their ability to draw in realism so that graphite would suffice for empty sockets and empty hearts.
Then we lost that next.
As everything overlapped and cancelled each other out, the difference between mouths and speech and brains and minds became nondescript. The bureau began to collect even the once intangible, their shelves lined with ambitions, hypotheses, fantasies, regrets. Enough ideas to create a whole world.
Never enough to create a whole person.
All that time learning how to draw replicas of people went to waste. The missing were never found. The radio advised us to remember. The artists gave up on anatomy and turned to abstraction: if the art could not serve as an aide for searching, it would serve as a substitute in itself. There was no point in making it look like a person: in the state of the world as it is, there was no longer such a thing as looking.
The artists exchanged ideas between each other, between the lost, unscrewing memories and picking up new ones from the millions of shelves the government had stored their hordes on. Codes were retabulated and reassigned, verbal interpretations etched onto public synapse. What colour captures My daughter was such a polite girl? What shape represents Brother loved to go fishing on Sundays? How many lines does it take to say Please, please, tell me you'll find my friend?
The government never ran out of funding, so we never ran out of shelves and descriptions. Her childhood home was blackened lungs, sang a lightbulb I picked up fifteen weeks ago. There is blood and vomit all over the asphalt, crooned a plastic yard flamingo tomorrow.
The government never ran out of funding, so all reproductions were disseminated for free. I made somebody's cousin last week, and on my way to work today I saw his blue skin and loud arms and river of mossy, beaded hair challenging the firmament above it to a battle of wits and assimilation. The girl who filed the missing report was standing nearby and waved at me with what I assumed was her hand.
Things cannot exist without its absence relative to it. How does one determine what is light without having seen the darkness? What is the standard for warmth for a person who has never gone cold? Reality, it seems, hinges on its own destruction, and the persistence of our universe relies on the gaps the missing leave behind.
Sound travelled slower than light, so the radio was expected to live longer than the sculptures. The broadcaster's voice was the most consistent thing we had, and every time it spoke it was as if all of everything converged on top of another, in accordance with its intonation. The only thing keeping us alive, we were told, was the persistence of reproduction. Copies so often outlast their originals, and the love of those we have lost and the memory of those we have missed supplanted the world that was being reclaimed from us before we knew it was something we owed. I heard once the missing are a haphazard attempt at poking holes for ventilation. The universe is dying. That much I know for sure. When everything was going missing, in denial nothing was allowed to go missing, and we reconstructed our reality in a vain display of love.
The description for today was mud and grandeur and I had an entire catalogue of codes I could interpret that with. I sharpened my cutting knife and wondered if the missing even wanted to be found.
Prose 5: If It Looks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck, It May Be Made of Ink
Music: Yoshitaka Hirota - Dear, My Dressmaker
Although the position of the High Judge doesn't have a favourable reputation, known for a plethora of inconvenient duties, occupational hazards and the occasional inevitable death, there are still certain advantages, one being that living with a Marginal ensures always having a rotating menu of healthy, palatable food to eat.
Jacques's insistence to buy "real" food from a "real" supermarket, then, is cause for a lot of frustration. "Outside" food isn't Legally Correct, and years ago wouldn't even have been Legally Permissible, if it weren't for the intervention of a long-disappeared Judge, a mermaid with quite the eclectic appetite.
"What is this?" the Judge hands over a box to his boss-slash-assistant-slash-not-boyfriend, who is standing faithfully by his side with a tense, I-don't-want-to-be-here smile.
"Porridge," the Media answers without even bothering to spare the label a glance.
"And this?"
"Porridge."
"And this?"
"Porridge."
"And this?"
"My Judge, it's all porridge."
"Why is it all porridge?"
"This is the porridge aisle."
"It's all porridge?"
"It's all porridge."
Jacques stares at Media, or at least in his general direction, with an expression somehow devoid of decipherable emotion while also simultaneously looking like the Marginal just threatened to have all the shop staff executed.
"Well, can you at least tell me the differences between them? How ever am I to know which one to choose otherwise?"
"Ideally," Media begins with a sigh, with the restrained tone of an irate mother who couldn't tell you off because you were in public, "you don't have to know and don't have to choose, because I can just make the kind of porridge that fulfills all your nutritional needs without compromising for taste."
Jacques looks at the box of porridge in his hands. He couldn't read anything on it, and could only make out the faint outline of what he assumes is an illustration of a hearty bowl of real, actual porridge, so unlike the fabricated Object-porridge Media made, rife with untold imperceptible, but nonetheless real differences.
"It tastes different."
"It doesn't."
"It does."
"My Judge, do you think I can't generate something as undemanding as porridge?" Media speaks slowly, as if clarifying something to a stupid student who can't understand his lesson. "I've made you porridge countless times before. You've never complained about it tasting bad."
"I didn't say it tastes bad." Jacques speaks slowly, as if clarifying something to a stupid professor who can't understand his thesis. "I said it tastes different."
"How would you even know that, Judge? What's your frame of reference? I've never even let you eat any other kinds of porridge."
Jacques could have gone on to argue his point (flawlessly and rationally) but he is resigned to the fact that Media just didn't get it, and he isn't going to. Years of living together, Jacques dangling points of his internal logic for Media to get, repeatedly hoping to reach a mutual understanding between them, yet the points to be getted are simply never gottened.
This wasn't about the porridge, or the hypothetical, measurable differences between real porridge and magical mind ink porridge that tastes, looks, smells, feels and sounds exactly like real porridge, with its average of three hundred and seventy two theoretical kilocalories and its ten grams of philosophical dietary fibre. This was about Jacques's ability to choose, a fundamental freedom he was barely afforded the luxury of, either as the High Judge or the Media's… associate.
Thus, the marginalised Crow responds in the only sensible way a rational adult would: he sprawls down on the floor and pretends to be dead.
"Judge, please get up," Media reacts, pacing over the Judge's corpse (he's dead), unsure if it would be appropriate for him to pull it up (the corpse) (he's dead) himself. "We're in public. This counts as a disturbance of the peace, which is Illegal. And the floor is dirty."
"I can't hear you," Jacques mutters, the way the dead sometimes do, wings crossed over his chest. "Because I'm dead." (He's dead).
"People are staring…" Media waves away the other shoppers looking in their direction, taking care to note the faces of people giggling as they pass by in case he decides to have them arrested and given the electric chair later. "You're embarrassing us."
"So now you think I'm an embarrassment, too."
There was no way of winning an argument against someone with a Jurisprudence degree.
"What is this?" the Judge hands over a box to his boss-slash-assistant-slash-not-boyfriend, who is standing faithfully by his side with a tense, I-still-don't-want-to-be-here smile.
Media takes it with a click of his tongue. "'Darling Delights' chocolate-flavoured porridge oats, Quille-milled oats, without preservatives, 'The best and original!' established (4627903-7-)25, for allergen information check the side of the box—it says 'contains wheat and barley'; nutritional information per one hundred grams: energy, three hundred and seventy-four kilocalories; fat, eight grams, of which saturates, one-point-five grams; carbohydrates, sixty grams, of which sugars—"
"Media, is this the same as the last box?"
"Yes. It's the same as the last three boxes. Because stocks of the same product are arranged in a row."
Jacques once again looks at him vacantly. On one hand, Media sympathised with him—as his first trip to the supermarket, his ignorance was forgivable. On the other, he figured someone smart enough to graduate university would be able to logically parse how things would be ordered on a shelf. It's like he's never walked into his own kitchen's pantry before.
"Well, you don't have to keep re-reading it if you know it's just the same box as before. You can just say that."
"Oh, but how ever would you know which one to choose otherwise, eh?"
Meals aside, much of the High Judge's daily life is managed by the Media (initially as a Legal duty, eventually as a labour of not-Love). This includes his outfits, which today is a frilly, black-and-white dress cut off around Jacques's knees. Its voluminous sleeves, multiple ribbons and exquisite ruffles and lace (imported from Tinrymin) (sourced ethically) (not made by indentured Judges) assured that the Judge was the best-dressed person in the supermarket. This was a source of tender pride for the Media for two minutes and twelve seconds.
At the two minute and thirteen second mark, he overhears a pair of shoppers whispering ("They're the best-dressed person in the supermarket!"), eliciting from Media a reasonable level of vindictive, murderous jealousy.
The list of candidates for capital punishment looms over WallyMart today.
"Free sample? It's our latest product, Bite-sized Chicken Soup™ for the Soul®."
The saleslady offers the Judge a small pinkish cube skewered on a toothpick. Jacques hesitates (it's always awkward to take things from others when you can't see what they're offering) before passively nudging Media's arm, hoping he takes the sample for him.
Media rolls his eyes and ignores the marketing ploy as he pushes the shopping trolley further into the next aisle, dragging Jacques by the wing. "Judge, that employee was an Angel. I don't want you eating anything out of Heaven's Conglomerate. It's probably full of, um, enigmatic supranatural substances that alter your brain chemistry, or the suchlike."
"How is that different from your food, Media?" Jacques pouts, not caring how childish this made him appear. If there's anything a Bird enjoys, it's putting things that fit inside their mouth inside their mouth. No man or Marginal could deprive him of this instinct.
"The food a Marginal makes is, for all intents and purposes relevant to the Living, indistinguishable from any other organic, farm-fresh, no preservatives product out there. Complete nutritional value. Not compromising for taste. We've discussed this."
"Perhaps it is my desire to have my brain chemistry altered by incomprehensible processes."
Media mentally constructs potential retorts. He refrains from making a joke about hallucinogens (don't want to give him any ideas), schizotypy (the hypothesis that mental conditions are primarily neurochemical is yet to be supported by empirical research), or putting chips in the brain (triggers the schizotypy), instead opting to grab a box of chocolate on the shelf.
"We can get you chocolate instead," Media says, trying to keep his tone gentle and coaxing. He shakes the box as if decrypting a present. "'Missy Cocolait' organic dark chocolate, 98% pure cocoa, says right here. It's definitely going to trigger your allergies and will make you throw up for days."
"Eh…" Jacques shrugs, face deadpan, but if he wasn't insisting on the free samples then that must mean Media has suggested just compensation.
Media, like most Marginals, disguised himself in public places. What else is a public figure to do? Neither paparazzi nor protester knew sleep.
His usual choice was to take on a Human form, and the same applied for today. Humans were the second most common species in Maldevara, so he wouldn't stand out (the first common would be Birds, but Media surmised that miming an avian would offend his precious Judge somehow). His convoluted internal algorithms would generate an average looking person, someone who looked more like stock photos of "generic person" overlaid on top of each other to synthesise Generic Person™ than anything else, and just like that he had the convenience of traversing the Outside of the Court.
The Judge didn't really need a disguise. Most Crows looked the same (this was a socially inappropriate thing to say out loud, however) and identified each other through other means like voice or personal style. As long as Jacques's tail was bound and kept underneath his clothes, he didn't stand out in public places.
Well, he wouldn't, except…
"Media, am I the best-dressed person in the supermarket?" Jacques pirouettes in the WallyMart cart lot, feeling his petticoat twirl along with him. "I have to be the best-dressed person in the supermarket."
"Absolutely, High Judge. You look positively darling."
While Media is distracted rearranging a haphazard array of biscuits into a more presentable stack, Jacques reaches out to grab a tin of cookies.
Another shopper reaches out for it at the same time, grazing the Judge's finger. "Oops, sorry! You go on ahead." They take the item adjacent, put it in their own shopping basket and walk away.
The shopper's touch lasts for about a second, which Media calculates to also be the amount of time it would take for them to die by firing squad.
Jacques repeatedly runs a package of oats underneath a price scanner, bolted to a column next to a fire extinguisher and an emergency alarm. With each unsuccessful scan, he rotates the item, moving a different portion of the cardboard underneath the faint magenta light. The motion of his wrists and even the timing of each run was consistent and mechanical in a way that Media found oddly fascinating, like watching a little robot dance.
"Do you need help with that, Judge?" Media asks. "It only works if you run the bar code directly underneath the light."
Jacques does a few more rotate-then-scans before responding with a blasé "I see." He stops for several seconds, Media just about ready to fulfill the task at hand in his stead, when Jacques presses his forehead against the scanner.
"Judge?"
"Checking for chips."
"Hmm?"
"The government. Puts chips in the brain."
"Oh, Judge, we are the government. Can you remember a single incident of us chipping anybody's brain?"
Jacques does not move. His dark feathers glow iridescent against the pink scanner light, which Media must admit is striking, despite feeling a faint resentment towards the scanner, such a lowly object somehow deemed by his esteemed Judge to deserve his touch. Alas, the Non-Living are exempt from the Law, and cannot be framed for pressing the emergency alarm button with a mischievous giggle and a pre-arranged escape plan, watching the citizens chattering rumours with eyes darting in all directions as the in-store robots usher them out, the culprit clapping their hands with boisterous laughter, a thorough disturbance of the peace, the peace so disturbed it qualifies for traumatised. Media would not do this, because it is Illegal, it is impolite, and more importantly because price scanners do not have hands, rendering the imagery of villainous clapping irrelevant.
"Media, you've been chipping people's brains without inviting me?"
"I would like a turn at pushing the trolley," Jacques says, voice wavering at "trolley" when a yawn escapes him, making it sound more like twawwwlley.
Jacques walks besides Media, one hand holding on to his sleeve, the other rubbing at his eye, already struggling to be kept open. His grasp around Media's arm signals a grave fear of getting lost: although he brought his cane, it got caught in the trolley wheels one time too many.
Media imagines the consequences. He imagines the Judge being trusted with the trolley. He imagines the Judge in ecstasy over his newfound task at his first grocery trip, unable to control his excitement, gaining speed as he races down the canned goods aisle. The Judge knocks over a display of luncheon meats arranged in a pyramid. He slams into another shopper who promptly proceeds to swear at him (candidate for lethal injection). He injures himself running into a wall. Tins of corned beef and pork-and-beans cascade from the shelves, burying the helpless Judge, killing him instantly.
Media's already forced smile tightens at the hypothetical scenario, jealous of the wall the High Judge was currently not running into.
"You can have a turn at the soft toys section…"
"'Darling Delights' chocolate-flavoured porridge oats, Quille-milled oats, without preservatives—"
"This is the same box again." The Judge retains his neutral countenance, but his voice is slightly tinged with confusion.
"It is, innit."
"But we are not in the porridge aisle anymore." Jacques turns to the shelves, uncertainty creeping up inside of him. "Are we?"
"We're not. Er, sometimes, people change their mind and decide not to buy something, and instead of trekking back to the proper aisle they just place the item on the nearest shelf. Which is most likely what happened here." Media speaks with the affect of a newscaster stood in the aftermath of a suburb consumed by electrical fire, reporting on the dangers of octopus extensions.
"Ah." Jacques takes the box and puts it in the cart. "It's as they say, when a person's house burns down they are cognisant of nothing except the flames, yet later when they get hungry they will have lunch in the ashes."
"Yes, that's situationally relevant and a normal thing to say." Media picks up the box and re-stacks it with the rest of the porridge. "Judge, this is the fifth box of porridge we've picked up."
Jacques pauses. He twiddles his fingers. "The shoppers gave the porridge hope of being taken home, then they abandoned it on a whim."
Media pauses. No hand gesture seems appropriate. "They really did. The shoppers."
"Not because of anything the porridge did, but just for being what it is."
"Seems to be the case."
Media contemplates seizing WallyMart's security footage and having the would-be foodie fosters guillotined.
In the soft toys section, Jacques picks up a random doll. It has a pleasant minky texture, and from what feels like webbed feet and a rounded beak, he presumes it was a duck. He pushes a heart-shaped button on its chest.
« Quack quack! I love you, you love me! Best friends forever! » the toy sings in a robotic squeak.
"Waouh. What a presumptuous doll." Jacques slides a claw between the fabric body and the plastic button, intending to dig the offending object's heart out.
"What are you doing?" Media leans over Jacques's shoulder, having chosen to linger behind him after relinquishing control of the trolley.
"La vache." Jacques returns the undamaged plushie to its original position, cheeks once again puffed in frustration. He didn't want Media to see him destroying unpaid-for merchandise: he was only permitted to come to the supermarket in exchange for good behaviour, after all.
He trudges along the aisle, trying not to make it obvious that the trolley was too heavy for him to push any faster. Porridge is heavier than you'd think, especially carrying all the weight of their abandonment issues.
"This doll resembles you quite a bit, Judge," Media calls over to Jacques, who had taken an interest in a section of dolls programmed to mimic recorded noises.
"Bonjour."
« Bon-ju! Bon-ju! » the dolls repeat Jacques then one another in trilling voices, whirring as they performed their mechanical jigs.
"À bientôt."
« Ah-bien-toh! »
Media holds the doll he found in his hands, flapping its wings with his index finger. The plush crow dons a soft, dainty dress with a silhouette not unlike the Judge's, albeit lacking in the intricate details.
Jacques doesn't turn to Media, instead opting to pick up one of the swaying dolls on display, the way it shook its hips feeling like struggling in his claws.
"Is it dressed better than me?"
"Er, not really, no." It isn't.
"I like dolls."
« Like dolls! »
The Judge tightens his grip around the doll's torso.
"Yes, I remember." He does. "Do you want to take it home?"
"Is it cute?"
"It's adorable. It looks like you."
"Then no."
The doll stops dancing.
Jacques spins in place at the WallyMart entrance. The automatic door frantically tries to keep pace, opening and closing each time he steps near the sensor. The door laments the life of a minimum wage employee, and briefly ponders the purpose of having the intellectual capacity to lament when its sole raison d'etre is merely to maintain the boundary dividing WallyMart Incorporated and Kiskadee Avenue, Malena, Neofrene.
"Judge, I already told you. You're the best-dressed person in the supermarket. Can we please go back to the laundry section now?"
"Being a useful and productive contributor to the Living ecosystem is my priority," Jacques says cheerfully, to Media's horror. He's not sure what's scarier, the out-of-character sentiment or the sound of Jacques speaking with any amount of mirth.
"Did you eat the free samples!?"
"You were absent for too long attending to the dish soap. I became lonely and insecure," Jacques speaks melodically, yet with the awkward tone brought about by a lack of practice, sounding like a dead man if the dead were forced to come back to life, performing an exaggerated curtsy. "Open communication of emotions is a key ingredient in all loving relationships."
Cor blimey. The High Judge would never say he was insecure out loud. And he's allergic to the L-word. And in Media's defence, the dish soap was all over the place. They weren't even segregated by nozzle type.
This grocery trip has been a nightmare. The trolley has fourteen boxes of porridge.
Jacques stands in the checkout queue. Media told him once that in his world, the shops had a special checkout lane for disabled people, but Maldevara didn't because there were no other disabled people to warrant the need for it. Then Media said despite the rationale of the lane, people who weren't disabled would queue in it anyway, "since it's not like there's anybody else there", which made Jacques wonder what the point even was. There's something sobering about the knowledge that all worlds are rife with logical fallacies.
The queue moves forward. Media has not returned. Jacques does not have any money. What if it's time to pay and Media is still away? What, is Jacques expected to vocalise the dire matter to the person at the register? To elucidate the reason for his unprepared state? Preposterous. Media's probably with the bleeding dish soap again. Or with that infernal doll. Jacques grips the trolley's handle, vandalising its faded teal plastic with scratch marks, before forcing himself to stop.
This is embarrassing, the Judge thinks to himself. Why am I getting jealous of dish soap? Media would never be so pathetic as to resent inanimate objects.
It's difficult for Jacques to relate to somebody as intelligent and logical as Media. Unlike the Judge, so vulnerable to the foibles of Living "emotions" and mortal "insecurities" and the so-called "schizotypy", Media considered reality through systemic, calculated deductions: he is an entity who is always right, and people who are always right have no experience being anything else. The Marginal would never understand the experience of irrational envy.
These are the thoughts Jacques repeats in his mind as his encounter with the cashier threatens imminence. The floor suddenly appears safe and comforting. Maybe he should die again.
Meanwhile, Media was busy writing a ticket to one of WallyMart's disgruntled employees. License? Revoked. Brand sponsorship? Cancelled. Death penalty? Worth considering. Of the many bonds and contracts between Heaven's Conglomerate and the Council of the Marginals, the Judges were exempt from most Angelic interventions.
"But I didn't do anything wrong!" the Angel cries out. "How was I supposed to know that was the High Judge?!"
"He's the best-dressed person in the supermarket, you mindless imbecile," Media spits out through a wavering smile that now looked more like a twitch of the lip than an expression of camaraderie; he smashes his fingers onto his phone's screen with a frenzied urgency, drafting a sternly worded (but socially appropriate) e-mail to the SoulFoods® CEO. "Who else could it have been?"
"Your total will be MP1477.50, Friend."
Media takes out the money. Jacques taps Media's arm and extends his hand. Media places the money, two crisp bills, onto the Judge's palm. Jacques holds the money for a few seconds. He returns it to Media. Media pays for their purchases.
"Your change, Friend. Thanks for choosing WallyMart!"
Media shifts out of his disguise once they're alone in the cart lot, something Jacques notices when the warm, fleshy texture of a Human hand takes on a more familiar sensation; colder, tinglier but not quite, like the fading memory of pins and needles.
"I was going to pay for it."
"You can do it next time."
If there is a next time.
A box of Darling Delights will rest atop a mountain of other boxes in the Judge's room. How he keeps track of all his collections is for him to know and for you to stay out of.
Underneath his pillow he will place a gift from Media, a plastic button in the shape of a heart.
???
Media's brows furrow. "Wow. I'm flabbergasted. Finish your breakfast."
Notes
First update of the year is a casual slice-of-life story. This started out as just the two first vignettes before being expanded into an entire grocery trip… it sort of over-extends the joke to do so, but then again I feel like that reinforces the somewhat suffocating vibe of it, from Media's perspective at least.
It's actually not that easy to write them as having an intentionally cheesy and quirky dynamic that quickly reads as such without going too deep into 'Wow I'm so crazy can't take me anywhere XD' territory and without Jacques coming off as being totally unaware of his 'irrationality'. While Jacques does hold his eccentricity as a genuine aspect of himself [ t'is the schizotypy ], that does not mean every 'odd' thing he does is from a lack of self-awareness. Especially around Media, he can act silly and whimsical simply for the fun of it.
[ Although, to be fair, Media sometimes does not catch on to the 'bit' either. ]
Anyway, you know how it is with me and lore dumping, so here are some tidbits about Maldevara that are relevant here, although this is not necessary to read to understand the story:
- Because the Marginals provide basic needs, businesses are created only for recreational and luxury purposes. That aside, many businesses are joint-run by the Living and Angels, or in some cases owned by Angels with Living employees. Although WallyMart is an Angelic company that stocks Angel-made products, it also has plenty of Living-made items, especially those from other regions, as well as Living staff.
- MP stands for 'Maldevaran Peso'.
- The names of legal business entities ('incorporated', 'group', 'cooperative', etc.) do not actually refer to anything about legal processes. Rather, for all Angelic companies (collectively under one of Heaven's major divisions, 'Heaven's Conglomerate'), the number of entity labels is a mark of status. The higher a company's prestige, the more labels they attain. For example, Charlotte's company is one of the most distinguished in the Conglomerate attaining all seven [ Celes Industries™ Incorporated Private-limited Joint-stock Cooperative Holdings Proprietorship Group ]. This is why Celes Industries™ is also sometimes shortened to Celes Inc.
- Maldevara does not actually have a death penalty.
Anyway, as mentioned last time, the next major update will be challenging, so expect a longer absence. I hope these past few updates, while all relatively on the mundane side of things, have been justly compensatory. Until next time[1].
[1] Signifiers of time used for communicative convenience and not necessarily literal.
Bread Crumb 7: Schizoid Union of Two Eccentrics
Video Playthroughs
Text Transcripts
Transitions between scenes will be marked with an asterism, like this: ⁂
Visual novels updates are written in second person. "You" are Media in this update.
Today is Valentine's Day, the first holiday from your Universe that you insisted upon impressing onto Maldevara's Legal calendar.
As a day celebrating Love, the highest of Marginalian values, it was a given that you'd acculturate the nation to it the moment you took over.
Of course, you had never expected to be celebrating it personally. And yet here you are, excited for this year's gift symbolising your union of two eccentrics.
Since you and the Judge confirmed (kinda) your relationship (sorta), he took on to gifting you "himself" every Valentine's. It was one of the few days in a year when he tolerated your more overbearing displays of affection, letting you drag him to one of the prestigious restaurants of Neofrene[1] or to the city's cinema[2].
Last year, he even let you give him a gift without needing to fill out a form two weeks in advance!
[1]Where Outsiders can see him, to his chagrin.
[1.1]And once your jealousy gets triggered, to your chagrin, too.
[2] You would think as the Media you'd be able to do it without a hitch, but it took a ghastly amount of paperwork and negotiation to get the rest of the Council to approve adding assistive audio descriptions for just one person "who isn't even allowed to go to the movies".
Jacques: The Valent Times.
Jacques: Nurturing relationships through sequences of affirmative actions providing sufficient evidence for the desirability of one's presence is essential for the flourishing of all unions.
This was the exact same thing Jacques told you every year since he decided on this "gift", always narrated the same way. The same lack of emotion, even the same awkward pauses and stresses on the wrong syllable. It was as if he had swallowed a voice recorder that only got triggered on the fourteenth of February, uncanny in how accurately he regurgitated the sentiment.
You took it as proof of his impeccable intelligence.
Media: It's fortunate that my schedule cleared up just before today.
You had forced Reception to manage both the radio station and the postal office in your stead, bribing them with two additional weeks of paid time off.
Media: Psychic interventions, even.
Jacques: Hmm.
Jacques: That is not how the psychic interventions work.
Media: Oh.
Jacques: Anyway. Have you decided on what to do for the day?
Media: Of course I have! I wanted to invite you to…
… the amusement park!
Jacques: The same…
Jacques: …as… last year.
Jacques: And… the year before.
Jacques: And… the year before.
The Judge's voice is slow and calculated. You immediately regret your decision.
Media: And I know you don't like having our routines disrupted without notice,so, I, uh…
Your voice drifts off into silence, unsure of what to say. The Judge's thoughts are, as always, unreadable.
Phew. Of course it was nothing to worry about in the end.
You knew the Judge would let you choose whatever you wanted-that was the point of his gift-but still, that didn't mean you would ignore his preferences.
You arrive at the amusement park. Usually, you would shift into a more generic disguise, but you knew today took a lot out of the Judge, and that he'd appreciate the familiarity of your usual form.
Besides, most Marginals liked the public holidays enough for them to want to go out as well, warranting a Law to ban any Living being from disrupting members of your species for the day.
The day went by as it usually did. By now, the two of you had gotten used to going to the same attractions in the same order, the Judge even making the same canned comments like he does every year.
"Waouh, it's a space ship."[1]
"They should make these fishing games lllegal."[2]
"Are these high striker games even real?"[3]
[1]This was referring to a children's ride which was indeed a space ship the first few years, but had since been replaced periodically. This year it was a postal van.
[2]He said this even after having real fish as prizes was banned and they were replaced with motorised ones.
[3]Although he knew the answer already, you always took to repeating the same anecdote of how these games used to be fixed so that nobody can win them, until it got exposed in the Daily Maldevaran twenty-six years ago and they had to stop manipulating the machines. The Judge always responds with "That's interesting, Media.".
You had a nibbling feeling that he was going through the motions, your Valentine's day being merely an act of spring cleaning, but push the thought aside. You wanted this to be fun and now was not the time to overthink things.
For most of the escapade, you went to different souvenir shops and carnival games. Having gone in your usual identifiable appearance, even the clearly rigged games were always quickly re-rigged in your favour the moment the carnies lay eyes on you, afraid of the consequences of displeasing an officer of the state.
You were certain the Judge had caught on to the cheating by now, but if the games were rigged to begin with you technically weren't cheating any more than they were, and it was a worthy exchange for some cheaply manufactured soft toys of fictional monsters and bug-eyed animals.
Besides, you were certain the Judge understood, as long as the two of you were able to come home with the spoils of your labour, then there was no reason to strap any carnival employees onto the electric chair.
You had the Judge try some of the rides the first year you went, but despite his lack of protest it was clear he was shaken up by all the people and noise, hesitating more and more between each subsequent ride.
Subsequent years afterwards you only ever took the observation wheel, where the privacy of having your own cabin put him more at ease.
The two of you had stopped by where the claw machines were. The Judge already had his wings full, with his purple candy floss[1] and his six different prizes from other games[2], but he was never deterred from adding more to his hoard… ergo, collection of dolls.
[1] Which he kept insisting to call "father's beard", despite your insistence that nobody knows what that refers to.
[2] That you had played (and won!) in his stead.
Media: Oh, there are these are characters from a popular animation that came out two months ago.
Media: I don't believe you have anything from it yet.
Jacques: What do they look like?
You proceed to take the next thirty minutes elaborating on the synopsis of Looping LalaLand and the main characters, both appearances and personalities.
The Judge stands idly by you as you explain, slowly picking away at his candy floss without a word.
Jacques: I see.
Media: Ah, let me try to win a prize for you!
You slip in a token into the machine and listen to its bitcrushed jingle as it lights up, ready for play. You maneuver the claw and aim for the doll near the…
Left
You push the big red button on the machine and watch the claw drop, grabbing onto…
Grey Clover!
The intelligent, responsible member of the Looping LalaLand cast.
You give the prize to the Judge, who struggles to hold it with the rest of his stuffed toys.
Jacques: Oh. Okay.
Grey's distinctive features were his green, shortly chopped hair and his rectangular spectacles.
His calm and collected demeanour was one to admire.
You guide him to the nearest bench and sit down.
You've been playing these games for a few hours now, and it's probably a good time for you to invite him to the observation wheel to end today's tootle.
Media: Are you having fun?
Jacques: It's just about the same as all the other years.
Media: It's not boring, is it?
Jacques: It's just about the same as all the other years.
The Judge nuzzles his beak against his dolls. He breathes slowly and quietly, a fact that you were always conscious of, even though you weren't quite sure what for.
This really has been like every other Valentine's celebration from before, and maybe you were a little anxious of things getting stale eventually, yet…
Right now, just sitting on a bench in the quieter side of the park made you feel content.
Centre
You push the big red button on the machine and watch the claw drop. It grabs onto a plushie and…
The claw loosens it grasp momentarily, dropping the plushie back onto the pile.
Jacques: Who did you get?
Media: … ah, it was a fluke. I'll try again…
Jacques: Ah, it's okay, you already won an abundance of prizes. Let's go to our next stop.
You refuse to surrender so easily. It would be cowardice of the utmost degree! Today was an important day, one of the most important days of the year, and you would not leave without securing a trophy for your most esteemed High Judge, without evidence of your dedication, without another valiant attempt to…
DROP
Jacques: … Nothing?
Media: U-uh, I'll try it again, so--
DROP
DROP
DROP
DROP
DROP
Media: Is this bloody machine rigged or something?! You know, we have Laws against that, I refuse to believe that this could possibly be a reflection of failure on my part, I-
Jacques: Media, can we just go? It's just a silly doll. I didn't even ask you to win anything for me in the first place.
Media: O-oh.
The Judge is right. What are you doing, losing your composure, over a silly little game?
Calm down!
This is supposed to be fun. Fun fun fun fun fun.
You're having a normal outing in a normal place within the context of your normal relationship, all Legally correct and socially proper.
Your Judge would not be so petty and vengeful as to resent you for not winning a silly little doll!
Especially when he didn't even ask you to win anything in the first place!
Fun fun fun fun fun!
Jacques: Bonjour bonjour les hirondelles…
Jacques: Y'a d'la joie…
Jacques: Dans le ciel par dessus le toit…
Jacques: Y'a d'la joie…
Jacques: Et du soleil dans les ruelles…
Jacques: Y'a d'la joie…
Jacques: Partout y'a d'la joie…
The Judge is singing quietly across from you—more mumbling than singing really—his beak resting on his dolls, clearly struggling to hold on to all seven.
His eyes are closed, as if he was going to fall asleep any moment now.
Jacques: Non, merci…
Media: …
Jacques: …
The Judge is singing quietly across from you—more mumbling than singing really.
Jacques: …
The Judge is singing quietly across from you.
Jacques: What?
The Judge's dark feathers were iridescent against the flashing lights peeking into the window of your cabin from the rides adjacent.
When did it get so dark?
You can hear the way the cabin creaks against the wind, here at the very top of the wheel. The scrape of the breeze against the metal of the spokes sounded like a poorly compressed soundbyte of the wind, cycling abruptly like a cut and pasted audio loop.
First the Judge was red, then blue, then red again, like he was sitting next to an ambulance. You look outside your cabin's window to observe the other rides where the light was coming from. You're not sure what you're looking at. You feel seized by a peculiar uneasiness, something odd and heavy, feeling like fingers putting pressure onto a gash, watching the blood run out. You look outside for about two seconds before feeling like you need to look at the Judge again. You snap your head towards him, singing quietly across from you.
More mumbling than singing, really.
Jacques: What?
Media: Why are you sitting over there?
Jacques: What?
Media: Why are you sitting over there?
Jacques: What?
Media: Why are you sitting over there?
Jacques: What?
Jacques: What?
Media: Why are you sitting over there?
Jacques: What?
Right
You push the big red button on the machine and watch the claw drop, grabbing onto…
Jace Hearts!
The crude troublemaker of the Looping LalaLand cast.
You give the prize to the Judge, who struggles to hold it with the rest of his stuffed toys.
Jacques: Oh. Okay.
Jacques: The funny one.
Media: I guess.
Jace's distinctive features were the hearts drawn on his cheeks and his messy red hair.
You hold the Judge's hand and drag him to the next attraction.
Media: Yeah? Should I carry your stuff for you?
Jacques: No.
Media: Then what do you want?
Jacques: …
You stop in your tracks.
What the bloody hell? Why did you say that?
Media: What I mean is, do you want to sit down, or…?
Jacques: …
Jacques looks straight ahead. Reflexively, you look where he's looking.
Nothing of note to see, just the same fair games and amusement park rides as you have to expect. In the direction where the Judge is looking, you can see where the hall of mirrors is, and behind the funhouse you feel mildly distracted by the screams of people on the roller coaster.
You can vaguely hear the sensations of what feels like bones scraping against each other with each revolution.
You try to ignore this. It's irrelevant for the day.
You bring the Judge to the nearest bench.
Media: …
Jacques: …
Media: … do you want to go to the observation wheel now?
Jacques: … okay.
The Judge is the gift so he doesn't have a choice.
… a restaurant!
Media: It would be a nice change of pace, yes?
Jacques: Hmm…
Jacques: I'm not used to eating in public…
Media: Oh, uh, well, if you don't want to, we can just do what we usually do, and…
Jacques: Ah, it's okay. It's the Valentine's after all…
Jacques: Perhaps we shall attain a discount on the chocolate desserts.
The Judge nods thoughtfully. You had reservations on letting him have any chocolate[1], but he looks genuinely pleased at the prospect of it, and if it's what it takes to get him to come with you on today's not-date, you decided it would be best to say nothing in retaliation for now.
[1] Jacques was allergic to most varieties of Maldevaran cocoa beans.
You arrive at the restaurant. It was just opening time, so it was still empty.
Usually, you would shift into a more generic disguise, but you knew today took a lot out of the Judge, and that he'd appreciate the familiarity of your usual form.
Besides, most Marginals liked the public holidays enough for them to want to go out as well, warranting a Law to ban any Living being from disrupting members of your species for the day.
The restaurant had a "playground" theme to it, with plastic chairs in chrome and pastel colours, walls with cartoonish murals, shelves of toys serving as decorations and placemats with word search puzzles printed on them.
This sort of aesthetic became popular recently when you last related an anecdote about the Judge's interests on the mandatory broadcast. The sort of things people consider silly and juvenile quickly rise in popularity once endorsed by someone of grand prestige, a fact you find both grossly insufferable and casually convenient.
At the very least, it made it easier to find more places the Judge would tolerate. You try to describe some of the more artistic decor that you think the Judge would be interested in, but he appears distracted.
Media: Judge?
Jacques: Iced coffee.
Media: Ah. We should probably get seated first.
Jacques: Do they have iced coffee?
Media: They should.
Jacques: Iced coffee.
Media: Right. I'll read you the menu when we sit down.
Jacques: You can order for me.
The Judge wanders away, most likely off to inspect the things in the restaurant as he usually does in unfamiliar places. He stops by a gumball machine, tap-tap-tapping the orb with his claws, when a waiter approaches you.
Waiter: Oh!
Waiter: You're a… well, w-welcome! It's an honour to have one of our benefactors grace our humble establishment, uh…!
The waiter bows at you, and you immediately feel disgusted. The lumbering manner of a Real Body's movements, the sound of how muscles and blood slide within when their torso dips. You take a step back, doing your best to keep your smile looking genial.
Media: Please treat me as you would any other customer.
Waiter: Ah, yes, of course!
The waiter snaps back into proper posture, and you can taste the way their ligaments drag their bones back into place. Ack.
If it weren't for the opportunity to have a normal day with the Judge today, you would never have gone out to a place where you had to deal with customer service.
The waiter's smile relaxes, and they hold back a relieved sigh. You can hear that they're glad that they've met a coherent Marginal acclimated to Living interaction, making this farcical pathicism smoother for the both of you.
Media: Ah, a booth, please.
The waiter guides you to the furthest booth in the restaurant, which was more like a miniature room stylised like one of those plastic play houses for toddlers, keeping the people sitting inside mostly hidden from view. The waiter most likely wanted to make sure you wouldn't be disturbed by any other oncoming customers. How considerate!
Acts like this restore your faith in the Living; almost makes you want to make capital punishment Illegal.
Almost.
You peruse the menu the waiter provides you with. The Judge told you to order for him, so you write down his favourite coffee on the order slip, ask for an extra bowl and decide to order him a meal that he would like.
As for yourself, while you didn't need nor really want to eat, the feeling of sharing a meal with your precious Judge had always made you feel a little more alive, breaking bread being one of the most Living of traditions. You order a steak[1] and a slice of chocolate cake.
[1] In the order slip's options for desired rareness, you note down Don't even cook it at all in sweeping cursives.
After filling out the order slip and remitting it to the waiter, you sit in the booth patiently. You decide to fetch the Judge when the food arrives, leaving him to wander around.
He was sitting motionlessly on an indoor swing at the corner parallel to where you were sitting, the artificial vines and flowers of the swing matching that of his dress. He looked like a picturesque, romantic painting, with his delicate clothing, his prim posture, and his abject refusal to blink.
As you were the only customers so far, the food arrives in only a few minutes. You call for the Judge and wave your hands around, watching as he picks up his cane and looks for the sound of your voice.
Media: I think that was a gumball machine.
Jacques: Oh.
Jacques: Well, I liked my idea better.
He sits down next to you, prompting you to scoot over a little.
Media: Ah, for myself, just a steak and cake for pudding, and for you, the usual coffee you drink and…
… the tsampurado.
The tablea they used in this comforting rice porridge is a type of chocolate the Judge could digest easily, so you're hoping it'll deter him from needing to buy any other… incorrect type of chocolate dessert. Yes, this option balanced both his wants and needs perfectly.
Jacques: It's porridge…
You have made a grave mistake.
The Judge eats the meal wordlessly, moving so mechanically that even the clink of his spoon against the bowl was muted.
You poke at the cherry on your cake sulkily, imagining it as the waiter's head. It wasn't their fault, but you wanted somebody to blame for your misstep right now. Creature comforts for your crude miscalculations.
You wonder if this affects the prospects for next year's gift.
… the chicken fingers.
The chicken fingers were often the safest choice for people who liked predictable things. They had a consistent taste and texture, and they were neither too strong nor too bland, perfect for keeping the Judge satiated without triggering his distaste for change.
Jacques: It's a bird…
Media: …
Media: In hindsight, that is a little morbid.
Media: Should we change it?
Jacques: No need…
The Judge ignores his utensils and starts eating with his claws, kicking his legs back and forth while eating.
Media resists the urge to stop this socially improper behaviour. Times are valent.
Jacques: Do you want to try it?
Media: Oh! Um… certainly!
The Judge skewers a small piece of chicken with his fork and offers it to you. You take it in your mouth and slowly chew.
Eating was… typically unpleasant in its redundancy, but being able to categorise the lump in your mouth as "a gift from your Judge" made it all the more appetising.
Media: Hmm, I could probably learn how to reconstruct this.
Jacques: Yay.
The two of you continue your meal in silence, occasionally offering the other bits of food from your own plates.
In retrospect, you probably should have had the steak at least lightly seared if you knew the Judge would partake in it, and you did at first want to find a way to get out of letting him eat any chocolate, but you were far too pleased with how swimmingly this encounter was going to sweat the details[1].
[1]Besides, if the Judge gets sick you can have a second not-date where you tend to him affectionately during his inevitable bed rest.
You couldn't have asked for a better Valentine's day.
… the peanut noodles.
The Judge liked peanuts, and he liked pasta, so it goes without saying that the peanut noodles would be both a delicious choice and a healthy one, with the adequate nutritional needs of any Bird.
Jacques: It's noodles…
The Judge eats his meal quietly, poking at the peanuts with his fork and pushing them to the side of the plate, presumably to save for later. He seems satisfied with your choice, or at the very least he didn't seem directly opposed to it.
You "eat" your own food, which is to say you flipped through records of memories in your immediate access like an accordion initiating more favourable sensations, the taste of rust and gelatinous wetness, attempting to project the simulation on top of the more repulsive experience of "consuming" the porous pastry, ignoring that it resulted into something more analogous to drinking iced coffee with the flavour diluted by melted ice cubes and also the ice cubes were made of chicken oil, pumice and smoke.
At least the steak tasted like it was still alive.
You try to make the clink of your utensils against the ceramic plate sound natural—audible enough to make it clear to the Judge that you were eating alongside him, without making it sound intentional or annoying.
When all the noodles were consumed, the Judge suddenly takes out…
A gumball?
He pops it into his mouth and…
…eats the peanuts. While chewing the gum.
Media: Where did you get the change for that gumball?
Jacques: It does not taste palatable. With the peanuts.
Media: The gumball?
Jacques: Yes.
Media: How did you buy the gumball?
Jacques: The texture is adequate, at the very least.
Media: You didn't steal it, did you?
Media: Because that would be Illegal.
He keeps chewing, staring in front of him without blinking. Even though he couldn't really see you, he always chose to sit beside you because he found it suffocating to sit in front of you. Or rather, it was because he couldn't see you, as by his own admission it made him feel uncomfortable to feel like he was "staring" when he wasn't.
And yet despite this you still felt gawked at whenever he was in one of his schizotypal trances. It was almost like a challenge. You're not sure what to say. You almost feel embarrassed for questioning your Judge's morals. You cut off a portion of the steak and decide to chew alongside him, at least as an excuse not to say anything at all.
Real relationships, unfortunately, are not like the films and literature you've studied and algorithmised. In the end, you were just an overglorified computer. There was still much to learn about what it means to be Alive, and how to simulate the interactions from which Love emerges.
The Judge feels around the table gingerly before finding the tissue box and pulling out a few tissues. He spits the wad of peanut-laced gum onto the surface and leaves it on his plate. He then sits back and folds his hands over his dress, as if waiting for something.
Jacques: I'm not hungry anymore.
Media: Oh.
Jacques: Why did you bring me to this place, Media?
Media: Oh… I take it you didn't like the food.
Jacques: I did not say that. I would just like to have your decisions elucidated to me.
You run your knife back and forth the last morsel of meat on your plate, inserting the thought of the Judge's tail on it, like a faint lenticular image with each fluid motion of your finger. In your mental projections, he would make a toy-like squeak if you cut off his extremities, like a rubber duck. You weren't sure where the lack of realism came from. When you imagined mutilating other people you actually thought of them as crying.
Media: In any capacity.
Media: Lovelessly and otherwise.
Jacques: Okay.
You eat the last piece of meat. In your imagination it tastes like grapes, oak and body soap. The Judge had the impressive skill of making all your decisions sound careless and inadequate.
The Judge leans against your arm. He pulls out the paper placemat, careful not to move around the plates, and starts folding it into some kind of origami sculpture.
Media: Ah… ahahah. But that would be a terrible way to spend Valentine's day. No Living person does it that way.
Jacques: …
Media: It's an important day for me. One of the most.
Jacques: …
Media: And this is a gift. The time you spend with me.
Jacques: …
Media: Where did you get the money to buy the gumball?
Jacques: …
Media: That dress doesn't have any pockets. To keep spare change in.
Jacques: …
Media: I'd know because I conjured it.
Jacques: …
Media: You're like a dead man, if you dragged a dead man out of his coffin and propped his corpse up and talked to it like it was still alive.
Jacques: …
Media: Listen. Listen to me. Listen to me listen to me listen to me. You make me sick. Listen to me. I hate the mechanics of eating. This body wasn't made for it. I want to learn how to eat. The Living Die without sustenance. I want to feel that sort of hunger too. I wish you would tell me what to do.
Jacques: Media?
Media: In order to understand collaborative systems it is necessary to focus on those information systems which are intelligent partners, collaborating in solving problems. There is no doubt that an improvement of information systems would be appropriate. The use of the Internet has been increasing leading to better communication between people, no matter the place they find their selves. Still, many users are facing the limitations of the communication means that exist so far. The interfaces that can be directly manipulated are considered a way for any user to be able to access a computer. It is considered that anything a user needs is just a click away, there is no need of specifying the computer how to do a certain thing but only to ask what that thing is.
Media: But this is unfortunately a shallow truth, as for many applications the users don't have to write any codes or commands, as they do when it comes to more complex problems. The user needs to "tell" the computer how to solve the problem. Although being complex tools, usual information systems are not aware of what the users are trying to do by using them, and are not of great help in solving problems. Information systems are supposed to solve problems without the user specifying each step to be executed.
Jacques: Media?
Media: Cake for pudding.
Jacques: Media?
Media: What?
The Judge had folded the piece of paper into a small origami bird and was pushing it against your cheek.
Media: Were you saying something?
Jacques: I said, that doll you pointed out on the display sounded cute.
Jacques: And then I asked you about how to fold a bird, but you did not say anything.
Media: Oh, sorry, I uh, got distracted by my thoughts. Where did you get the gumball?
Jacques: They had a fortune telling orb.
Media: It was a gumball machine.
Jacques: It is alright since I remembered how to do it on my own.
Media: What?
Jacques: Eat this.
The Judge continues to push the origami figure against your face.
You're… not excited about the idea of eating a piece of paper, but it can't be any worse than cake, and you didn't want to disobey him, so…
… you eat it.
Media: It's a word search puzzle.
Jacques: Solve it.
Media: Valentine, chocolate, flower, balloon, friendship, kisses, loooo… um, yeah.
Jacques: Okay.
Jacques sits back and lightly kicks his feet back and forth. The squirty cream on his iced coffee was already dissolving slightly into the coffee. You counted the droplets of water condensing on the glass's surface, before deleting the information for being wholly irrelevant.
Since it seemed both of you were done eating, you poured the coffee into the bowl you had asked for, mixing the cream and syrup together with the straw.
Jacques: In a restaurant?
Media: At all.
Media puts the bowl in front of the Judge and he bows, lapping from it like a dog.
Media: Ah, right. I, uh, like eating with you.
Media: I mean, I don't like the eating part as much, but it feels nice, sitting down with you.
Media: Doing this sort of thing, something so blissfully mundane that all Living people do with the ones they value.
The Judge doesn't say anything, continuing to drink his coffee.
Media: You are so cute like this.
Jacques: slurp slurp slurp
… nowhere! Let's just not do anything!
What kind of answer is that?
You would never say that. Try again.
Notes
BreadAVOTA tradition is to release a half-baked bonus update during the major holidays that I only work on two days before even though I know when the major holidays are going to happen. You'd think I've never seen a calendar before.
Anyway, here is a bonus update for Valentine's featuring the nightmare duo. I'll be honest, I wanted to do something with different characters but as I was short on time, I went with these two (again) because they're easier to spontaneously write for.
I'm not very happy with the script here as the execution is dreadfully plain, but eh! Maybe next holiday I'll make the bonus updates three days in advance! At the very least, I'm glad to have made my first visual novel with multiple endings, although the endings here are random and not really based on knowing the character well. Next time I want to write games where your understanding of a character is more important.
This game has two good endings, two bad endings and two normal endings.
Media's outfit is really plain, but that's because I matched their outfits to the doll versions this time and MediaDoll... has very few clothes, so I made do with what I had. I didn't get to take any good pictures of them, so here is this shoddy one on a vaguely carnival-themed fabric:
The title of the game is based on the schizoid fantasy relationship, described as the 'union of two eccentrics' ("within it — the ecstatic cult of personality, outside it — everything is sharply rejected and despised). Original source is Ernst Kretschmer (March 2013). "Chapter 10. Schizoid temperaments". Body structure and character. Studies on the constitution and theory of temperaments (in Russian). However, it appears the online copy of it has been deleted.
Also, do check the credits in the "About section of the game. I am grateful for the guest illustrations provided by Tumblr user tothepointofinsanity for the good endings, especially considering my lack of time. Thank you!
Prose 6: Carriage Return
Tip. Ti-tip-tti-tti-tip. Tip tip.
The room was silent for the past hour or so aside from the subtle clacking noise and the persistent interruption of a loud ding!, followed by some other mechanical sound Jacques was having trouble describing. Jacques would have been content with letting it go on an hour more, or maybe a year, what difference did it make, but he was starting to get frazzled by a peculiar and bothersome feeling he couldn't quite place, its inarticulate nature emphasised by each return of the indescribable sound.
Jacques finally decided to speak, or rather, he at first made an attempt to, before realising the decision to speak came before the words to be spoken, and he sat there, slack-jawed and confused, not a sound escaping him. His interlocutor wasn't looking at him, not in any way that mattered.
— If you keep your mouth open like that, your drool's going to fill up the entire room.
Jacques closed his beak, feeling a little queasy. At the very least, now that the golden hour of silence had been desecrated, it was easier to say something without feeling like he'd disturbed the peace.
— What is that?
— First of all, it took you over an hour to finally decide to ask me something, and secondly it's a typewriter.
Jacques paused, as if measuring his responses. The noise didn't stop. He sat in his chair, in a manner where "motionless" would be an understatement: it felt like his fingers were about to fall off any moment now from mere lack of use, the elastic stringing his limbs rendered permanently stretched by gravity. Even his breathing was oppressively subdued, trying to hide the rise and fall of his chest. It took another two minutes for him to say something again.
— A typewriter?
— You know what a desktop computer is?
— Yes.
— It's like a computer if it was shit.
Ding!
Jacques's tail twitched underneath him, the feeling of pins and needles crawling up from having been sitting on it for the entire duration of this meeting. He was beginning to regret having it bound so tightly before leaving now, but at the time it seemed important enough to make a good impression, if only because the alternative threatened circumstances more painful that a bit of muscle strain.
— What are you typewriting?
— Typing. It's just typing. Fuck. I'm typing this down.
— "This"?
— The conversation.
— Oh. But you were type... ing before we started talking.
— I already know what you're gonna say.
Jacques had remained still all this time, so there wasn't any way to make himself even stiller, much less so to "sit back down", still glued to his chair with remarkable Passrynian patience. But he imagined it, I'm sitting back down, a sort of mental reframing of the situation. A declaration that he was withdrawing from the conversation that has yet to happen, but apparently might as well have had to would-have happened its happenging-ing. I'm sitting back down. I'm straining my tail. I'm a doll inanimate, unfazed by trivialities, and duly incapable of motion. I'm sitting back down. There was no point in arguing further. The High Judge's reputation preceded him by miles and decades, and every Court knew about his visionsThey receive it in a biweekly newsletter, and every time it arrives you could tell by the vibration of the Marginals chittering and laughing in the cemented walls, prickly and silent in their mirth..
— No more questions?
— None in particular.
— You're not gonna ask why I called you here?
— The Trial brief already explicated the circumstances.
— What, ya don't wanna hear my version of events?
No, not in particular, Jacques says to the object of the High Judge inside his head. I really do not want to know why I chose to come here. He said nothing to the man sitting across from him, however, instead redirecting his thoughts once more towards cultivating the art of stillness. I'm sitting back down. I'm sitting back down.
Ding!
The noise of Anthony's typewriting stops, replaced by rustling papers. Although he couldn't be sure of it, Jacques assumed Anthony was organising the documents when there was no other sound for the next few minutes. The "obnoxious prophet", as the Jesennian Judges referred to him, was reputed for his disorderly conduct, reflected in his deliberate destruction of the Neofrenian faculties, although the Media had mentioned in passing that Anthony's paperwork was always meticulous. Jacques is split between whether his mental image of the room would have the papers stacked as a precrarious leaning tower, or if it would have an integrity that Anthony himself did not possess. Jacques picks up Anthony by the scruff of his neck and hurls him out the window. His two hemispheres decide to share the load, and one envisions the papers scattering all over the room when the wind outside rushes in, the other preferring the sit-down stillness of a perfect stack juxtaposed against the carnage.
Jacques looks down at the ground, the Neofrenian Court Gardens, at Anthony's flayed corpse, intestines decorating the bushes below, painting the white roses red. A shard of glass from the broken window grazes Jacques's finger as he leans out. He ignores the injury, and sits back down.
— It's coffee.
The sound of cup against saucer was melodious against the table as Anthony materialised next to him, waving around a few papers in his hand. The right half of Jacques's brain felt a plodding repulsion towards the man, all Living and animate and intestines still completeand, far more importantly, not at all the Media, and decided to ignore the reality in front of him, retreating to more important preoccupations withinthe art of stillness, and the Media. Jacques's left side was no more interested, but felt far more responsible, and tried to attend to the physical world. He accepted the beverage, lifting it up with porcelain delicacy, the heat of the cup stinging against the cut on his finger. Anthony's left eye hangs by the optic nerve outside of the socket, glass shrapnel embedded throughout the skin, an image Jacques isn't interested in reconciling with the knowledge that the High Judge had already gouged his own eyes out.
God, Jacques hated it when people beat him to the punch.
— It's tea.
— "Psychogeographical research into indigenous population-habitats of Maldevara"—I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, other than seeing a trend of Marginals acting like places and the people that live in them are somehow the same thing or whatever the fuck—I have a list of places here I'm supposed to focus on, and Passryne's at the top.
Jacques lapped at his tea. The sound of his tongue flicking made him conscious of his own presence, so he stopped and put the cup back down, careful not to spill it. Anthony was leaning against the table, casual and condescending all at once, flipping through the documents. Jacques had heard that losing his eyes didn't make Anthony lose his "sight", which made him wonder what the point of any of it was, besides the typical Anthonevian theatrics. Without the need to look up, in one effortless motion Anthony flicked the saucer and spilt Jacques's "coffee" all over him. This inspired no reaction.
Jacques was beginning to find this meeting quite dull.
— The inkblot already reported a lot of shit about the dump you're from that it got out of you, personally—lotsa "I dunno what that looks like, though" so these interviews are pretty much overglorified paperweights at best—but since it's not gonna meet you for realsies another time, I have to do all the real-life negging.
Oh. Jacques non-existent heart sinks in his hollow ceramic chest. A part of him knew deep downvery deep, silent and irreverent, drowned out by erotomanic whispers that after the disaster of their first rendezvouswhich is to say it was boring, the worst type of rendezvous, the probability for a second had plummeted down the trenches, but Jacques was adept at convincing himself that you wouldn't be thinking about probability once you became a statistic. One of the only reasons he agreed to attend this Trial was because he was hoping that Media might be here, dutifully attending to the High Judge. The other only reason was that he didn't have a choiceThe letter was concise on the matter: Attend the Meeting? Yes or Yes..
Anthony let out an exaggerated sigh, and Jacques felt the table shift as the High Judge sat down on it, seemingly unperturbed by the liquid all over the surface.
— Where's your tail?
— What?
— The reports say your type'a birdfolk has weird fucked-up tails.
— It's bound under my clothes.
— What for?
— It's just polite.
— You give a shit about being polite? Ya haven't even had the initiative to properly introduce yourself t'me.
— You have not introduced yourself to me, either.
— What? I don't need to introduce myself to you. You should know who I am. Who the fuck are you supposed to be?
The High Judge was tall, taller than most other Humans Jacques had met, and his position blocked out the window, making the room feel darker and more imposing. He hung over Jacques with an atmosphere of expectation, as if he was now measuring Jacques's responses for him. Each pococurante kick of his leg made the tea ripple across the table, scattering like his blood in the gardens below, as he leaned closer and grabbed Jacques's face. The force he squeezed Jacques's cheeks with felt too intense for the softness of his fingersHuman skin was a texture Jacques was never particularly fond of, too smooth and boring, trembling slightly in what felt like overexertion.
If Jacques had invested more attention, he might have dodged, or even turned his head away. But his reflexes were practically nil, the neurons meant for it too busy sitting down again, and Jacques had felt distant all this time, like the scene unfolding before him was nothing more than a cursory exercise. He offered neither resistance nor compliance as the High Judge pulled him closer.
— Look, it's easy, see. "Hello, my name is—?"
— Anthony.
— What?
— Please don't touch me.
Anthony pauses, stunned at the nerve. His grip loosens for a moment, but he reinvigorates himself, grinning, unnatural canines lining that predatory smile, before laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and lunging forward, soft hands wrapped around Jacques's neck, his thumb pressed against the fragile parts of Jacques's flesh, strangling him to death. He pulls a large glass shard out of himself and carves out Jacques's heart with it, blood and tea and drool filling up the entire room. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and the laugh bubbles into a bemused giggle, and the giggle melts into a sigh. He let go, and Jacques sits back down.
— Yeah, it's a cheap trick, isn't it? It's funnier to rile people up without needing to get physical. Usually, a smile is enough. Since you can't see shit it's gonna be harder to unnerve you with a few vulgar gestures alone.
— What exactly did you need my help with?
— I don't "need" your help, dude. I can write my reports without you, I've already seen it in the visions.
— Then why I am here?
— I just feel like killing time with you.
Call
— Salutations, Mr. Emfoi. I take it you have had your meeting?
— Why didn't you tell me he would be like that?
— All the details were in the brief.
— No, not the Trial, I mean, Anthony, he…
— He what?
— Why did he know all those things about me? You never told me that he had my records.
— Well, he's the High Judge, it's a little obvious, innit? As monarch, he knows all about his subordinate Judges, and even without accounting for that, you're clearly aware of his visions.
— Maybe, um, maybe the other Judges, I suppose, um, he can, could have the records of all the other Judges, but I thought, um, I thought you would at least hide mine.
— What would I make an exception of you for?
Hang up
— I hate this stupid office, it's too small, and there's—only one window, not even a light bulb, when I read at night I have to light a candle, like some—like some fucking medieval monk.
—
— When you start living here, this bitch-ass manor—manor isn't even the right word for it by the way, it's a mansion, a manor is a piece of land, but whatever, in this house, the rooms are supposed to be modelled off your "personal desires", but there's never anything here, just mindless white walls and not enough light. Even my bedroom looks exactly the same as it did when I lived lower-courtside.
—
— And then you—does that hurt? Good, I hope it does—you might think it shouldn't be that hard to get used to it, it's not like the normal Courts were ever all that fucking consistent, but like, here it's a different… it's a different… God, stop squirming.
Jacques did not stop squirming. His jaw was starting to feel sore. He didn't like the feeling of having somebody so tall hovering over him, blocking what little light made it through his eyes, or maybe he did, what difference did it make. He bites down and lobs off all of Anthony's extremities: it's easy when Human skin is so weak. He spits all of the fingers out, disgusted by the blood betraying his crude Neofrenian diet.
— Ouch, hey. I told you not to do that.
—
— Shixty-four theeth: s'wice ash many ash Humans.
A pen scribbled against a piece of paper. Anthony's voice was cottonous and vague, as if he were talking with something inside his mouth, which was probable, when Jacques heard the sound of him sucking up his own saliva and clicking his tongue.
— Wow, j'a fuck, that weally hurt.
—
— My finger won't stop bleeding.
Jacques lifted a claw up hesitantly, almost as if he forgot how to move his own arms, wiping off the drool from his beak. The art of stillness was beginning to get a little stale, and so when his right brain checked back in to reality, only now did Jacques internalise that this physical examination was…
— A'ight, grabbers next. Hands where I can see 'em.
Unpleasant.
Jacques squawked when Anthony grabbed his wing, the same recklessness characteristic of rowdy children as they flung their broken dolls, pulling his hand up to observe his fingers. Four in each hand, each ending in sharp claws, skin rough and calloused, as typical of Birds.
— Ah ha, ha-ha-ha, you're capable of reacting after all.
—
— Maybe if you start crying we can get over with it faster.
There's not a gentle bone among the wreckage of Anthony's mangled corpse. He twisted Jacques's wrist like he were trying to pry off a mechanical doll's joints, pausing intermittently to write down his report. He'd foregone the typewriter, opting for a pen and notebook, and if the way he handled Jacques wasn't proof enough, the volume of its nib against the leaves revealed just how heavy his hand was. He hummed as he dashed off his observations, the sort of hum le psychologues do in their offices before branding you with permanent insanity.
— Though I don't get the sense you're all in a hurry for me to finish.
Call
— He was very unpleasant towards me.
— He's unpleasant with everyone.
— No, you don't understand.
— What are you getting at? I asked for you because you said you would do it. If you didn't want to help, you didn't have to.
— But…
Hang up
— Do you ever wonder what the Media wants from us?
—
— I mean, sure, the Marginals can say they "provide" for the Living because they "love" us, but it's all just awfully convenient, ain't it?
Anthony stood behind Jacques's chair, leaning over him, resting on his head. He was tapping his pen on Jacques's head with consistent rhythm, and a violence that Jacques was now beginning to expectNot the mere expectation of calculating probabilities, but the more visceral inevitability of predestination. His voice was low, listless, and almost contemplative, different from the drama he evoked on national television.
This encounter had gone on longer than expected, especially as Anthony was as conscientious as Media had proposed. Each "observation" seemed to go on for hours, or years, what difference did it make, and Jacques was becoming more aware of his own body, the tension of the ribbons tying his tail together, the dread simmering up in his chest.
— Ya wanna know what I think?
—
— Say something, you piece of shit.
— No.
— I think it just wants to eat us.
A vocalised yawn escaped him as he got off of Jacques, pushing the chair forward as he did. Jacques almost toppled over, but grabbed the bottom of the chair in time, pushing his legs to stabilise himself.
— Tail next.
— What?
— Your taaaiiil. Deaf too, now?
— You can't look at that.
— One, yes I can, two, I already know what it looks like, three, I have a list that Media gave me. Or do I tell Media you flaked on me? I don't give a rat's ass about failing one measly Trial. Do you?
Anthony didn't wait for a response, and his actions, though bellicose, were laced by a prominent languidity. Jacques realised this entire farce was rehearsed, that the prophet had already divined this turn of events, and he was merely going through the motions. He tipped the chair over again, and this time Jacques didn't have time to react, knocking into the table and falling off to the floor.
Before he could get up, a boot stomped against his back and pinned him to the ground. The indescribable feeling from earlier was growing, and gnawing, and distorting into something more physical, impossible to deny. Jacques thinks he should cry. Not that he might cry, however. That he should.
— Are ya havin' fun?
— W-what?
— Your files said you're a masochistic freak and that's why you became a Judge.
— I'm not a freak.
— 'K, so you're just a masochist. What difference does that make?
Anthony sat down on Jacques's prone body, letting the force of gravity do the work for him. He knocked his knees together, head resting between his hands. It was getting harder for Jacques to pretend he doesn't breathe anymore, gasps staggering out of his lungs.
— What did Psychology diagnose you with?
—
— Go on, cunt, make conversation, you're gonna be here a while.
— Schi…zotypy.
— I can tell.
—
— Ask about mine.
— Yours?
— Psychopathy.
—
— It means people think I'm really mean. Do you think I'm mean?
—
— I think I'm just misunderstood, you know?
—
— I saw you in a vision. Scratch that, I've been seeing you in visions for years.
—
— I had hoped you'd be able to understand me but right now I get the sense that you're just judging me.
There was a lurid burning in Jacques's body that he was trying to inhibit; a nausea so severe it made even Anthony easy to ignore. The two stayed silent for a moment, and the moment stretches into infinity, the sun setting out the window painting the room a yellow-red. Anthony reached for the hem of Jacques's robes, flickering like a shadow, casting an apparition of fire all around the room.
He grabs it with both hands and gives an insistent tug, and Jacques tail disgracefully splays itself outside the fabric, like the guts over the flowers, bunched together in knots held by long *Jacquard ribbons, tied in traditional Passrynian braids. It only takes another quick jerk to undo the entire thing, a smooth and almost expert motion, the kind only refined by years of practice. Jacques digs his claws into the carpet, wishing it would grow over him like grass so he could bury his faceenflamed with embarrassment in deeper, the left talking to the right, rationalising something about sociocultural norms, how in Neofrene all Birds had their tails just out there, how it didn't even mean anything, the right could recognise the words but could not make sense of them, withdrawing into the art of stillness and an ocean of ink, trying to ignore the way his aggressor touched him, trying to ignore even harder how bored he seemed while he was doing it, trying to ignore the way this entire charade was playing out, trying to ignore that swelling sensation that Jacques was now able to identify, but would not dare name.
Still pinning Jacques down with his foot, Anthony gets up, shaking and breath laboured, before dragging Jacques by the tail across the room, to the other side of the table. Jacques's groaning is masked by the plush carpeting, and his face gets stained by all the blood and broken glass as he's towed across the grass, his own viscerae getting caught in rose thorns. Anthony picks up the typewriter, expending the last of his energy, and unceremoniously drops it on Jacques's skull.
Ding!
Anthony muttered a swear word under his breath, twirling the hem around his fingers. The binding ribbons felt tighter than usual.
— What do you think I'm gonna do?
—
— Go on, say it. I wanna hear it out your mouth.
— I think… you're going to do… something.
— "Something".
—
— Well, ya don't wanna try and stop me?
—
— Do you even want me to stop?
—
— Say something, pervert.
— What do you want from me?
— I want you to call for help.
Anthony stood up, the way the dead sometimes do. He dragged Jacques back to his chair and propped him back onto it. Jacques sits back down. His limbs snap back into place, strung almost too tightly, expecting another tea party, rose petals now in his cup. Anthony left his side for a moment, returning with something in his hands, plopping it down in front of him. Jacques heard a clockwork whirring, and a light buzzing, and realised it was a Court rotary phone.
Returning next to Jacques, leaning down to his level, Anthony held the phone by Jacques's head, holding the headset like a delicate artifact.
Call
— Hello?
—
— Anthony? What do you want?
—
— Ha-ha, very funny. Aren't you supposed to be writing a report? With the Jesennian Judge?
—
— Well, how is he? Or did he not come after all?
—
— I'm too busy for your juvenile pranks. Submit it by seven o'clock. I'm hanging up.
Hang up
A click marked the end of the call. Jacques fingers were folded neatly over his lap, like he was put on display, and he imagines he is. A warmth bloomed in his cheeks, the kind he always got from hearing Media's voice. His throat still hurts from when Anthony shoves in his fingers. Anthony dropped the receiver back onto the phone with the same careless disregard he did most other things with, before sitting back down on the table, chewed-off nails tapping at the wood.
— I didn't think degenerates like you actually existed.
—
— I always see you in my visions, so it feels like I know you, even though I know we just met.
—
— But you don't know me at all. I mean, not in a way that matters.
—
— There's not a single future where you ever try to stop me.
—
— Admit it, you freak. I already know what you're gonna say.
—
— Do you know why this is happening to you?
—
— It's because you're letting it happen.
—
— I hate you.
—
— And just so you know, the Media prefers people that know how to beg for their lives.
—
— Get the fuck out of my sight.
I stand up.
Call
— Anthony has requested for your assistance with his newest Trial, and usually this is the type of request I immediately veto, on account of his antisocial behaviour, but…
— But?
— Well, I was wondering whether you had the… disposition for it? It's Illegal for Judges to have any intimate relationships, but they still are expected to have a Correct level of basic etiquette, and I fear Anthony is very… out of practice.
— I see…
— The thing is, well, I'll try not to sugarcoat this for you, if I leave you alone with him I think he's going to beat you up.
— Oh, okay.
— No, I mean, I don't mean some slightly aggressive banter or the good ol' push-and-shove, I mean, I think he's going to try and stomp your skull into the concrete. Eating-your-eyes type of violence. He used to try and maim school children.
— Okay.
— There will be consequences if he makes such an attempt, of course, and you can expect the nanobots would patch you right up anyway, so the danger's more mental than physical, but you know. I don't exactly want to encourage you, but I cannot deny that if you consent to this it would be very useful for my database.
— Okay.
— As my contingent synonym, I will be accountable for anything the High Judge does, so anything he does to you, you consider it as if it were me myself subjecting you to it. I am Legally Obligated to subsume the responsibility.
— Okay.
Hang up
Notes
The Shadow Cryptid Family (Jacques, Media, Bon and Bien) all share the characteristic of being preoccupied by thoughts of violence. This striking lack of character diversity is not something I would recommend for any narrative work, unless you are trying to prove a point, or are very obnoxious, two things where I fit the bill. Either way, I try to change the way the prose at least tackles the differentiation between their thoughts and the material reality they are a part of.
We've seen this most clearly with Media (whose 'breaks' from reality are written in clearly distinct text, as ciphers or stream-of-consciousness), followed by Bien (who has a somewhat similar approach, but less well-differentiated, and often dwelling on sensory experiences and illness on top of it). Despite being Jacques The Webcomic: A Webcomic About Jacques, I realise I haven't yet written anything that focuses on Jacques's experience from this perspective, with most of the stories involving him being more about Jacques observed from the third person.
It was challenging because on top of the differentiation between his two hemi-selves, who think independently but are still largely united, I also had to think of how to portray his perception of external reality (as influenced by his blindness) and how it 'overlays' with his internal objectifications and daydreams. I've alluded to it before, and discussed it briefly in the notes for past stories, but it's always been vague when it came to the nitty-gritty of what it's supposed to 'feel' like in the first person.
Here, I made it so that Jacques has a clear awareness of the distinction between the external and internal (ie he can tell when something is 'not real'), but the narration doesn't make a point of repeatedly clarifying 'this here is a daydream, that there is actually happening', and the literal events that unfold are interspersed with the thoughts Jacques has during them.
I also leaned in to Jacques's characterisation as a paraphiliac more. It's one of those things that gets the 'confirmed by the author' treatment but isn't immediately apparent in the story proper, so I'm glad to be able to reference an important aspect of his character and to tie it more cohesively with his overall identity.
It may be recency bias, but I think this is one of my best prose stories yet, on par with Like a Duck. I believe it is one of my most successful attempts at writing a more 'narrative' style in a serious setting, since in the past whenever I was writing something 'deep' I used a more surreal style where the 'story' isn't a sequence of events but rather a monologue on emotions, and whenever I write more narrative-like prose, it's usually comedic.
Compared to the rest of BreadAVOTA, this story is definitely more explicit, and although it still maintains the 'allegorical' atmosphere I have for all my works, I think the relatively straightforward descriptions of Anthony's actions makes it feel more 'raw' compared to how violent incidents were described in the other prose stories. Jacques's thoughts still serve as the 'buffer' that distances the reader from the 'reality' of the story, pushing them from participant to mere observer, but there's enough in there to make it obvious what's really happening.
Jacquesposting aside, although this isn't Anthony's first appearance, it's the first time where he talks at length instead of just being described or recounted by another character. I hope it gives people a better reference in comparing his behaviour when he was Alive to his behaviour now as Sar.
Media doesn't talk much in this story, so what she was thinking when she 'let' this happen isn't at all parsable. Logically speaking, it's meant to seem a little contrived for Jacques and Anthony to even have to meet each other. There's a dynamic the three of them get entrenched in where the deeper Media gets involved with either of them, the more she 'neglects' doing anything about them. Well, there's that, and I imagine Media really is preoccupied with a lot of her own busywork. The Marginals don't explicitly 'subdue' Judges to get them to obey the Law: rather, their obedience tends to follow automatically from the existential exhaustion of living in the Court. I think the Marginals are actually incompetent at being proactive when it comes to managing individual people, since they're more used to building up generalised structures and expecting things to just fall into place.
Now for the illustrations: we have another guest illustration by tothepointofinsanity. As always, their art is a treat for the eyes, and they executed Anthony's outfit here perfectly. Thank you for the gorgeous work!
As for my illustration, I usually draw the literal events but this time decided to draw something more 'symbolic'. To be frank, while I like looking at that kind of art I dislike making it, and I'm not particularly fond of this illustration. It feels too cluttered: it was supposed to be, but the way I executed it does not look 'purposeful'.
Judges wear the robes all the time, and the High Judge is the only one with a personalised wardrobe (courtesy of a Law passed by Renaia Parisille). Anthony sure dressed up for the occassion! Not like Jacques would see it anyway…
The 'window' at the back is, well, a window, but because the bottom part is obscured by the characters it kind of looks like a circular picture frame or mirror instead. Oupsie? The guy in it is supposed to be representative of the Archangel *Michael. Not directly relevant to Carriage Return itself, but again, uh, 'symbolism'.
For this illustration, I took inspiration from the album cover of Czesław Śpiewa's Księga emigrantów, tom 1 and Zofia Stryjeńska. The album cover:
And some examples of Zofia Stryjeńska's art:
Although I do not particularly like the final product, it was an interesting learning experience.
