#((Alas there are things called public decency and not getting too much attention))

[dcggersedge]

🎄

What was this ridiculous sprig of green and red? A single irritated gander directed toward sky and ceiling provisioned that answer. Rafal grunted, the low hanging brush of prickly leaves swept aside by his waving hand, thoughts to follow within ear shot of the companion at his side as if she might wield better understanding of it. Wise over man made triviality was this dragon not.

"Mistle. . .toe, is it? Such strange and groundless tradition that humankind conjures into being." Nigh incomprehensible to the spiritless denizens of a long dead Gradlon, a land dreary always, and festive never. The greater layer of lunacy at hand; one could scarcely fathom the origins of a tradition dedicated solely to bringing mouths together and minds in embarrassed conflict.

What was the purpose; did people welcome this opportunity, enjoy it, the casting off of inhibition and propriety for the fleeting union beneath a accursed leaf? Perhaps there were room to find out for oneself.

"Well. I am at least aware of the rules. In accordance with them, I could begin to imagine that we are at a stalemate." There was nothing stopping Rafal from moving on, but still he stayed within an inch of Yunaka. He crossed his arms, steadily rooted on his heels. Gaze lowered to surveil her. . .why was it that his eyes lidded, too? "How exactly is it to be broken, Yunaka?" A curious and meandering nonchalance, born with every intent to find out.

"Perhaps, just perhaps, you can show me."

'tis the season | accepting!

Man. He was so lucky that he was pretty. It almost made up for how annoying he could be.

Even as she rolls her eyes, she's smiling. Oh, sure, he totally hates the tradition so much that he's going to stick around just to find out just how much he hates it. Totally believable and real. She wonders if he hears how he sounds when he talks like that, or if he's just so confident in himself that it doesn't even register as silly. She wishes she had that kinda energy.

"Stalemate? Sounds like you're just making up an excuse to hand me a win." The proud and scary dragon could never be the one to admit that he just wanted a kiss. Absolutely not. Yunaka leans back against the doorframe with a tilt to her head, like she's trying to think. "What does that make it now? Like, a million to one, for me? You're slacking, Rafal."

Now, how does she want to enjoy her win?

"There's lots of ways we could break it, I think." Casually, she reaches out and places a hand on his arm. She slides it along until she can wrap around his wrist and pull it free. From there, her grip shifts, until she's holding his hand like a knight might take their lord's.

"We can do something boring and simple that gets the job done." Her first suggestion is punctuated by the press of her lips to the back of his hand. Her eyes never leave his, watching for any hint of fluster. She wants her win to be sweet, after all.

But that's boring. She didn't hang around Rafal because he was boring. And just a kiss to the lips was so predictable.

"Or, if we wanted something a little more bold..." There's a few ideas, but none of which she wants to do where someone might pass by and see. She moves his hand, still keeping it near her, still keeping the back of it facing her. She pushes lightly, until she's able to get him to hold his ring finger just a little separate from the others.

Enough that she can bite down on it. Not hard, just enough for the threat of teeth to be felt, right where an Emblem Ring would have sat. Sharp eyes still watch, this time with a promise.

A little more bold, if they have the privacy.

[magnus-archives-fan-statements]

MAG0001 - Still-Beating

[CLICK]

Archivist

Statement of Pierre-François Percy, regarding the life, and autopsy, of the Frenchman simply known as ‘Tarrare’. Original statement given as a part of a letter to Jonah Magnus, February 18th, 1824. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Archivist (Statement)

My dearest Jonah, 

Having heard through mutual acquaintances, it must be stated how strangely fond you have become over that endeavour of yours. It amazes me, truly, that there could possibly be as much esoteric substance in this world as you believe. It finally explains one thing that has irked me for the past few decades. Thus, I found it right to finally indulge in your youthful project, as I believe it holds a great deal of value for the future. Perhaps long after both of our times on this earth are up. I grow sick of my memoirs, and thus I shall bestow upon you my statement. One that bodes no relevance in any of my texts. Any relevance that I’d wish to give to the public, that is. 

I’m certain you remember my most notorious autopsy. A man of no proper name, date of birth, or worth. From what I can tell, he earned the name, ‘Tarrare’ from the likes of fellow showmen of the streets of paris. What made him so special, as I am sure you already know, was his nature as a polyphage. He would eat anything. He could devour feasts fit for dozens of full grown men, and yet still remained hungry. In the few moments that we had been within each other's presence, before his death, he spoke rather fondly of being eternally hungry. Alas, he may have associated himself with charlatans and thieves, he could not lie to save his life. That hunger had ached him. It must have been a true pain for his life to constantly endure that necessity to gorge on whatever he could find. If that pain of his was akin to what I’ve had to endure recently, then it is no wonder he went to such taboo thresholds of debauchery. He ate plenty - plenty of things he should not have. Live animals, the poor things, had been subject to being mere meals to him. He didn't have the decency to kill them first, and I struggle to imagine the pain that they’d endure, trapped from within him. A monster he may have been, yes, but a monster that was in pain. I could not stop myself from giving him my sympathies. 

There was always something wrong about poor Tarrare. In all of his tricks, it never seemed to be that he was actually filled by whatever he ate. You would expect a little bit of bloating after he had eaten, say, an entire basket of apples. Alas, he always seemed malnourished. Deathly thin, past his rancid demeanour. As if he hadn’t actually been digesting what he was eating. It was certainly not an illusion, some brave fellows had directly dropped whatever they could find directly into his mouth. I could never. Whilst his cadaver was of interest to me, the idea of being close to him, whilst still being alive haunts me. 

It had not surprised me that his parlour tricks would eventually be the death of him. With nowhere else to go, he must have fled from all forms of medical attention until being diagnosed with tuberculosis, with not much time left to aid him. He called for me, directly. I had to travel from Paris down to Versailles, of all places. In all the years since our initial time together, he really did not get far. I left a few days later, I had unfinished business that was of relative importance. Although, I was too late. Tarrare had been pronounced dead, soon after, in the year of our lord, 1798 AD. By the time I got there, he had been dead for a few days. Not one person had the decency to preserve or care for his remains. They were dirty, and disgusting, but the lack of care for him was what truly aggravated me. A man of his wonders, and everyone sat by and did nothing? Blasphemy, I tell you. Blasphemy to what we work for. For discovery.

 He did not leave a clean corpse behind, to nobody’s surprise. The polyphate was bloated, and had rotted away as if he was being supported only by his strange feasts, and not by the air that we breathe. That was made evident after I volunteered to dissect him, myself. Nobody else could, especially from the dreadful stench that had filled any room that his corpse had been left in. Despite this, my curiosity had gotten the better of me. I had to know what he was hiding, underneath those piles of flesh. This, my dear friend, is the reason that I believe this story belongs in your collection of events. 

I had little help with my investigation, as expected. From my discovery, though, I could tell that his hunger had a perfect explanation. His torso, alone, had almost been entirely dedicated to his digestion system. From what I could tell, his lungs, whilst being of a fully-grown man, had been the size of a toddlers. He should have been dead long, long ago, and yet he remained relatively healthy, for his deformities. The same could be said for his heart, kidneys, and his ribcage. By all means, he should never have been alive to begin with. And yet he had lived for so, so long. His eyes twitched with every pull and twist I had made from within his cadaver. Even when I pulled his heart from his chest, there had still been a strange sense of life in his twisted face. I had to investigate, you know me. It was strange, even for a man of his uniqueness. The first place I investigated were his eyes. They should have been dull, with the corneas clouded. He passed away a day or two ago, you see. He should have been showcasing more symptoms than simply being… dead. Yet, here he remained. His eyes were clear, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw them look at me. Not in my direction, no, but rather directly at me. That hadn’t been the only peculiar thing about him, though. Saliva dribbled from his mouth, as if he were still hungry, even in death!

The most disgusting part of that procedure was his skin, and any visible aspect of his body before I began to make any incisions. When I stood above him, I had the faintest idea that he may have still been alive. His body had a sense of weakness to it. One that had a flicker of warmth, not found in the healthy, nor the dead. Alas, he had no pulse, and when I had eventually found his heart, it remained still. That’s why I still feel nervous, over what I had observed of him, before looking inside. His skin was horrid, rancid, even. Disgusting to even imagine, to this day. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had removed his heart mere moments ago, I’d suspect that he was still alive. My suspicions were, unfortunately, correct. Involuntary spasms are common in the dead, last moments of life desperately trying to hold on. Yet, I’ve never heard of a corpse that could talk. 

He told me something that I fear I’ll never forget. As if paralysed, he moved only his eyes, and began to speak. ‘Please help’ was all he could muster, without blood foaming at his mouth. It could not have happened, I swear on it. Perhaps they were delusions, frightful delusions. There’s nothing that could cause that, and still it happened. I had to keep going, ignore the falsehoods that projected in front of me. That delusion of mine was auditory only, it must’ve been the idea of him still being alive that made me think of him looking at me. 

I finally got to his stomach, the bloated, ulcerated mess that it was. Almost all of his torso was dedicated to his digestion system, the damn thing. I’ve seen plenty of organs in my lifetime, of the human variety and of beasts. Nothing ever looked like what I saw. It was noxious, to say the least. It still moved. Gargling, twisting, jerking. Like a heart.

I had to remove it. I could not think of anything else to do. If something was causing it to move, it was a danger to me, and to anything else in the vicinity. It grumbled, churned, akin to a parasite. Putting my palms on either side of it, I pulled. Nothing. After a few incisions, slicing it away from the rest of his body, I pulled again. Still, nothing. With all of my force, I tried one final time, and ripped it apart. From the other side of his stomach, there was no inner lining. No resemblance of stomach acid. Instead, there was a hole. Not a wound, it wasn’t bloodied, and there was no resemblance of damage to his back either. Yet it was there. Gaping wide, what I could imagine to be saliva having dribbled from its crevice. I regret looking inside. What I saw wasn't right. 

I saw meat. Plenty of it, more than what could have been from within his body. It wasn’t right, it wasn't his flesh, it was of his prey. Snake meat is easy to differentiate, and it made up plenty of what was inside of him. I took it out, piece by piece, heap by heap, and yet it was never ending. I had carved away everything that was once inside of Tarrare, and yet there was more. It wasn’t possible. I turned Tarrare on his side, and pushed my hand in. I would feel his spine, eventually, but never did. I only stopped once I pushed my elbow past his skin. It would not stop. 

When I looked back at Tarrare's face, he fell dormant. His eyes were fully opaque. I hate to imagine what that meant. He was human, despite the abnormalities, but that could not have made sense. 

I looked within. Curiosity had latched onto me, and I knew that I would not stop until I’d find a proper explanation. Something to define this vile monstrosity. There were piles of it. Blood-coated things, that laid in great mountains, from within him. The smell was enough to make me nearly faint. The hells were open, and I am afraid that it may be the same place that poor Tarrare’s soul has been dammed to. The mountains were getting smaller, toppling over, small pieces being dragged away by the floor itself. As if I had peered into a hall of putrid flesh, made manifest. 

If I kept my hand in, much longer, I fear it would’ve been taken. It seemed to be a place with pure indifference to what entered the heaps. I saw gold. Shiny materials interwoven with the blood. Cutlery, a gold fork, something he apparently spoke of as being the cause of his illness, was lodged in the piles of flesh. He did eat the fork, yes, despite what my medical records show. I couldn’t write in them saying that I had found a mountain of meat from within him, containing the very fork, no. I’m eccentric, but I am not crazy. 

Upon this horrific inspection, I had to excuse myself from the morgue, for my own wellbeing. More and more of the impossible had been unveiled about this polyphate, more than what I was happy to think of. In the halls, I managed to breathe some relatively fresh air. That was when I had run into a strange fellow, one I had never met before. He seemed as if he came from your part of London. The one of Aristocracy and arrogance. Of course, I mean nothing of the sort to you, Jonah. I find you to be welcoming company, unlike that man. 

Despite his voice, that man was built as if he were a tavern brawler. He dressed as a surgeon, had the scalpel and equipment of a surgeon, and yet seemed so out of place. His clothing seemed to be a few sizes too small for him, and the clothes were certainly not clean enough for him to consider doing his job. I believe he stole it. The name that’d be stitched into his shirt had been ripped away, too, and a crude patch was sewn on in its place. He wouldn’t let me see what was written there, saying that his word was more than enough proof to who he was. In one hand had been a glove, gripped tightly into a fist, whereas his other hand was keeping a hold of a potato sack, stained red. It bulged and contorted in shapes that made me believe that it was not potatoes inside. Something else. He called himself Doctor Aver. He hadn’t given me any proof of that name, so I believe it could’ve been a lie, or that he wasn’t a doctor at all. He asked if he could see ‘The Remains’. My belief is that only the doctors who had begun the investigation should keep with a cadaver. They know what they’re looking for. If this Aver fellow ended up removing the wrong thing, it could remove all notions of interest on what made Tarrare into, well, into what he was. I stood my ground, if you’d believe it. Against such a behemoth, I felt akin to David against Goliath. But, it wasn’t enough. He attacked me. Threw me to the ground, and gave me a rather nasty head injury. By the time I had come to my senses, I had returned to the surgery. Tarrare was gone, the tiles on the floor were shattered, and the surgical table that I had him laid upon was toppled over. Aver was nowhere to be seen, either. They had both disappeared into thin air. All that had remained was a steaming pile of fresh blood and guts, with the same potato sack, empty, thrown across the room. 

What truly terrifies me of this realisation, is not that the remains seemed fresh, but what I had seen, buried within the piles of flesh and still-beating organs. A twitching, golden chain, and the faint noise of ticking. He must have eaten it before his last meal. Memory serves me issues, nowadays, but I do faintly recall his desire to eat a surgeon’s watch, after saving his life. The Surgeon, Giraud, had threatened to cut him open and retrieve the watch himself - years before the autopsy. I worry that there may have been some sort of dastardly trick being played on me, by my associates, and yet, I found myself unable to ask anybody else what I was being subject to. It laid, bloodsoaked, on the ground, surrounded by piles of gore. Human gore.

 I burned what was left. I left that watch somewhere, a place that I do not care to remember now. I knew I could not make sense of it all, Aver, the fork, the meat… and so I kept it secret, until now. I bid to you my last secret, one that I am certain will plague me with nightmares. Although, I did do some investigations of my own, on the watch. To my amazement, and dreadful terror, Giraud had passed away mere days before that autopsy. He was found, bare, in the streets of Paris. Returning home from work, I’d assume. He was gutted, and was left as a hollow cadaver. 

My most sincere apologies for neglecting to tell you of this paranormal encounter any sooner. I figured that your work, whilst consisting of the crazed commoners of London, would be unfit for your institute. Alas, I believe that a story that goes untold is a story not worth remembering. And if there were to be a person I’d exchange this tale with, it’d certainly be you. Keep safe, Jonah. And look out for any possible surgeons, who knows what they may be holding onto.  

Yours to trust, 

Pierre-François Percy

Archivist

Statement ends.

Well, I am certainly happy that I had lunch early today. 

Jonah Magnus, in all of his wonders, certainly had famed friends. I had Sasha do some investigations into Percy’s papers, and yes, it did not mention this supposed ‘Aver’, or whatever the contents of that stomach of Tarrare’s actually held. Other than that, though, there’s not much that we can do to validate his thoughts. It should be stated that Pierre-François Percy passed away a year after giving his statement to Jonah Magnus. Unknown illness, in the end. 

I do find myself drawn to ‘Aver’, however. If it’s true that he was the one who had killed Giraud, then it’d explain how he managed to enter a morgue without drawing suspicion. Although, the name ‘Aver’ does seem to remind me of Case 0130109, with Aver Meats and its… excessive amounts of gore and guts. I worry that whatever Tarrare’s stomach had led to… it ended up in that abattoir. 

I’m getting tired of all of the meat. 

End recording. 

[CLICK]

[robert-c]

Big Business vs Small Business

I admit to having a love/hate relationship with both sides of this title. 

The Big Business can accomplish things through economies of scale that are completely unthinkable to the small business. Its command of capital makes virtually all significant research and discovery possible because investing in the unknown is both risky and costly, even if the payoff (admittedly most often a long shot) can be huge.

However, Big Businesses tend to be overly conservative, as in risk avoidance. The momentum of what has worked for them in the past tends to blind management from thinking of something new. The people who rise to the top in such a business tend to be unimaginative, status quo keepers. Right up until bankruptcy, the argument that following what we know has been true in the past always seems to make more sense, because it appears to be less risky and in some minds “more prudent”.

While Big Businesses often do get away with treating their employees unfairly, they are the easier to force into compliance with regulations and laws due to their public profile as long as others are willing to make a concerted effort at exposing their illegal behavior. (And as long as the mindless, blind faith believers in the goodness of big business don’t make too much of an impact.)

Small Businesses are the soul of invention and creation. They are often captained by people whose vision was ignored by their former big business employers. Their close contact with their employees, who make their business successful, gives them a chance to ensure their vision is implemented correctly. This contact usually (but alas not always) makes them willing to treat their employees as well as the business can afford. Unfortunately without the resources of the big business, wages and benefits typically suffer by comparison to the larger organization.

At the same time, by virtue of their size, they are often exempt from many regulations put in place to protect applicants and employees from discrimination and to provide minimal employee benefits. Because the Small Business is typically totally owned by a single individual, or family, there are little to no checks and balances to protect against the failings of the owner. The confidence to strike out on one’s own is a rare and special quality; which sometimes can lead to arrogant and egotistical behavior that ignores or discounts the contributions of others, and blocks consideration of any idea or advice that doesn’t originate in their own head. Worse still is the thought that their employees should feel honored and consider it a privilege to help the owner achieve their dreams. All too often they treat the personal lives of employees as if they were somehow under the control of the business because of the presumption that they might reflect poorly on the owner.

I’ve seen some Big Businesses try to act like the small ones. A charismatic CEO seeks to impose his vision on the whole organization and talks the talk of all employees having a stake in the business and the authority to do their jobs as if they “owned the business”. But in practice, the ideas flow only from the top down, others never make it up the chain, and employees soon realize that they can act as if they owned the business only so long as they can successfully act like the CEO would in each case. Not surprisingly, few employees choose to risk their jobs on their ability to “read the mind” of the boss.

While I doubt any Big Business has really managed to capture the nimbleness and commitment of the best of the small businesses, I’m willing to admit to the possibility. At the same time I would be more suspicious the more the business tries to advertise itself that way. Because committing resources to image making is exactly the sort of thing a Big Business can afford to do much more easily than actually becoming that sort of entity.

In my consulting career I had hoped to help Small Businesses by giving them the tools and expertise of the large businesses at rates they could afford. It was my hope and belief that the innovation and enthusiasm of the Small Business coupled with the techniques of the big business could make them even more successful. It was to be the validation of the free enterprise system’s competition mythos beating the power of moneyed big business. Though I had some successes, I discovered that there were a lot more of the Small Businesses that were just the tiny fiefdoms of petty tyrants than there were those who understood the value of consistent policies and procedures.

So here I am, at the end of a long career of trying to be professional and fair and encourage better practices for businesses of all sizes. The harshest lesson I have learned is that egotistical and greedy people out for power and/or money seem to dominate too many of the roles in businesses (big and small) and that it is only law, regulation and vigilance that keeps them from even more disastrous cutting of corners on safety, quality and basic human decency. It isn’t just the decision makers and their cheerleaders who are to blame. It’s also all of the rest of us who fail to realize that “capitalism” can be the incentive for this sort of anti-social behavior, and that even at its very best, it is biased in favor of short term results.

When touting the successes of capitalism let’s not overlook the role public incentive played in some of our greatest and most important developments.

A transcontinental railway, that knitted together a diverse and far flung country, bringing goods from one coast to the other much more rapidly, and spurring all sorts of businesses. Who knows when such an effort would have been completed without land grants to the railroads. In a purely “free market” the payoff would have seemed far off and hard to control especially since so many other businesses (and the people) could potentially benefit from the effort.

The Federal promotion of the Interstate highway system (as a grander follow up to establishment of “US” highways) certainly gave the automotive industry quite a boost; as well as trucking companies, providing viable competition to rail.

The space program and the race to the moon may have been born of a cold war rivalry and image grandstanding, but the innovations engendered by that program kicked computers, satellites and a whole host of technologies into high gear and rapid development. Even beyond the electronics, materials science benefited from the seeds planted in the early research to achieve these goals.

I’m happy when businesses, large or small, can make improvements in the cost or range of options (while keeping the quality) of any good or service. But I’m also mindful that in addition to sometimes needing a boost to move in the right direction, they also sometimes need a brick wall to stop them from moving in another.

Call me whatever name makes you feel comfortable (socialist, communist, etc.); it will only underline your ignorance of their definitions. I am not now, and never will be again, a devotee of laissez faire capitalism. I believe it works best when it is regulated to enforce some consideration for the general welfare and safety of the consumers and employees who actually make a business a success. It succeeds in its promise of a better life and opportunity for all where there are legal disincentives to counter the very real financial incentives to “do it on the cheap”, to play fast and loose with the truth, etc. The excuse of profit cannot be an unimpeachable defense for every decision. As much as we all like to imagine ourselves as powerful individuals, free to act as we wish, perhaps to one day be a “billionaire”, I think it’s time to temper that image with one that is a bit more realistic; one where we acknowledge that almost nothing is accomplished by someone truly on their own and alone, unconnected to others.

Even the “pulp fiction” of the nineteenth century that glorified the possibility of rising to success from humble beginnings recognized “luck” as a factor, (e.g. Horatio Alger’s “Luck and Pluck” among others). So even the myth-makers of this rags to riches version of capitalism acknowledged that other factors had to be in play, beyond hard work and good ideas.

So big business or small there are challenges to do it right.

If you are a Big Business, instead of seeking to be seen as an “employer of choice”, BE that employer. Walk the talk of employees being able to do the right thing for customers on their own decision. Respect the ideas of the professionals who work for the company when they have ideas or reservations about managements’ ideas. Instead of meetings where all we hear about are the grand plans of the executive council, how about basic education about the business and solicitation of ideas about strategies going forward? WHEN these ideas are gathered and evaluated management can come back with a meeting about executive plans with clear answers to why this path was selected over others. NOW with everyone understanding the plan they will be in a better position to support it with their own decisions. And since none of these decisions can be made perfectly, perhaps (humbling as it may seem) management should establish and communicate the criteria which will mean the current strategy has failed and open the discussion up to a new approach. Despite the apparent awkwardness of such an idea, it is a whole lot better than the pretense that nothing has gone wrong, which fools no one you would really want working for you.

If you are a Small Business you may already enjoy the benefit of everyone understanding what the business is about and what needs to be done to succeed. What you need to be mindful of is the lack of attentiveness to ideas from any level of the staff as well as inconsistencies in policies and pay that reflect personal biases.

It truly is my fervent hope that all businesses will be successful by doing the right things by their employees and customers. When they don’t, I consider it a failing of our cultural morality as well as a failure of regulation and law.