#electricians nearby me

[lakshmirani778899]

Electricians in Bangalore are available in large quantities, but it is always smart to choose the best Electrical Service in Bangalore for homes and offices. Electrical services must be done by professionals so that the connections in the home stay fine. Electricity is present in every house and building, and in a city like Bangalore, people consume a huge amount of electricity.

[clarkelectric1]

Electrician Nearby

Are you in a bind and in need of a trustworthy electrician nearby? Our team of skilled professionals is dedicated to providing you with exceptional electrical services that exceed your expectations. From minor repairs to major installations, we approach every job with the same level of attention to detail and expertise. Visit Clark Electric today to know more about our services. 

[sonamytrash]

A good fuckin' show

Electrician Toji Fushiguro.

Porn trope Toji series, part 1🖤

Warnings: MDNI, Dom!Toji x fem!reader, shameless smut, smut with minimal plot, smut with porno plot, vaginal fingering, eating pussy, eating ass, fisting, squirting, oral sex (m and f receiving), cum swallowing, dirty talk, probably more, not proof read.

I don't know what to say for myself. I got carried away, but there's no way any Toji in any universe wouldn't be this feral. Wrap up, don't let your electrician fist you unless it's Toji. Enjoy you nasty sluts 🖤

Dividers by @cafekitsune

The rain pattered against the windowpane, casting a rhythmic pattern of shadows across the living room carpet. You pull your hair into a messy bun as you stare at the clock. It was 2:58 PM on a dreary Saturday. The TV hummed with a cooking show, the only company you had while waiting for the electrician you'd called earlier that week.

The sudden knock at the door startled you. You peered through the peephole, and there he was: Toji Fushiguro, the man who'd been recommended by your friend. He was tall, his broad shoulders almost filling the doorframe, and his handsome face was a picture of confidence. You felt your heart skip a beat, not from fear but from the electric charge that seemed to pulse through the air around him.

You undid the lock and opened the door. "Hi," you said, trying to keep your voice steady. "You're the electrician?"

Toji nodded, flashing a grin that made your knees weak. "Yep, that's me," he said, his eyes shamelessly roaming over your figure. "Toji Fushiguro, at your service." He stepped inside, his work boots squeaking slightly on the polished floor. The air grew thick with tension as he moved closer, invading your personal space in a way that was both intimidating and tantalizing.

You led him to the flickering light in the lounge, trying to ignore the way his gaze lingered on your hips.

"So, what seems to be the problem?" he asked, his voice a low rumble that seemed to resonate through your very core.

You pointed up at the light fixture. "It's been doing this for a few days now," you said, your voice a little shakier than you'd intended. "I don't know much about electrical stuff, so I figured it was better to call a professional."

Toji nodded, his eyes still fixed on you as he pulled out his toolkit. "Might just be a loose wire," he murmured, setting the tools down on the floor. He walked over to the switch, turning the light on to see the issue for himself before turning it off again. He reached up, his strong arms flexing as he unscrewed the cover. "Let's see what we can do about that."

As he worked, his shirt rode up slightly, revealing a trail of dark hair that led down to his waistband. You couldn't help but stare, your thoughts drifting to the powerful body that lay beneath. The room grew warmer, or maybe it was just your imagination. You licked your lips, feeling a familiar ache building between your legs.

Toji must have noticed your gaze because he glanced down, catching you in the act. He smirked and leaned in closer, his breath hot against your neck. "You like what you see?" he said, pulling you from your thoughts.

You blushed, trying to play it cool. "I'm just admiring your... work ethic," you replied with a roll of your eyes, your voice a breathy whisper.

Toji chuckled, his deep laugh sending a shiver down your spine. He stepped back and bent over the toolkit, his pants stretching tight across his muscular ass. You felt your eyes wander, taking in every inch of his body. He pulled out a pair of wire cutters and a screwdriver, his movements deliberate and precise.

"Might need to get up there to take a better look," he said, his eyes twinkling mischievously, "Could you help me out?"

You nodded, a mix of excitement and nerves bubbling in your stomach. You stepped closer, reaching to hand him the ladder from the nearby closet. As you did, your breasts brushed against his hand, and you felt a spark of desire ignite. He took the ladder and set it up under the light fixture, his biceps bulging with the effort.

"You can just stay down there," he said, his voice gruff. "I'll let you know if I need anything."

You watched as he climbed the ladder, his thighs flexing with every step. When he reached the top, he leaned over, giving you a perfect view of his ass. You bit your lip, trying to focus on the task at hand, but the anticipation was too much.

"You can go ahead and hand me those wire strippers," he said, holding out his hand without looking down. You reached up, your fingertips grazing his palm as you handed them over. Fuck, his hands were so big.

As you watched him work, you couldn't help but let your thoughts wander. The way his muscles moved beneath his shirt, the scent of his cologne, the roughness of his hands. Before you knew it, your own hand was resting on your thigh, squeezing slightly. You could feel your pussy growing wetter with every passing second.

Toji paused in his work, sensing the shift in the air. He glanced down at you, his eyes darkening. "You okay down there?" he asked, his voice a little gruffer than before.

You nodded, trying to regain your composure. "Yeah, I'm fine," you said, your voice strained.

Toji took his time climbing down the ladder, his eyes never leaving yours. When he reached the bottom, he stepped closer, so close that you could feel the heat emanating from his body. "You sure about that?" he asked, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

Your breath hitched as his hand reached out, brushing against your cheek. His thumb traced a line along your jaw, sending a shiver down your spine. "I can see you're a little... distracted," he murmured.

You swallowed hard, unable to form a coherent response. His touch was like a brand, searing through your skin and igniting a fire within you. The ache between your legs grew more intense, and you realized you'd been subtly shifting your weight, trying to relieve the pressure.

Toji leaned in, his breath warm against your ear. "Maybe I can help with that," he whispered, his hand sliding down to rest on your hip. His fingers dug in, holding you in place as he stepped closer, trapping you between his body and the wall.

You gasped as he brought his mouth to yours, his kiss rough and demanding. His tongue slid past your lips, exploring your mouth with a hunger that matched your own. Your body responded instinctively, arching into him as you wrapped your arms around his neck. His hands roamed over your body, one sliding up to cup your breast, the other slipping down to squeeze your ass.

With a growl, Toji picked you up, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carried you to the couch. He set you down, his eyes never leaving yours as he stripped off his shirt, revealing a chest that was a sculpted masterpiece. You reached out, your fingers tracing the lines of his muscles, feeling the heat of his skin.

He kissed you again, his hands deftly unbuttoning your blouse. Your breasts spilt out, and he took one in his mouth, sucking and biting gently. You moaned, your body responding to his touch with a fervour that surprised you.

"Fuck," you breathed, as his hand slid up your thigh, pushing your shorts aside. His rough fingers grazed your wet panties, the fabric already soaked through. He leaned in, capturing your mouth again as he ground his hips against you, his erection pressing into your core.

You reached for his belt, eager to feel his bare skin against yours. He let out a low growl as you unbuckled it, his erection straining against his pants. He stepped back for a moment, pulling his pants down to free himself, revealing his thick, hard cock.

You couldn't take your eyes off it, the sight making your mouth water. "Suck it," he ordered, his voice a low growl that sent a bolt of excitement through your body. You didn't hesitate, sliding off the couch to your knees. The scent of his arousal filled the air as you leaned in, wrapping your hand around the base of his cock. You took the tip into your mouth, feeling the heat and the velvety skin against your tongue.

Toji's hands tangled in your hair, guiding your movements as you took more of him in. "That's it, baby," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "Take it all." His curses and praise grew more fervent as you worked him, your mouth sliding up and down his length, taking in as much as you could and using your hand to pump the base. The salty taste of his precum mixed with the musky scent of his skin was driving you wild.

"You like that, don't you?" he groaned, his grip tightening. "You like being a good little slut for me." You nodded, unable to speak around his cock and tears pricked the corners of your eyes. The idea of being his, of being used by him, was intoxicating.

"Mmhmm," you managed to murmur, your voice muffled by his shaft.

Toji's grip in your hair tightened as he thrust deeper into your mouth, his hips rocking slightly as you gagged on his cock. "Such a good girl," he groaned, his voice a mix of pleasure and dominance. "So eager to please.

You moaned in response, the vibrations travelling along his length as your throat spasmed around him. He was heightening your arousal with every filthy word that left his lips. You could feel your own juices trickling down your thighs, your pussy begging for his attention.

"Look at you," Toji said, his voice a gruff whisper. "Such a greedy little whore. You want more, don't you?"

You nodded, your eyes watering slightly as you kept up the pace. His grip in your hair tightened, pulling you back and forth as he fucked your mouth. You could feel his cock swelling, growing harder with every stroke. "That's it," he growled. "Take it all, baby."

His praise was driving you to be the best you could be for him. You moaned around his length, the vibrations sending shivers through his body. His curses grew louder, his hips bucking as he reached the edge. "I'm going to cum," he warned, his voice strained. "Be a good girl and swallow every fucking drop."

You nodded, eager to please. His cock pulsed in your mouth, and you felt the first hot spurt of his cum hit the back of your throat. You swallowed, the salty taste flooding your mouth. He pulled out, stroking himself the last few times, spurts of cum landing on your face and chest. You sat back, a proud smile playing on your lips.

Toji pressed you back onto the couch, His hands deftly found the waistband of your shorts, tugging them down with a harsh jerk. Toji's gaze raked over you, his pupils dilating with desire. He slid his thumbs under the elastic of your panties, pulling them down with a slow, deliberate motion. You felt the cool air hit your skin, making you shiver.

He dropped to his knees, his breath hot against your thighs. "Spread 'em," he ordered, his voice thick with lust. You obeyed, your legs parting as he moved closer. His hands slid along your inner thighs, his rough fingers sending shivers up your spine. You felt his mouth on you, his tongue tracing the line of your pussy before delving in. You moaned, your hips bucking as he began to eat you out.

His tounge found your clit with ease, pressing down with just the right amount of pressure. He teased it mercilessly, flicking and circling as you squirmed beneath him. Then, without warning, one of his thick digits slid inside you, filling you up. You gasped, the sudden intrusion making your eyes roll back in your head. He chuckled against your skin, his teeth grazing your clit as he added a second finger.

Toji's fingers began to move, pumping in and out of you in a rhythm that grew more frantic with every passing second. You could feel yourself getting wetter, your juices coating his hand as he worked you closer to the edge. His tounge remained on your clit, rubbing it in time with the thrusts of his fingers. It was as if he knew exactly what you needed, as if he could read your mind.

With a wicked grin, he pulled away, leaving you panting and desperate. He leaned back, his eyes traveling over your exposed, trembling body. "Ready for more?" he asked, his voice low and dark.

You nodded, unable to form words as he repositioned himself between your legs. He spread your cheeks apart, his breath hot on your sensitive skin. You felt his rough fingers slide into your pussy, coating them in your wetness before moving to your tight asshole. "Look at this perfect little asshole," he murmured, his voice a mix of awe and lust. "So tight and pink. Do you want me to play with it?" He began to massage the entrance before you could reply, loosening you up with gentle pressure. The sensation was foreign and thrilling, making you squirm with anticipation.

With a wicked smirk, Toji leaned in, his tongue darting out to taste you. He licked around the edge of your asshole, the sensation sending shockwaves through your body. You tightened your grip on the couch cushions, biting back a moan. He circled the tight ring of muscle before pushing his tongue inside, making you gasp. The feeling was intense, a mix of pleasure and pressure that was driving you wild.

As he ate your ass, his fingers remained busy, plunging in and out of your pussy. He stretched you wider, filling you with his digits until you were begging for more. You felt a third finger slide in alongside the first two, stretching you even further. The sensation was almost too much to handle.

He pulled away, smacking his lips. "You're so fucking tight," he murmured, his eyes dark with lust. "But I think you can take more." He pushed a fourth finger inside you, the blunt pressure making your eyes water. You gasped, your body tensing, but he held you down, his other hand keeping your pussy filled.

Toji began to pump his four fingers in and out, stretching you open. You felt your body start to relax, to accept the intrusion. You groaned, the sensation overwhelming. It was too much, but at the same time, it wasn't enough. You wanted more.

He looked up at you knowingly, his eyes dark with hunger. "Beg for it," he growled.

You couldn't believe the words that slipped from your mouth. "Please, Toji," you whimpered, "Fist me."

"Nasty fuckin' slut." He teases with a wicked grin, but he complied, adding the addition of his thumb, his hand disappearing into your pussy. You felt a brief moment of panic before the pressure grew, stretching you wider than you ever thought possible. He pushed in, inch by inch, his fist disappearing into your body. The pain was exquisite, a delicious agony that had you crying out in a mix of pleasure and pain.

As his fist filled you completely, his other hand moved back to your asshole, slipping a digit inside. The sensation of being so full was overwhelming, making your eyes water. You couldn't believe how much you enjoyed the feeling of his hand buried inside you, his knuckles pressing against the walls of your pussy. It was as if every nerve ending was on fire, the pleasure searing through you.

Toji leaned back in, his tongue licking your clit as he fisted you. The combination of his hand moving in and out of your tight hole and his tongue swirling around your sensitive nub was more than you could handle. You felt your orgasm building, a crescendo of sensation that was about to crash over you.

"Fuck, you're taking this so well," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "You like that, don't you?"

You could only nod, unable to find the words to respond as he began to move his fist in and out of you with a steady rhythm. Each thrust sent waves of pleasure through your body, making you arch off the couch. His tongue danced around your clit, licking and sucking as his fist pumped in and out of your pussy. The sensation was like nothing you'd ever experienced before, a delicious mix of pain and pleasure that had you begging for more.

Toji's hand was a blur of motion, his fist disappearing and reappearing as he fucked you with a ferocity that left you gasping for air. Your orgasm grew closer, the tension coiling tight in your belly. You could feel your muscles spasming around his hand, the pleasure building to a fever pitch.

With a final, desperate thrust, your body let go. You squirted, your juices spraying all over his hand and the couch beneath you. The force of your climax was so intense that you saw stars, your body convulsing as wave after wave of pleasure washed over you. Toji's eyes widened in surprise, but his smile grew even more wicked as he watched you come apart in his arms.

As your body trembled, he withdrew his fist, your muscles clenching around his retreating hand. He licked his lips, his eyes never leaving yours as he took in the sight of your quivering form. "Damn, you're a squirter," he murmured, his voice filled with approval. "I fucking love a good show."

[kedreeva]

So, the first thing we're having done is replacing the fuse box because we want to replace the AC and when the AC guy looked at the fuse box he went D: I'm just.... going to call an electrician to come look at this and make sure it's safe, and then the electrician came and looked at it and went "well... I've seen worse" but in that tone that says he definitely HAS seen worse, and then he looked at the ceiling and goes "is that... knob and tube wiring."

ANYWAY.

The electrician came back today and installed all the stuff and they were outside taking a break before wrapping up and these boys come running to tell me "one of your birds got out!!"

Now me, I'm like, one of three things has happened. #1-A bird has actually turned incorporeal and escaped my pens (I can only imagine maybe they broke the netting but our netting should be able to take it), #2 these boys got fooled by the way Pen 3's flight pen is set up and only THOUGHT a bird got out, or #3 there is a bird out and it is Not Mine. Or possibly it's a turkey. We have wild turkeys and there's a hen that's lost her flock and has been wandering around lately.

So I go out and I don't see a bird out so I'm thinking it must be #2 because they're walking out by Pen 3. I account for the birds in pen 1, and I start walking toward them and the apprentice goes I SEE HIM and points into the woods. Well, I can see Indie and the girls in pen 3, so I'm thinking okay, either it's #1 and polaris busted the new netting, or it's #3, but my luck it's probably #1. And then I see a young boy who is NOT my bird emerge from the brush.

And it's like Ah. Yes that's not my bird don't worry about it.

We head in, they wrap up, I close the barn pen birds into the barn and in their pen, I set out food and water for him. Just in case. I also closed pen 1 birds into just Pen 2 for now, and opened pen 1's door and put out some scratch where he'd be able to see it. I don't think he'll go in right away, but he hung around for a good while before walking, and it's just my birds and Pete's that are very nearby. Since he's still a baby, just a little 2yo boy, he's going to want to stay where there are other peafowl, and pete doesn't have boys to call him back.

We'll see if he sticks around, and if he'll come in to the pen. Pete said he wouldn't even come closer than his back field, not even to his peafowl, but he hopped up on the barn roof and watched me talk to my birds for a while, so I hope he'll decide it's safe here.

[sirfrogsworth]

Grampa's Antique Fan (2015 vs 2024 Edit)

As a young man, after coming home from the Second World War, my grampa got a job as an electrician for Emerson Electric. He didn't work on the actual electrical products. He just maintained the electrical systems that power the tools to make electrical components.

It was a "I heard you need electricity for your electricity" type deals.

The company was founded in 1890 in nearby Ferguson, Missouri by John Wesley Emerson. He was a Union commander in the Civil War and a lawyer and then a judge and then an author and then a historian... so he was clearly qualified to run one of the first electronics companies. (This is currently referred to as the "Law of Elon".)

Emerson (the company, not the dude) specialized in electric motors and was the first to stick their motors in a fan and sell them.

As you can see by the 4 protective fan guard loopies, these were very safe for kids to be around.

I mean, the biggest thing you could shove in there is a baby arm, which is the least important part of a baby. No baby heads were chopped off—which was the bar for consumer safety during that era.

Fans are rated by the volume of air they can push over a period of time and your average box fan can push about 1400 cubic feet per minute or "CFM". When this Emerson (the fan, not the dude) was produced they actually used "CCH" or cubic cubits per hour. Emerson (the dude) loved using odd standards of measurement much to the chagrin of his engineers.

Due to the small surface area, weak angle of attack, and heavy metal blades, this electronic beast could only push a baker's dozen cubic cubits per baker's hour—which was a confusing metric of time because people were very superstitious and they refused to put the 13 on the baker's clocks. They just left a mysterious blank void after the 12 and apparently several people had existential crises during the baker's hour. Some were institutionalized for a rare condition called Time Delirium.

Thankfully Emerson Electric was able to provide the electroshock therapy devices that cured several patients. This was achieved by erasing the memory of the traumatic time delirium events along with a few other unimportant details like what they did last Tuesday and their mother's name and one engineering degree that the guy wasn't even using.

My dad actually got the fan working and let me tell you... that bad boy could really work up a gentle breeze...

...if you stood behind it and blew.

And that fine American-made electric fan motor was just as quiet as a leaf blower on Saturday morning.

Over the last century, Emerson was bought and sold and bought and sold.

And bought and sold and bought and sold.

Was that 7?

Eh, close enough. We'll call it a baker's 7.

They changed their product line countless times over their 130+ years of existence. After fans they pivoted and made electric meat grinders. To this day, no one know what inspired that decision.

Currently, they make radar avionics and are majority-owned by the private equity firm, Blackstone. Which is a totally non-evil sounding name they chose for their company-eating empire. Please ignore that the CEO was one of Trump's policy strategists. This is a non-evil company with a non-evil name run by non-evil people, okay?

Despite Emerson Electric having to settle a baker's gross of lawsuits involving a few lightly scalp'd babies, they maintain a Fortune 500 status and are still headquartered in Ferguson.

They occupy one of the most boring ass buildings ever constructed.

Just rectangles all the way down.

That architect told every angle to get rect.

Of course, I forgot all of this cool history and sold this fan in the estate auction. I suppose it is a good thing I got a nice photograph to help assuage my current feelings of guilt. I mean, it is not baby scalping, time delirium guilt—but I would feel better if I knew my gramp-gramp's fan was in a good home with 0 babies.

[anna-n-hetfield]

Sweetheart Like You

Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x OC!female

Summary: Elaine’s vault practices arranged marriages, and she feels trapped. What happens when the bride offers start to come and her father choses the worst one?

Warnings: arranged marriage, mention of abuse.

Author’s note: The Ghoul isn’t in this chapter just yet.

Masterlist || Two

Growing up as the only daughter was hard on Elaine. Her father had high expectations for her like staying presentable for the suitors that would be coming around. Her mother had told her that one day a man would offer them the right bride price, and that she was to marry him. Her two brothers worked the fields in their vault, and they were constantly flirting with every girl there or from the nearby vaults. But she wasn’t even allowed to say hello to a boy her age for fear of looking impure.

Elaine was expected to dress as modestly as possible. The only time that the woman were allowed to wear the vault suits was when there was a vault meeting and when they went to the surface for the gardens. Honestly there were only a few who went to the gardens which were the gardeners, and Elaine was a teacher.

Elaine wanted to find love and end up with the right one that she chose, not her father. She didn’t want the fights that her parents had, and she didn’t want to not know who she was going to spend the rest of her life with. So when the offers started to come in, she begged her father to let her choose. He just shushed her and said, “This money is for us since we will be losing your income. I must decide on the highest price, not your feelings.”

”But I should have some say in who I’m with,” she argued. Her brown hair fell in her face.

Her blue eyes looked at her father’s aging face. His hair was losing the brown and going more and more gray with each month. It was going to be long before it would all be gray. His matching eyes met hers, shooting daggers.

”Elaine, you will marry who I tell you to. There’s nothing to worry about. All of these offers are from people in this vault, so you will at least get to see us,” he replied with anger in his voice. His dark eyebrows were drawn tight, showing his frustration.

“I don’t know them. What if they are mean? What if they hit me?” she asked. Her hands were clenched at her side. Elaine knew that this was pointless. Her father couldn’t be reasoned with. It had always been his way or no way. It was how he got on the vault council after all.

”Then you don’t give them a reason to be mean or to hit you!” he yelled, slamming his hands down on the table. “Now, stop arguing about this with me. This is the way things are done. Your mom didn’t get to decide, and neither will your future sisters-in-law. That’s just how it is done!”

Elaine’s mouth fell open in shock. She had never seen him like this. The anger in his body kept him tense. Backing away from him, she left his office and headed towards the door to leave the dorm. Elaine wasn’t going to stay here with him in a rage like that especially when it is directed towards her.

Her pipboy dinged with a message from Jacob Lawrence. He was an electrician that she had been talking to and somewhat flirting with. She had seen him at several vault meetings, and he had approached her after one of those meetings when she happened to be alone. Everyone knew that you didn’t just approach an unmarried girl without going to their father. Elaine had hoped to see if it could work with him, but she didn’t know how much the bride offer would for her would be.

Meet me in class.

The message was simple and meant to be that way. If someone saw it, it could be easily explained off. She would be disowned entirely if the whole vault knew that she was meeting up with a man. Plus, she didn’t know how her father would react. The best case would be that you would just remain unmarried, but be on your own. The worst case, you would be sent to the wastelands off of the entire vault grounds. Elaine wasn’t prepared for that yet.

Elaine let that thought go as she turned down the hall and opened the door to her classroom. Jacob turned towards her, and the smile on his face almost made her forget about what her father said. She ran into his arms, hoping that her father wouldn’t notice she was gone right then.

”What’s the matter?” he asked, his rough voice a whisper in her ear. His dark hair brushed along her skin.

Elaine was shocked a bit by the fact that he seemed to know something was up with her, but how did she explain this to Jacob? He never really seemed to think much about the bride offers or at least he didn’t bring it up to her.

”The bride offers are coming in, and my father has said that he isn’t allowing me to have a choice or at least some say in that matter,” she replied, tears starting to form.

Jacob’s arms tightened around her. “Hush, I’ll put in a good bid. One he can’t refuse,” he assured her. His hands rubbed her back as he held her.

Elaine sighed heavily. “I don’t want the whole bride offer thing. I want to be able to freely choose who I marry, not who my father chooses,” she pointed out.

Jacob pulled back and looked at her confused. “But that is how it has always been done! Every vault does it,” he explained. “It’s tradition. I promise your father will choose me.”

Shock was an understatement. Elaine had never talked about this with him before, but this was his response to her worry. She opened her mouth to say something as she pulled away from him, but didn’t know what to reply with. How would someone respond to that? Jacob seemed okay with the tradition.

A bell rang announcing curfew. She pulled back and said goodnight to Jacob. When he offered to walk her back to her place, she shook her head and said, “What would people think if they saw us together and you escorting me?”

He blushed and nodded. “You’re right. But you will see. Harvey will find that I am the best option,” he said, clearly trying to assure her.

They stepped out of the classroom while looking around to make sure no one was around. There was a sigh of relief from him when there was only them. It may be easy to say that he needed help with something academically, but her being 25 and the bride offers coming in. It would be too suspicious, and it would get back to her father. It wouldn’t benefit her to anger him anymore that he already was.

”Goodnight, Elaine,” he said, heading off towards the dorms.

Elaine watched him disappear into the halls for a second and wandered over to the elevator that lead to the surface. What was it like up there? Were there still people on the surface? Did they arrange marriages like they did here in the vaults or did they just do what they wanted? She looked down at her pipboy seeing a curfew warning pop up. She felt like breaking down in tears. How was she the only one who felt like this?

The other girls always seemed excited when the bride offers started to come in. Always talking about the best ones and who they hoped their father would choose. She even remembered one gushing about how her father let her look at the applications before choosing. Yet, she was the one that had been dreading this, and as she looked back at the elevator, she wondered just how bad was it on the surface.

***

The next few days, Elaine had been avoiding her father which was easy enough with him locked away in his office. She went to work, pretending like there was nothing wrong. And on her way back to the dorm she went by the elevator. She would stop and stare at it for a few minutes. Today though she wasn’t alone.

”Life up there is dangerous.” The voice came from behind Elaine which made her turn and see an elderly woman with a cane walking up to her. “It’s much safer down here.”

”I don’t know why you say such things,” Elaine said, trying to hide her inner feelings.

”I know that look. Running away may sound good, but you can’t possibly know how much more desperate people are up there,” she replied. Her weathered skin showed that she had to be a gardener when she was younger. “No one is safe up there.”

”But at least they aren’t being sold off by their own,” she muttered under her breath.

The elderly woman shook her head. “Just know that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side just because it looks like it,” she said as she started to walk off.

Her pipboy dinged. Her mother was calling her home, saying that there was something exciting waiting for her.

[the-lemonaut]

Characters co-owned w @_magic.stardust_ on IG ✨

This comic is all over the place bc it took me a week to finish 😭🤙 But I'm still fu¢king proud of it 👁️👁️

The green one's Jess, as you might notice, and Brook is the one in all brown

A little bit of Solarpunk infodumping for the curious:

Jess is a librarian overseeing the book part of the library, though there are many things other than books you can find there. As this position is popular, they always have at least one person who can come substitute them if need be 💅 i suspect the library also works at night, run by and for night owls.

While Brook is a district manager, they don't tell people what to do, but just organize all necessary info from people living in the area. Every couple of years (or in case of a serious accident) a new manager gets selected through a district vote

In the case of this stargazing event, they'd spend some time notifying people about it and (when a majority agreed on having a stargazing night) they'd make sure all electricians turn off the street lights.

The district probably has a limit on how many stargazing nights can take place a month, and they notify nearby districts so that people who have plans in the blackout area can change plans accordingly. Hospitals etc. keep the power on, naturally 🤙

[rjzimmerman]

Climate Workers Wanted. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Three years ago, Alexsandra Sesepasara moved home to American Samoa, a remote chain of Pacific islands, with her family after more than a decade of military service. She took a job as a water resources engineer for the utility that provides power, cleans up trash and manages drinking water for the more than 49,000 residents of the territory.

But soon after she arrived, she realized that rising seas and worsening storms, fueled by climate change, had brought new problems to her homeland, while exacerbating old ones. Saltwater was seeping into the islands’ fresh water supply, shutting down schools and leading to boil water notices. In December, the issue caused a nearby hospital to close all nonessential services for nearly a week.

There was another problem, Sesepasara said: American Samoa didn’t have enough workers to fix its water issues.

But this summer, the American Samoa Power Authority, her employer, became one of nine entities across the country to receive funding under a $60 million federal program intended to help train workers to combat the growing challenges of climate change.

The climate jobs of the future, experts told me, may mean adjusting how we think of the jobs of the past: Electricians may need to learn to install solar panels, construction workers may need to deal with new engineering requirements and bankers may need to manage climate risk.

“This is a model of us adapting our jobs in real time to the reality and need of the moment,” said Ned Gardiner, a program manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office, which is coordinating technical assistance for the grantees.

The funding comes as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions in tax incentives for clean energy and climate programs across the country.

While most of the applications NOAA received for the grant program focused on coastal resilience and protecting marine economies, the agency was open to proposals from sectors like shipping, engineering and finance, Gardiner said.

“Every job will be affected by climate change,” said Lara Skinner, founding executive director of the Climate Jobs Institute at Cornell University. “We look at every sector of the economy, and every sector will have to change. This isn’t some little transition.”

The tax incentives in the I.R.A. could ultimately help fund more than 6,200 projects in utility-scale clean energy and storage and almost four million jobs, according to the Climate Jobs National Resource Center, a labor organization educating workers on climate action.

NOAA’s work force program isn’t the only funding for jobs included in the I.R.A. Hundreds of millions of dollars are also available to hire employees in the National Park Service and workers to expedite clean energy projects in rural America, as well as to train a new generation of Indigenous workers through the Indian Youth Service Corps.

Last year, the Biden administration also launched the American Climate Corps to put 20,000 young Americans into jobs addressing global warming.

In the short term, there’s a lot of physical work that can be done to mitigate the climate crisis, like building more flood-resilient communities.

[henshinwolf89]

Zeiram 1 Retrospective

When it comes to Tokusatsu, it can be somewhat tricky to initially get into. With such a long history and back catalog, and an often 50+ episode long commitment, it can be daunting to newcomers. That’s why I usually say to find what appeals to you and go from there. Maybe find something that’s on the shorter side of things before trying to tackle the bigger ones. Standalone Tokusatsu movies can be a good starting point.

That leads me to suggesting one such movie series as a potential starting point into the larger world of Tokusatsu, the Zeiram series, which consists of two feature-length films and a six episode OVA. Zeiram was created by the insanely talented Keita Amemiya, an absolute legend in the Tokusatsu industry. Having worked on almost every major Tokusatsu franchise in some form at one point before creating his own series, such as the incredible Garo franchise, he quickly established himself as a unique visionary of the business.

Zeiram is Amemiya’s second film after Mirai Ninja, his debut movie in 1988, and began its life as a sequel to it before evolving into its own thing. The first Zeiram movie was released on December 21, 1991, and reportedly had a smaller budget than Mirai Ninja, thirty million yen, which is roughly two hundred thousand dollars. The entire film’s budget is apparently the cost of just a single episode of Garo! However, just because it had a smaller budget doesn’t mean that they skimped on the special effects. The film deploys an impressive array of special effects, ranging from amazing suitmation, puppetry, pyrotechnics, wire work, fight choreography, and even stop-motion animation!

The film stars actress Yuko Moriyama as Iria, a tough as nails intergalactic bounty hunter. Moriyama was a relatively new actress, having her start on a contact lens commercial for Seed Contact Lenses and mostly doing TV work. Moriyama was initially hesitant to play Iria, as she had no prior experience playing action roles, but enjoyed her experience as Iria by the end and came out with a very positive outlook. She wasn’t used to using guns or gun props and was pretty surprised by the impact of the model gun the first time she used it. She got used to it eventually as she knew Iria was a professional and needed to act the part. Soon, she found firing the guns to be really fun. Moriyama also stated having difficulty with the suit Iria wore. It’s bulkyness making her feel like a robot and bruising up her body quite a bit. She got used to it after a month. However, the suit was very squeaky and noisy. You could always tell when she was nearby, much to the amusement of the rest of the cast and crew.

The other two major characters are the two average working Joe electricians, Teppei and Kamiya, played by Kunihiro Ida and Yukijiro Hotaru, respectfully. Ida was in Amemiya’s previous film, Mirai Ninja, and is a varied actor being in the original Japanese version of “Shall We Dance?” Hotaru, on the other hand, is an accomplished stage actor and should be a familiar face to Tokusatsu fans. He played The Evil Emperor Diable in Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine, had a cameo as the suicidal man in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack or GMK for short, and most famously played Tsutomu Osako in the Heisei Gamera trilogy, and Gonza Kurahashi in Garo. Hotaru and Amemiya are good friends, and they both have a tremendous amount of respect for each other.

Moriyama, Ida, and Hotaru all developed a great working chemistry with each other. Ida was very supportive of Moriyama, frequently psyching her up and giving her emotional support, while Hotaru often gave her acting advice. They did line readings together often and read through the script many times before shoots. They did this in advance as often as possible. Hotaru during shoots would hunch over to make himself look smaller in comparison to Moriyama, so Iria had a larger and more imposing presence.

Next up is Bob, Iria’s A.I. partner. Who is voiced by Masakazu Handa. He sadly died at the young age of 47 due to heart failure on August 26, 2014. Handa was a professional voice actor who also did a lot of narration work and announcement work at events like martial arts tournaments and sports games.

Finally, the titular monster, Zeiram, is played by suit actor Mizuho Yoshida, and the suit was made by famous sculptor and artist Takayuki Takeya. Yoshida’s first role was in Mirai Ninja, but he has played many Kaiju characters as well, such as Mother Legion in Gamera 2: Attack of Legion, Zedus in Gamera the Brave and Godzilla in GMK. In the Rebirth of Mothra movies, he played Desghidorah and Dagahra in the sequel. He has also provided motion capture work for video games such as the Tyrant from Resident Evil CODE: Veronica, Dylan in Dino Crisis 2, Dead Rising, and Onimusha. Most notably was the mo-cap actor for both Solid Snake and Naked Snake/Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 1-3.

Amemiya drew many designs to find the look of Zeiram, an alien wearing a sedge hat. He settled on the look of a traveler from the Edo period, as he thought it would be scary to see someone like that in the streets in the middle of the night. The Zeiram costume was quite heavy, most of the weight being on the head with tension on the neck. According to Amemiya, Zeiram is female, but in the films, the characters use male pronouns, so I’ll be using gender neutral terms to refer to Zeiram. I mean, it’s a bio-mechanical alien. It probably doesn’t even fall into our human definitions of gender anyway.

But enough about the behind the scenes tidbits for now, let’s get into talking about the actual film!

The movie opens with an intense scene showing how dangerous Zeiram is. A group of armed men are brutally slaughtered by the ruthless alien. A bounty is placed on the capture of Zeiram, and Bob accepts the order and claims no one may interfere with Iria and Bob’s job. Next, we see Iria skulking through the streets of Tokyo, gathering supplies. Then we are introduced to Kamiya, who is elated to finally strike it big gambling on horse races. Kamiya is divorced, most likely due to his gambling habits. Teppei is next, trying to contact Kamiya about their next set of jobs. He wants to quickly get them done as he has a date with the company’s secretary, Yumi, something Kamiya teases him about.

I like Kamiya and Teppei. They’re just two average dudes that are about to find themselves in something extraordinary. They are the source of comic relief and provide a contrast to Iria’s stoic badass demeanor. Their hapless antics don’t distract or ruin Iria’s action scenes, and they even contribute tremendously to helping Iria. Honestly, they remind me of Val McKee and Earl Bassett, played by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward from the movie Tremors.

Anyway, Iria and Bob’s base of operations are siphoning a lot of electricity, and so Kamiya and Teppei are called in to investigate. Iria and Bob are building a device to trap Zeiram in a place called the Zone. They need to use the Zone to capture Zeiram to avoid causing collateral damage to Earth’s environment and population. Bob says that they need this job to pay off debts racked up by Iria. After catching Zeiram in the Zone, the two electricians arrive, and Teppei accidentally stumbles into the Zone’s teleporter. Iria gives chase, and Kamiya invites himself along. This is where the movie primarily takes place in the Zone, where no other life is allowed in outside those permitted or teleported there.

Iria traps Kamiya in a protective barrier and goes off to pursue Teppei and find Zeiram. Unfortunately, Teppei encounters Zeiram first and is attacked. He flees, and Zeiram produces a creature called the Lilliput monster to give chase.

The smoke in the scene where Zeiram attacks Teppei with the Lilliput was created with oil at 2 o’clock in the morning. One of the first locations they shot according to interviews. People who hung their clothes out to dry had them covered in oil the next morning, Amemiya feels guilty for it and was sorry. The Lilliput monster was played by suit actresses Mayumi Aguni. Apparently, an early example of a woman playing a monster in Tokusatsu. It’s unfortunately difficult to find information online about female Kaiju actors. The only others I’m aware of are Yumi Kameyama as Super Gyaos in Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe and, of course, the popular and adorable Rie Ota as Baragon in GMK.

Back to the movie. Iria manages to track down Zeiram and lures it to a warehouse that she previously laid with booby-traps. She ensnares Zeiram in a wire trap and begins to gloat about her victory. Her confidence gets the best of her as Zeiram seizes the opportunity and surprises Iria with the parasite in it’s hat, and cutting itself free. Meanwhile, Teppei stumbles upon Kamiya frozen in the barrier. He attempts to free him. The fight between Iria and Zeiram rages on, as they exchange fire between each other. However, Bob warns that conventional weaponry is useless, so against Bob’s wishes, Iria reveals her battle armor and switches to hand-to-hand combat.

Iria’s armor proves effective as Zeiram’s payload of artillery is reflected. Zeiram chooses to fight with melee as well and begins to overpower Iria with shear might. Iria lures it to another trap, restraining it in place. Zeiram unleashes more Lilliput monsters to buy itself time to escape. Iria defeats the Lilliput monster, but Zeiram escapes its binding. Zeiram presses forward and corners Iria, but just before it can finish her off, she manages to finally trap it in the same confinement barrier she trapped Kamiya in.

With Zeiram in custody, Teppei finds Iria and requests she release Kamiya. Iria complies, and she explains the situation to the two men. Just as Bob is preparing to teleport everyone back, a Lilliput monster attacks the group. Iria defends the two but gets transported along with the monster, leaving the electricians behind with the frozen Zeiram. The scuffle with the monster damages the control panel, cutting off access to the Zone. Bob reveals it has also destabilized the Zone too, and not much time is left before it completely vanishes.

Waiting for Iria, Teppei rifles through Iria’s bags as Kamiya grows impatient. Another Lilliput monster attacks Kamiya, and Teppei uses Iria’s weapons to fight it off. In the struggle, Zeiram’s stasis pod gets damaged and releases it. The two electricians attempt to flee by hot wiring a truck. Unfortunately, Zeiram corners them and bites Kamiya’s arm with it’s parasite. They manage to shake off Zeiram and escape. It’s revealed that by consuming its victims’ DNA, Zeiram creates its clone monsters. It creates an imperfect clone of Kamiya, but it is unable to follow orders. In its rage, Zeiram kills the clone.

The scene where Kamiya gets attacked by Zeiram’s tentacle is one of the final scenes to be shot. The tentacle was controlled by wires, and the prop was quite short. They had to utilize camera tricks to make it look longer. After Zeiram removes its scarf, revealing its face, to make the Kamiya clone, its face seems reminiscent of the Predator. I wouldn’t be surprised if Predator played a role in inspiring Zeiram in some way.

The two electricians flee into a beer storage warehouse and attempt to defend themselves from Zeiram. The fight causes Teppei to get separated from Kamiya. Teppei is unable to locate Kamiya, escapes, and contacts Iria. Iria and Bob debate sending Teppei the Metis Cannon to fight Zeiram after Teppei resolves to make a last stand after he assumes Kamiya might be dead.

Teppei heads to the drop-off point on a motorcycle to retrieve the Metis Cannon, Zeiram intercepts, and corners Teppei. Suddenly, Kamiya returns to save Teppei with a construction crane. However, Zeiram overpowers it and knocks Kamiya out of the vehicle. Then Iria swoops into the rescue, armed with a bazooka. Iria unloads the bazooka’s only shot towards Zeiram, severely damaging its body. Zeiram discards its lower half, revealing its true body is the hat, and mutates into a more skeleton-like creature to continue pursuing our heroes.

The bike scene was shot in a plane hanger in Haneda Airport. Amemiya had no prior experience with shooting a scene with a stunt like this before and was worried about the safety of the actors. The wire connected to the stunt actor on the bike fortunately snapped off, had it not, Yoshida, in the Zeiram suit, would have been hit and seriously injured. The Zeiram skeleton showcases Amemiya and his teams talent at practical effects with an impressive display of both stop-motion animation and puppetry, bringing the creature to life.

The trio, with Zeiram in tow, flee through a maze-like web of rooms in search of the Metis Cannon to kill Zeiram. Iria stays behind to stall Zeiram, leading to her being flung out a window after damaging Zeiram with a grenade. Kamiya and Teppei find the Metis Cannon but struggle to put it together in time, Zeiram tracks them down and corners them. Iria locates them in the nick of time and quickly assembles the Metis Cannon and uses it to destroy Zeiram’s skeleton. She then captures Zeiram’s hat in a barrier.

Bob transports Kamiya and Teppei back to home base outside the Zone. Then, he brings back the captured Zeiram. Next, he attempts to bring back Iria. However, Zeiram breaks free, damages the transport device, and goes on the offensive once again mutating further. Iria is trapped within the Zone as it is collapsing. Bob instructs Kamiya on how to repair the transport device as Teppei attempts to hold Zeiram back with a makeshift wooden barricade. Zeiram breaks free and is poised to kill Teppei when Kamiya fixes the device, and Iria arrives to save the day by lighting Zeiram up with as many shots as it takes, finally killing it.

As the morning comes, the trio catch their breath and thank each other for everything. Iria cuts off two locks of her hair and gives it to Kamiya and Teppei as a way of saying thanks and for them to have something to remember her by. Bob then asks if the three could group up for a commemorative photo. As Bob snaps the picture, everyone smiles and credits roll.

Though Moriyama was inexperienced as an action actress, by the time of filming the final confrontation with Zeiram, she was completely in character. Amemiya found it easier to direct her, as she had become accustomed to fighting, and he had gained more experience as a director. Despite a few bumps in the road, the cast and crew had a pleasant experience with the movie. The only major problems were the weather, which seemed to be against them, according to Amemiya.

As for my thoughts on the film? I absolutely love it! I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, whether you’re into Tokusatsu or just like monster movies or creature features, like Predator or Alien. I’d even recommend this movie to a Resident Evil fan! I couldn’t shake the feeling of being reminded of my love of the intense rivalry between Jill Valentine and Nemesis. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film played some role in inspiring Resident Evil 3, though I have zero evidence to back that claim. Zeiram even goes through several mutations, like a final boss from Resident Evil.

Even if you’ve never heard of Keita Amemiya’s work prior to this, chances are you’ve encountered his work vicariously through some games you may have played. Games like Hagane: The Final Conflict, Onimusha 2-3, Clock Tower 3, Genji: Days of the Blade, Final Fantasy 14, and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Like I said, he’s a legend of the industry, and he has fans all across the world.

If you’re interested, you can easily pick up a Blu-ray copy for a good price. It recently received a fantastic 30th Anniversary Edition re-release back in 2021 by Media Blasters. Go check it out! You won’t regret it!

[copperbadge]

Sam - i have no idea if you’ve already considered doing this, forgive me if you’ve already rejected it - a couple of years ago ((cough lockdown cough)) I started using mineral oil and beeswax to treat the wooden handles of my knives. I saturate the wood with mineral oil (takes a few applications: wipe on, wipe off, let dry, wipe on wipe off etc) and then seal it with beeswax (tempered with mineral oil; heat both in a makeshift double-boiler to mix and get a good applyable consistency). It makes the wood so gorgeous!! Downside: obvs can’t wash it with hot water bc then I have to reapply the beeswax, but I do have to repeat the treatment every couple of years anyway. Upside: It really makes a world of difference for the appearance of the wood and protects it a little (maybe a lot, I don’t know). A+ do recommend.

You know, it never occurred to me? Really it should have. They're very worn and soft so it's never been a texture issue, but I've never thought about conditioning the wood to protect it further. They're easily 40 years old, probably closer to 50, and I've had them at least 20 years, so it's been a while since they've been conditioned if they ever have.

I don't think I'll seal them, but I did just treat my cutting board with Walrus Oil yesterday, so I pulled it off the shelf and gave the handles a nice rubdown with it this morning. They look pretty good! As a reminder here's the before, and here below is the after:

[ID: Two Chicago Cutlery knives, a boning knife and a paring knife, are lying on a wood cutting board; all three have the sheen of freshly-applied conditioning oil. The bottle of oil, reading "Walrus Oil: Cutting Board Oil, Original Formula" is sitting nearby.]

I'll probably reapply it in the next few weeks, and I've added a note to recondition them whenever I sharpen the blades.

So this morning I did the knives, cleaned for the electrician, tried on some shirts, measured the bathroom closet doors for a new towel rack, and measured the floor for a rug -- I'm finding some disadvantages with the wooden mats, mainly that the second you step off them the floor is gritty, and also one of them prevents the bathroom door from closing. So I think I'm going to put a rug in front of the sink and double up the raised mats in front of the bathtub/toilet (which is where I need them most anyway).

I also made the spectacular discovery that GiveBackBox is still active, since I thought the program had been discontinued. More on this later, but GiveBackBox lets you pack a box of goods to donate, print out a postage label, and mail the box to a local charity (usually Goodwill) completely free of charge. I used to use it ALL THE TIME and I'm thrilled to find it again because I have a pile of shit to donate that is roughly the size of a small horse. I don't love donating to Goodwill, I know it has a lot of problems, but it gets this stuff out of my home and into the hands of people who will make use of it.

Though I might save the clothes for one of those "dress for success" closets that helps people without resources dress for interviews. I've got a lot of good business casual in there.

Listened this morning to "An Economic Argument for Heat Safety Regulation" by The Indicator, then tried to listen to both The Journal and Planet Money's pieces on Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy behind the FTX collapse, but it was mostly recycled content so I skimmed on to part one of "How Cigarettes Invented Everything" by Behind The Bastards, which was fascinating. And part two just came out today! About an hour and a half of work all told.

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, Chapter 98: Рентгениздат

Table of Contents Third Instar, Chapter 29. Go to previous. CWs: unreality, dissociative hallucinations, delusions, explicit intrusive erotic minutiae

So in love with the wrong world. [98-1]

______________________________

They exited through the Upper Level checkpoint in Anchor Inn. See’s did little more than look them over. Still, ‘Choly found himself unclenching once they were out of earshot, not just for the sharp shift into the overcast natural afternoon light, but for the reflexive expectation of getting mentally manhandled. In Covered Parking, most of the inhabitants had relocated to the Upper Level as those had done inside. Makeshift tents comprised a majority of their shelter, and it took some navigating to traverse the dense congregation of nearly homeless. He and Angel ambled down the ramp to ground level.

“Surely, if only the Mayor would permit further restoration, these people could have proper arrangements indoors.”

If Angel could frown, it would have.

“I’m sure for most people, it’s unnatural to live inside Ant Lane. I for one don’t blame them.”

They could have easily found Little Boy Blue by the presence of Children of Atom scurrying about on mechanic’s errands, but ‘Choly trusted the clicking of his Pip-Boy to inform him just how close he could get. He shuffled nearer until the Geiger counter’s feedback accelerated into a rapid, irregular pace, then took a few steps back in compromise. With a pleasant, melancholy murmur, he found a cracked bumper block to sit upon, and he watched from a distance.

Sticks eventually surfaced from the hood at the back of the blue coupe, laden with sweat and grease. Despite the workout, the challenge had the ghoul grinning and bubbly. He pulled a rag from his apron and wiped his face down, before rounding back to the driver’s seat to root around in the cabin.

‘Choly next identified Fresnel emerging from under the hood, in her plaid flannel and a pair of jeans, worn over a high-neck undergarment. He couldn’t make out what she told the three Atomites nearby, but they rushed off to abide by it. Sticks emerged and glanced around, only to roll his eyes and shoulders and flapped a hand at whatever request their assistants had left to accomplish. Fresnel vanished back under the hood, and for some time, Sticks resumed his preoccupation with things in the front seat.

He decided to put on his radio drama. The tape would be safe out here for an afternoon, and he could tell if any risk arose by any observable changes in the quality of the playback. He slid it into the tape deck of his Pip-Boy and clicked it shut, then selected ‘audio source: holotape’ in his Radio menu. He stretched out his legs and glanced over to Angel, who had curled up its tendrils under itself just like it had inside.

At times like this, his nerves craved a cigarette.

The hallmark introduction clanged, and the play started. He had enjoyed Lights Out all his life, and remembered this episode, but he didn’t remember details all that well. The two women began to bicker over the appropriateness of horror as a genre, only for their shared office to fall to near-total darkness.

“Well, you’re scared, too!”

“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not! Series of coincidences, that’s all. What could it be? I mean, what? Who ever heard of anything happening in a place like this? Well, what are you looking at me like that for? This is no haunted house--"

‘Choly found himself spacing out a ways. His eyes watched the mechanics labor over the car, but his gaze was miles beyond it.

“Up at the ceiling. Ohh. Oh no. Green. The lights now… It’s green. Green. All the lights. Green. You lied to me. You said it was the electricians. Look at the light. It’s green! Makes your face green. You look dead. You hear me? Dead! You’ll be dead. I’ll be dead. We’ll be dead, dead, dead--"

“--Stop it! Stop it! You’re not going to drive me crazy just because there’s something wrong with the electricity. You look around. Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right. Nothing’s wrong here. Nothing.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daria finishes up her transcription after hours. It's just us in the wide, empty office. I pace nearby, hands in my pockets blindly jumbling their contents. She fumbles through a passage; from her skewed, scrunched lips, I presume the handwriting confounds her. Compulsion snags me. I straighten in place.

“ ‘A note to the sound department:,’ ” I announce in English, pantomiming my annotation, “ ‘At this point in the play, I want the sound of a body being turned inside out. I suggest the use of a wet rubber glove to plant the picture of a human being deliberately turned.’ ”

She doesn’t look up from her work, or even really pause, despite my restrained chuckles. Her poor attempts at ignoring my nuisance endear me.

‘You’d get in so much trouble if someone were to find out about your American radio habits.’

A trace of lyric etches her tone.

‘Now who do you know that doesn’t collect their share of bones? I don’t see you handing me to Gosteleradio.’[98-2]

She slides over the carriage to return with a click and whir, and scoffs.

‘Where else would I get such entertainment? You don’t need wiped holotapes to bother me with strange stories.’

Dripping with sleaze, I hop up on the corner of her desk, shoving over stacks of papers in the process. She almost scrambles to right the paperwork, but stops herself short. I lean over to her, to plant a smooch on her smooth, bright cheek.

‘I’m nothing if not entertaining.’

Her smirk wins out over her frustration, and she pecks a short kiss onto my lips. Starting with a pat at my lapels, she slowly caresses them along my flat chest, only to throw her hands in her lap.

‘You damned stilyagi, wearing men’s clothes, tempting women.[98-3] But you can't have my undivided attention. Not yet.’ Her breath staggers, belying her composure. She flusters. ‘You’re such a terrible influence on me. Can you stop and let me finish? The sooner I’m done, the sooner we can go back to your place.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Choly straightened. His heart raced, and his blood ran hot. Both clammy hands shot behind to steady him. He focused on his breathing. Though the recording had finished its playback, he couldn't say how long ago. He could still visualize and feel every naked, ravishing curve of Daria, from her pale pert nipples to her lush ebony hair perfumed with amber and cherries. How they would go at it until they ached the next day. A soft, distressed moan escaped his lips at the raw arousal and intent he once had felt for the woman.

That was a lifetime ago--if it were true. Yet, far too vivid, and far too foreign to him, it couldn’t have been a daydream. And it had to have been true, because he had never in his life felt attraction to any normal human being, let alone for it to feel so right and replete. Had he? The way his body only throbbed more intently when he tried to calm himself, it repulsed him. God help him, the sex had been so good.

“Perhaps we ought to set aside the horror genre for a spell, Mister Carey. The twist seems to have hampered your attempts at relaxation.”

He stared at the tape deck of his Pip-Boy at length. His throat adhered to itself, despite repeated attempts to swallow.

“Series of coincidences, that’s all,” he murmured, pale and hollow. “Someone wanted me to pick this holotape, to hear it now.” His eyes strained out toward the still-choked river. “Why do I remember it. Why do I remember it now.”

Angel lifted itself up on its tendrils, and urged ‘Choly to stand.

“Come along, Sir. Everyone’s taking a break above us. Why don’t we go see Mister Sticks?”

In a dull haze, he struggled to his feet.

“You’re right,” he told Angel. “I need to be around people right now. Not all these… ghosts… in my drafty skull.”

“There we go,” it encouraged as best it could.

As it shepherded him back up the ramp, their rickety joints would rightfully have produced a horrid din of scraping and scrabbling. Or, they felt that way, anyway. Gradually, the Pip-Boy’s sputtering clicks faded before ceasing altogether.

“I wasn’t a virgin,” he mouthed silently, through an eye twitch. “Wasn’t, even then…”[98-4]

Since then, have I grown queerer still?

On the Upper Level, Sticks and Fresnel sat around a communal cooking pit fashioned from cinder blocks, rebar, and concrete rubble. He hadn’t noticed Maury until now, sitting comfortably with Sticks, Fresnel, and several Satellites. A warm chat wove amongst them.

“Ah, ‘Choly’s here,” Sticks said. He patted a welcoming knee. “I’m surprised you stepped out here. I was beginning to think you were getting allergic to sunlight, and between that and your smoothies…”

“Worry when I cast no reflection,” ‘Choly muttered. He rolled his eyes and squeezed into the circle to sit across Sticks’s leg. He needed the proximity of leaning into his chest more than he would admit. The bouquet of engine grease, rust, and river scum invited him in, to spite his drab olive. A sigh punctuated his anxiety. He retained a twinge of self-awareness. “It’s been a while since I smelled fresh cooking other than razorgrain porridge.”

“We’ve been making kitchen sink stew for weeks,” Maury replied. “Minus an actual kitchen sink, as you can see. A little bit of whatever we can find. The variety is getting tiresome.”

“I can respect the desire for a little consistency,” Fresnel said. She smiled at ‘Choly, but his eye contact faltered in favor of getting a better look at her dark under-armor’s moto-quilted leather collar. “Even if it isn’t the same food each time, it’s nice when food can be predictable.”

“Anything is better than porridge and prewar rations,” Sticks groaned. Warming to grin, he rubbed at ‘Choly’s shoulder, and wrapped his gloved hand around it to squeeze. ‘Choly leaned into Sticks’s chest. “Of course, these fine folks know their way around improvised recipes. I don’t even have to ask what’s in it, to know I’ll like it.”

“You know what they say about necessity and invention,” Maury chirped.

Like strands of spiderweb trailing the air, potent recollection of appetent lips and heaving flesh persisted after ‘Choly. He disguised the prickling of his skin as an attempt to get more comfortable in Sticks’s lap. The ghoul picked up on the surreptitiousness, and decided to take credit for the untoward shiver by dragging him closer by the hip.

As he tried to sit back up, his head grazed Sticks’s shoulder. The thread count of the cotton shirt loosed no more than a few strands of hair. Sticks tucked them behind his ear with an absent smile. ‘Choly’s breath stitched in his ribs, and the corners of his lips twitched. He'd kept his shoulder length hair tucked into a neat semblance of a duck’s arse for years, before succumbing to the exhilarating fuck-you of chopping it all off himself into a chubchik when conscripted.[98-5] This shorn, masculine style of bangs had served to tether his sense of gender while a soldier, but it took years for his hair to grow back out after his time in the Soviet army, so he could resume his tendency toward a trim, tidy updo. He had always preferred it pinned up, and yet he also often caught himself savoring the ways Sticks might loose its fine chignon waves. The ghoul evoked so many unexpected proclivities in him, and yet--

“Perhaps Mister Maury would be inclined to help me update my recipe database,” Angel wondered. “I struggle direly with ingredient definitions these days. Mister Sticks is supposed to help me as well, but things have been quite hairy as of late. Soon, then, perhaps…?”

“The robot wants to learn from me?” Maury glanced up from stirring the stew pot. His other hand gripped the layers of scarves draped around his shoulders. “The robot can want?”

‘Choly teetered ever so slightly.

“One thing at a time, chap,” Sticks said. ‘Choly attempted to match breathing patterns with him as he spoke, to self-regulate, but it only served to entangle himself in physicality. “I made you a promise. I'll keep to it. Unlike those stiffs in The Hall, my word means something.”

He wanted to neck so badly in that moment, convinced thoroughly that if only he could lay into his lover with impenitent, gnawing osculation, he could rewire this short circuitry. That's all this was--he'd simply gone too long without indulging his sense of eros. A part of him, still toeing the past, must crave plump, warm lips against his own, but nothing could really, truly satisfy his sensibilities quite like a cracked, leathery, gnashing mouth. Until this moment, he wouldn't have even questioned whether any fraction of his past self could have survived.

He kept repeating to himself, You have Sticks. You have everything you've dreamed of, and then some. Happiness, beyond all things best left forgotten. What's the use in remembering who you used to be? What's the use in pretending you haven't changed as much as you think? Besides, if you're so convinced everything's as made-up as you insist, what's stopping you from having made all this up, too! Narrative be damned! Whatever may be, just enjoy it.

“What did they do to you now?” Fresnel teased.

“Not just me, but all of us. This whole Certs debacle… They really tried to screw us over for good this time.”

I'm nothing, if not entertaining. …If not entertaining, I'm Nothing.

“You gripe about Certs every opportunity you get.” Maury shrugged at him. “This again…”

Daria’s spectral fingertips traced ‘Choly’s hips, and dipped between them. His buttocks clenched, only to tremble pathetically against Sticks's leg as he tried to forget the woman's touch. Her ravenous, impassioned sucking. Her digital adroit. She would work him to a begging, sopping mess before letting him tuck her entire fist deep inside him. He quaked inside with grief that any slip in his body language might betray the illusion of his attempts to sustain attentiveness or decorum.

“They've really shown their true colors today. They don't intend to pay out. They never intended to pay out. They're cheapskates.”

Sticks sat up straighter, still balancing ‘Choly on his thigh. The ghoul bounced his leg ever so slightly. It couldn't have been a simple restless tic. ‘Choly squinted his eyes tight, and gagged. Eventually, he pushed through his mental viscosity to place a begging hand on Sticks’s knee. He gripped it with firm intent. Sticks’s leg stopped.

“Think about it,” Sticks said. “Why else would The Hall freeze repairs on the property it owns? They're shooting themselves in the foot because it's the cheaper option. Classic bureaucratic maneuver. Just think of the good we’re doing, to go on this little ramble. It’s going to be more important than ever for Ant to keep its economic ties with the outside world.”

“--What, what are you even on about?” ‘Choly put his limp, haggard cheek against Sticks’s shoulder. “I didn't hear the announcement this morning, and I don't know what these ‘Certs’ are.”

“You're Lucky to keep being out of the loop on some of this malarkey, babe. The Hall’s been paying everyone for the repairs to the mall in Certs. Mall certificates. You remember those, right?”

‘Choly nodded, mentally sapped. Just this context alone started to percolate incredulity, but Sticks continued, much to the malaise of everyone present. Yet, ‘Choly welcomed any clinical, economic topic over his present preoccupation.

“Certs are worth what The Hall says they're worth. You know what they say about invention…” The ghoul wagged a lyrical finger at Maury. Maury chuffed and smiled, shaking his head. “These things work a lot like how they did before the War. You can only spend them in the Concourse, and only with Laners who abide by the logic of face value. Everyone thinks The Hall will just… pay up, all up front, the moment repairs are done, but I've said it before, and I'll say it again: that pay day will never come. See, it isn't just that they haven't got enough pulls to pay everyone the value of their labor. If it were that simple, they'd pay people in caps when they ran out of pulls, then in cash, and so on. They lose equity if they exhaust their coffers in full. It's no coincidence they'd value Certs in the only currency exclusive to the settlement, either: even if they do pay out one day, a guy can still only spend his earnings here. The Hall can't afford to invest in their own population here, but they're simultaneously reliant on us to fix everything. Cheapskates.”

“Your theory makes an alarming amount of sense, if true,” Fresnel uttered. “I've spoken with several Laners who believe Certs will accrue value, not lose it. It's going to destroy people who've been stockpiling Certs, thinking they've amassed great wealth during a harrowing time.”

“Some, more than others. I hate to break Orqueida’s heart, but poor soul, she really thinks those Certs are worth something. I didn't want to be right.”

“Perhaps the girl will do the smart thing,” Maury supposed, ”and use them to buy all the supplies you all will need next week. They might not even be worth the paper they're written on before you return.”

“You make it sound like no one's cashing in their Certs right now,” ‘Choly said.

“No one can,” Maury continued. He started ladling out servings into bowls, and started with the two Satellites sitting nearest him. “Certs have what Sticks calls ‘speculative value.’ The idea is that people hold onto them, in the hopes they'll eventually be paid.”

“One big whopping I.O.U. is what it is,” Sticks went on. “Write up however many slips of paper that say they’re worth pulls. Draw the Mayor's face on it, for all I care. The only thing that's worth a pull is a pull. Thing is, Mindy. What you've got to understand… These Certs have a clause written on them. They've got this fine print. You know how fine print goes.”

Again, ‘Choly nodded.

“There's a clause that states, clear as day, that The Hall will only cash in on Certs once repairs are completed in full. And as of this morning, The Hall will not contract another minute’s worth of labor for said repairs. It would take them disregarding the terms and conditions of their own damn play money, for this to amount to something. Or, I don't know, requiring the remainder of the work be done completely pro bono. I saw this all coming a mile away.”

The two Satellites ‘Choly didn't know groaned.

“Sticks is so financially bright,” Maury praised, perking up. “He advised all of us in Covered Parking to trade away our Certs, so we wouldn't end up holding mere slips of paper when the time came and passed without us being paid. It wasn't easy to keep the Laners from jumping to some conclusion that we're rejecting their money. We respect pulls, not Certs.”

“You had their best interests in mind, but couldn't convince Orqueida not to hoard them?” ‘Choly snipped, trying not to seethe. “If you're so smart with money, why are you screwing over Laners over this, instead of scheming up some way to screw over The Hall for engineering this inconceivable exploitation?”

‘Choly felt Sticks’s fingers tracing the laces of his Surgical Leathers through his shirt. His irritation sublimated into awkwardness, and his heart ratcheted, between his lusting after the specter of Daria, and Sticks’s lusting after the specter in his lap.

“Don't blow a gasket,” Sticks soothed. “One, I can't just make people do whatever I want, even if it's for their own good. The more I've tried to convince her, the more adamant she's gotten that I'm just trying to get rich off this. She's not the only one this situation has made paranoid as sin. If she wants my help sorting all this out, she'll ask me for it. Hopefully, she'll come around before the Concourse catches on to what The Hall is pulling. Two, give it time. Have a little faith in me, why don't you.”

Something about the whole situation felt off. He wondered what currency the Mayor had been donating to Sutter Grove. But he was too tired to hash out whether speculating were constructive, or if he were simply inventing reasons to worry. It would take little persuasion on his part at this point, to coax his leather-skinned companion to act on all those little nips and teases once they retired for the evening.

He resigned to a coy smile. Just the notion of bedding Sticks tonight cast out a tether to moor him to reality.

“We've all had a long day. Can we stop talking business and just… eat? So we can have some quiet, and maybe get to bed at a reasonable hour?”

“Grandpa ‘Choly, looking to get in bed before the sun’s even down,” Sticks ribbed.

And yet, ‘Choly found that the more pyretic his recollections became, the less he genuinely desired to act upon them. He knew he craved some unknown nourishment, but remained unconvinced Sticks alone might provide it.[98-6]

“Another proof that I'm not a vampire. I'm not nocturnal.”

“All right, then, Daywalker,” Maury smirked, clever and delighted. He ladled up a shallow metal bowl and gave it to ‘Choly. “Don't bite.”

For a while, conversation quietened with everyone's mouths full. ‘Choly couldn't place any one particular ingredient or even flavor to the strange stew, but true to Sticks's description, he found it delicious nonetheless. It would stick to the ribs, and had an indescribable complexity to it. He thought briefly to ask whether it contained any dairy, but it seemed unlikely, all things given, and he doubted Maury or any who'd helped him prepare the meal would have remembered anyway. He couldn't help but agree with Sticks: This was leagues better than razorgrain porridge or ancient preserved rations.

“So how much work do you suspect you have left on Blue?” he asked them.

“Less than either of us believed,” Fresnel replied. She ate another bite, chewing thoroughly, before elaborating. “The rads which saturate Blue have energized me as I work. That said, much of the restoration is the interior. Engine damages were minor. It surely is a shame it couldn't just be myself and Sticks, to go North. It feels like something of a waste, to scour Atom’s touch from the inside of the auto.”

“You and I might enjoy that glow,” Sticks started with a smirk, “but you and I both also know I would prefer it if my vehicle could have passengers who aren't immune to it.”

“I can respect that.” She grinned into her dish. “After all, Her Light still courses through the engine itself.”

“The, ah, sooner that engine can be secured,” Maury uttered, the corners of his mouth twitching, “the sooner Covered Parking can rest easy. I admit freely, that I started helping Sticks with the vehicle, prior to the storm, because I had wanted to keep an eye on the invertible. I hope you understand that I appreciate that you haven't invited me along, despite my involvement. I fear my heart would give out on the spot if I so much as thought of stepping inside one myself.”

“Quite all right, pal,” Sticks replied. “We can't have that. You're best suited to holding down the fort here, and we all know that. We appreciate all you've done for Blue. We appreciate you. All of you,” he added, motioning around at the six or so who'd since joined the circle once servings began making rounds.

“Thank you for dinner,” ‘Choly agreed, quietly.

“It's nothing,” Maury chirped, beaming.

“Oh! mais it is everything!” Fresnel insisted, with warmth and enthusiasm. “Come now, Monsieur Maury. Accept the praise! Acknowledge all Atom has provided us.”

She rose from her seat and extended both hands to Maury, encouraging him to stand. He hesitated, but complied, and she had him escort her back down to ground level.

Sticks pressed his face near ‘Choly's ear.

“You good to sit tight while I help these fine folks with the dishes?” he asked him. “Not much daylight left.”

“That's sweet of you,” he agreed, letting Sticks squeeze out from under him. A bit unlike him, though, to take on a menial task like that, when numerous others could handle it.

“It's the least I can do for their hospitality.”

“Oh! Do let me help, Sir,” Angel begged in delight, following him.

As the group rounded up the various tins and dishes to rinse, ‘Choly sat by the fire and watched. He still had so much to take care of before they headed out in two days. He needed to craft a fresh batch of Melancholia. And he needed to do one more pass of maintenance on Angel, and refuel it. And he needed to return the Lights Out holotape to Sacristan Haidinger, along with a copy. He could ask Sticks to copy the holotape with his more advanced dual-deck Pip-Boy model, while he drew the blood required to concoct the Melancholia. But, he shook the idea from his head with the two-fold dread, not just from a likelihood he’d have to confess the cause of his sexual restlessness was not Sticks, but more so for the certainty that he would insist ‘Choly then owed him a favor--he was forever adamant to be repaid in kind for just about any favor, no matter how small or convenient, and this would be no different.

He whet his lips and hemmed.

No, I’ll duplicate it without bothering him with it. Yes. I’ll format one of the JBD holotapes, and use that. But… I think I’ll give it another listen first. Maybe… several.

He rattled back to the present when someone rustled his shoulder.

“Did you really mean it that you wanted to go to bed early tonight?” Sticks ribbed.

When ‘Choly glanced up at him, the ghoul winked. He extended both hands to ‘Choly and helped him stand. Despite the mixed messages, all that mattered in that moment was the opportunity to spend time with the man of his dreams. Nonetheless entangled in the silvering cobwebs of the past, he needed more than anything to acclimate to the present, and be elated for the future.[98-7]

_____________________________

[98-0] Arch Oboler’s Lights Out, episode “Murder in the Script Department.” To pair the audio with the text, if desired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPqvsdjJq1M

[98-1] “So in love with the wrong world.” Florence & the Machine’s “Blinding.”

[98-2] Рентгениздат. Röntgenizdat. During the Soviet era’s deep censorship, Russia saw extensive black market trafficking of all sorts of non-Russian media, most notably music. Also called ribs, bones, or bone music, old x-ray film was repurposed to cut “blank” records, upon which would then be recorded music from all over the world. The records made this way retain their x-ray images.

[98-2] Гостелерадио СССР (Gosteleradio). A prominent authority in Soviet censorship, this state committee regulated all television and radio media, especially non-Russian content. A separate committee also regulated printed work.

[98-3] Стиляги (Stilyagi). The prevalent Soviet counterculture in the post-WWII era, it embraced whatever Western fashion trends and culture it could get away with. Many stilyagi fashioned their own clothing from old textiles because it was otherwise impossible to obtain garments in the styles they sought, both in cut and color.

[98-4] Chapter 50, “Mouthful.” The first time ‘Choly and Sticks laid together, ‘Choly swore to him he was a virgin, entirely convinced at the time that his recollection of this particular aspect of his past was accurate.

[98-5] Чубчик (chubchik), duck’s arse. A common rebellious hairstyle amongst drafted Soviet soldiers in WWII was a shorn head with clean-cut bangs, often thought to have originated from a desire to find ways to fly in the face of rules and regulations, by finding acts that still follow them. The military regulation merely stated the maximum length of hair and the neatness of the style, and said nothing of the appropriateness of bangs. The average Soviet porting chubchik was considered a hoodlum or bad boy, and it still has a reputation to this day. A duck’s arse was one of several mid-century Western styles quintessential to stilyagi fashion.

[98-6] Unknown nourishment. Kafka’s Metamorphosis. What sets a human apart from any other creature is the pursuit of some intangible quality, of which Gregor Samsa recognizes that his sister has found and benefits from, but which he himself never quite grasps.

[98-7] Серебряная паутина (Serebryanaya pautina), silvering cobwebs. Again with the motif of the dramatic irony commanded by the flickering threads of circumstance.

[toasted-valentine]

Would like to give a big thank you to @elliotly and @pyrotechnicarus for making Adamandi and TAOPP.

Context, first time I watched the two shows I was struggling to figure out college and my future. I’d always wanted to go into performing arts, make plays, musicals, movies, tv shows, what have you. But I was super unsure if I even could, the theater environment I had around me growing up had the directors rejecting people from roles for not “being biologically male” or not “fitting the part” due to their skin tone. Shit like that was always super discouraging, and part of the reason I quit theater for two years.

Then one night I’m sitting in my sister’s apartment in Brooklyn, just scrolling tumblr after visiting her, and I find a joke comparing We Are The Tigers and Adamandi. I got curious and decided to check it out, clicked on the tags and looked the show up on YouTube. Then I went feral and binged Adamandi and The Art Of Pleasing Princes in one sitting instead of sleeping. I had the soundtracks on loop for weeks after, just completely not normal about it.

I’m Puerto Rican and trans masc, I never in a million years thought I’d get to see people like me make stuff like that. My high school theater director wouldn’t cast trans actors for anything but chorus members or as their agab, even if they had the voice for it and were on hrt, he said it “didn’t work”. All the main roles he gave out to white students because he thought it would “work better”. Then to just see stuff where the actors got to be openly queer, got to be poc, and we’re actively encouraged to show those part for the roles. It changed my perspective.

Big probs to @cynopter as Vincent and (they don’t have a tumblr blog to my knowledge so I’m just using the name on the cast list from the website) Miel Escamilla as Beatrix because fucking christ they were absolute delights to watch and are incredibly skilled. Asides from giving me an unholy amount of gender envy, it was also amazing to see two people who are poc and engage in gender fuckery get on stage and destroy god with their performances. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a trans actor, let alone two gnc poc actors, be allowed to be leads in a show and have their backgrounds be part of the characters.

If I hadn’t stumbled across Adamandi and TAOPP when I did I’d probably be going to trade school to become some flavor of electrician, plumber, or house painter like the rest of my family. It genuinely changed the course of my life, and I cannot thank the people who made it and participated in it enough for doing what they do and putting their hearts and souls into it. Now I’m going to one of my local colleges for two years, have a plan to head to a nearby performing arts school after that’s done, and am going to be the person who creates art for other people to see. Forgive the vagueness of where, I’m attempting to keep where I live hard to find, just know I live in New York so do have access to colleges with these sort of programs.

I have a long way to go, quitting theater and performing in general for multiple years due to various reasons did set me back a chunk, but I do have hope for the future. I’m currently working on a short film with a few of my friends, hopefully will have that out before the summer ends, and I’m also working on drafts of a play I want to make, but that’s a far way off and just a general idea right now.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for doing what you do. Managed to change the mind and life of one person with it, and I cannot put into words the good it has done, even if it’s just for me.

Thanks for the killer music and stories,

-Teo

[lonely-ghost-girl]

The way capitalism has destroyed community is one of like the worst and most unbearable parts to me :/ Anyone who isnt lucky enough to have family or friends who are reliable and trustworthy and nearby are literally fucking stranded and up against it every single day. Every task is a million times harder. On the tiny human side of hope, it makes it so much more meaningful when you find someone, a doctor, a builder, an electrician etc who actually wants to help you and actively goes beyond their normal restricted duty. Its like oh.. you're helping me not out of financial gain but because we're both human and you just want to do what you can to help out? I love you

[keyn-jender-bite]

The Evening has Truly Become The Night in this Big Dark City

part one part two part three

The education district was suspiciously quiet when I ascended from the subway platform. I myself never attended higher education, but it was my understanding that university kids liked to party, and party hard. There was nobody visibly or audibly partying anywhere in the vicinity this particular dark and foggy evening.

Did I fail to mention it had become quite foggy? Well, it had. It was the kind of ambient fog a rock-solid private dick like me just craves. We're creatures of the fog, private detectives. It's not just an aesthetic thing either. There's something casually magical about a nice, thick, pea-soup fog that gives us gumshoes strength.

I breathed it deep into my nostrils, pulled my collar up around my neck and began to slink towards campus.

The large brick buildings of the City University loomed darkly in the night, lit scarcely by lampposts, themselves haloed in the fog and surrounded by fluttering moths. My footsteps echoed on the cobbled sidewalks, splishing a little in the shallow puddles gathered between the bricks.

I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I figured I would know it when I saw it, and thankfully I didn't have to wander too long before saw it I did.

The sign in front of the building was slightly obscured by clinging ivy, but clearly enough I could read "Marvin Chestermarvin Laboratory for Applied Theoretical Electrics and Mysterious Plumbing." This must be the place. I circled the exterior, looking for a less obvious entrance than the front door, which might be a bit too conspicuous for the purposes of snooping around.

There are different kinds of snooping. The snooping I partake in is functionally and physically different from the type of snooping that a cat burglar might employ, for example. Their form of snooping usually involves more creeping, skulking and especially sneaking.

I don't skulk. I've never skulked in my adult life and you're not likely to ever find my skulking unless I've fallen on hard times and it's required of me for work. There but for the grace of God and paying clients go any of us.

Around the rear of the building I found the perfect entrance into which I might snoop appropriately. The Lab had a small loading dock with a corrugated lift gate through which I'm sure various pieces of equipment and pallets of raw materials were loaded in. These cheap style of gates were notorious for locking insufficiently, a weakness that I intended to exploit, and did.

Using a nearby crowbar I was able to lever the bottom of the gate up until I could spot the poorly-designed hook latch. Employing a nearby tire iron, I manipulated the hook out of its housing and raised the gate just enough for me to wriggle underneath it like a hag fish in a trench-coat.

I was in.

Fishing the small flashlight out of my coat pocket, I clicked it on with a flick of the button and slowly padded up the stairs of the loading dock, through a heavy steel door into the hallways proper.

The wide, tall halls were constructed of marble, with columns supporting the vaulted ceiling above. The classrooms and offices were clearly labeled with small copper plaques, announcing their room number and the typical use-case for the space within.

An eerie quiet permeated the dark halls. Ghostly light seeped in through the windows to cast wiggly reflections on the imperfect floor. I could nearly hear my own beating heart in the silence.

A placard informed me the theoretical electrician offices were up a floor, with an arrow pointing to a broad staircase. I crept up slowly, keeping my feet precise and muted.

At the top of the stairs was a T-junction. To the right was a large lab filled with esoteric equipment, the purposes of which completely eluded me. To the right was an office door, shut and mercifully labeled: "Dr. Morose, office hours M-W 9-3."

A quick try at the doorknob confirmed my suspicions, the office was locked. Surely it would pose no challenge for me and my little lock picking kit.

Kneeling in front of the door I slid my favorite pick into the key-way, employing a 2 thousandths thick turning tool and a slightly hooked wave rake. A bit of fiddling solved the problem with a gratifying "click", allowing the door to swing freely open with a slight creak.

The air inside Klevin's office was musty and stale, with a hint of something I couldn't yet place. The soft circle emanating from my flashlight prowled the walls and furniture, seeking out items of interest. It was all pretty stock stuff—a desk with a comfortable-looking chair, filing cabinets, book cases, etc.

"Where did you go, professor?" I asked under my breath, scrutinising the books and papers which littered the space. Exploring their desk, I thumbed through the notebooks and folders thereupon, seeing nothing of particular import.

Sliding the primary drawer open, a small black notebook caught my eye. I fished it out and flipped it open. it appeared to be a diary or journal of sorts.

Most of the entries were pretty banal stuff, notes about classes, students and faculty. Petty inter-departmental drama and the like. An entry towards the end of the book jumped out at me for the speed with which it looked to have been scrawled.

"September - I know I'm being followed now. I suspected as much but now I have proof. I don't know to whom I might confess this. I can't be sure who else is in on it. It might have to do with the grant? No. Don't be stupid Klevin, it's the work. It's the EMF Drive. He wants it. I should have known it was him. A and L mustn't know, they would spiral with worry. I have to find more proof before accusing him or I could be disbarred. Talk to JD, they might be able to help."

That was the last journal entry. I closed the book and sat in Klevin's chair, my brow crinkled. Maybe they had been kidnapped by a rival in the college? Were A and L Aurora and their other partner? Who is JD? What on Earth was the EMF Drive and why would somebody want it? And what was that smell?

It was strongest here, at their desk, especially in their chair.

"We warned you, Magistrate!" a harsh voice suddenly screamed from the open doorway.

My reaction time was just quick enough to save my life. I flipped backwards in the chair just as the pistol fired, clipping Klevin's desk and sending a stack of papers flying into shreds.

I ducked behind the large desk, keeping my head down and kneeling. I couldn't see who was in the door, but I could hear them pull the trigger of their gun and the unmistakable sound of a misfire.

"Cribbage!" they hissed, followed by the metallic sliding sounds of a revolver chamber ejecting for hasty inspection.

Now was my chance. I wasted no time, vaulting over the desk head first. In one swift motion, I grabbed a dusty apple sitting on the table top and threw it at the would-be assassin's head, just winging their shoulder.

It was just enough to distract them. "Erk!" they croaked, grabbing their arm and twisting.

I attempted to jump off the desk and punch them, but a small pile of ungraded essays slipped beneath my shoes, sending me forwards ungracefully directly into the bookshelf beside my attacker.

I crashed through three shelves, sending tomes, treatises and various novels spilling onto the floor and at the shadowy figure, who was still stunned.

I managed to kick one leg out from under the pile of books, knocking the gun from their hand. "Hey!" they complained.

"Come here you!" I commanded, trying once more to heave myself into their stomach, only to trip on the same apple I had thrown at them moments before and careen face first past them and down the flight of stairs outside of the office.

My body tumbled head over buttocks down the first flight of stairs where I gracefully collapsed into a heap of books and papers. Struggling to my feet, I was just able to look up to see the figure jumping at me from the top of the stairs, brandishing a large, serpentine dagger.

"Hoooo!" they yelled.

My self defense instincts kicked in and I executed an imperfect round-house kick, tripping on the slick marble floor and falling backwards to perfectly hit my head on the windowsill behind me before blacking out just in time.

When I came to, I was alive. I raised myself up on my elbows, to survey my surroundings. I was still in the stairwell, books and papers were still strewn everywhere. The attacker was suspiciously absent.

Clambering stiffly to my feet, the situation became abundantly clear as I spotted the vaguely person-shaped hole in the nearby window. I peered out the shattered pane to the pavement below. Absent from the pile of glass was a body of any kind, or any other trace of the shadowy figure.

I sat down and rubbed the back of my head where a sizeable goose egg was already growing. Now I had a sliver of an inkling as to what was going on. Some puzzle pieces were falling into place. The shadowy figure had been wearing a long, dark robe, obscuring their features and body. I finally recognized the mysterious smell in Klevin's office as tarragon. The curved knife the assassin wielded was all too familiar in form and function.

I thought he was long dead, but these were the calling cards of my oldest nemesis and his weirdo cultists.

It seemed Warlock Geoff was back in town.

[vvatchword]

Protection

Dr. Lamb selected an office building down in the Neptune’s Bounty Drop, one across from the train station. The building had once been a construction office, meant as a temporary base of operations for the company that had built the Atlantic Express railway. In another world, it would have been condemned. Everything had been taken by industrious scavengers: the shelving in the closets, the light fixtures, even the nails for picture frames. The toilets and sinks had been ripped out, and piles of trash and excrement had built up in the corners. The stench was thick enough to swim through. Dr. Lamb bought it for a pittance from a man who looked at her like she had claimed to be the Queen of Sheba.

It was 7 AM on a Saturday when Dr. Lamb first walked into the building as its rightful owner. The minute she stepped through the door, a few huddled squatters lurched to their feet, lifting bottles and table legs. Three men, five women, two boys, all skin and bone. She noted the shaking hands, the open sores.

“My name is Dr. Sofia Lamb,” she said. “I have purchased this building as part of a social experiment.”

The squatters stared at her blankly.

“I have no intention of ejecting you unless you are the self-perpetuating poor.” She raised her purse. “I am willing to employ every one of you.”

One of the men started to cry silently. One of the women said, “What?”

“I am willing to employ you all, including the children. Your first job will be to help me clean this building,” she said. “And if any of you are electricians or carpenters, I will provide an increase in pay.”

One of the men dropped his bottle. “I’m a plumber.”

“Good. If you will help me fix this building, and if you can suggest the services of any other skilled tradesmen who are out of work, I will increase your pay twofold.”

“I know a carpenter,” said one of the women. She struggled to rise. “I’ll get her.”

“How are we going to clean this place?” asked one of the men. “We don’t have any tools.”

“I have brought supplies,” said Dr. Lamb. “There are brooms, dustpans, and a wheelbarrow outside of this door. Are there more of you here? I am looking to employ all of you.”

The plumber led Dr. Lamb to the second and third floors of the building, calling for strangers in the darkness. Most took up her job offer. The few who didn’t spat and swore. One threw an empty beer bottle at Dr. Lamb before she had finished offering him a paycheck. Dr. Lamb barely frowned before her newly-hired mob raised their improvisational weapons and chased the violent squatters out of the building.

“We shall start with the third floor and work our way down,” Dr. Lamb said.

Dr. Lamb stood by, directing work. At first, the workers piled the trash in an overflowing alleyway adjoining the building. Dr. Lamb quickly decided this would not do. As it was, the trash mounted nearly two stories high and blocked the windows on the first floor. Dr. Lamb thought of rats and cockroaches.

“Take the trash across the street to the other alley,” she said to her workers. “We shall have to clear out the alleys on either side of this building.”

She bought two more wheelbarrows from a nearby pawn shop for a dollar, and soon the plumber and his small family were hard at work pushing them across the street.

A crowd gathered at the front of the building to watch—shifty-eyed children, men in rags carrying paper sacks, painted women with weary eyes. When Dr. Lamb saw the onlookers, she stepped out of the door and said, “I am looking for workers to help me clear this building, as well as skilled tradesmen to help me repair it. I have only a limited amount of money, so I may only employ those who ask first.”

Eyes lit up throughout the crowd. It surged toward her. A drunk man yelled, “Hey, you need a nuclear physicist?”

People popped out of every hole. Dr. Lamb bought hammers, nails, buckets, planks, and tools for the tradesmen from the local pawn shop. Dozens swarmed in and out of the doors and dismantled the towers of junk framing the building.

She had stopped to oversee some children carrying sacks of old newspapers out of the front door when a big man in a brown trenchcoat pushed through the crowd. His face was expressionless and a plug of chewing tobacco jutted from his bottom lip.

“You moving in here?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Need protection?”

“No.”

“You’ll need it, lady. This place is rough.”

“I will not need it.”

“No, you don’t get it.” He leaned closely. “You need protection. Things happen to people who don’t buy it around here.”

Dr. Lamb turned slowly to face him. Her eyes were steely.

“Is that so?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Then I shall purchase protection. But not from you.” She turned away. “Good day.”

By the end of the day, her crowd had cleaned the trash out of the building and cleared much from the alleyways. She walked through the building and said, “We are done for the day; meet me on the ground floor for your pay.”

She wrote 52 checks. Twenty-one of them went to children.

The plumber turned the check over gingerly, like it might evaporate in his fingers. “How do we know these are good?”

Dr. Lamb snapped her checkbook shut. “Take them to Mulligan bank tomorrow morning.” She turned to the crowd and spoke loudly. “I am looking for men who can protect this building tonight. I will pay well.” Hesitation. Then hands shot into the air.

From across the street, three Sinclairs watched grimly.

~*~*~*~

Dr. Lamb opened the business two weeks later. It had new fixtures, new windows, a sensible sign, fresh paint. Everything that could be bought from the Drop was; Dr. Lamb reluctantly stepped outside of it to buy the sign and the paint.

The streets whispered about her; the pickpockets and vagabonds lingered at the windows. The building glowed among its broken brethren, bright and perfect.

The sign read, “RAPTURE FAMILY CONSULTATION CENTER.”

Her first inkling of trouble was when the squatters realized they’d have to move elsewhere. They gathered at her door, grumbling.

“Please understand. I cannot pay you forever; my funds are finite,” she told them. “But I can help you stand on your feet. I will discover a solution to your problem, but you must give me time. Until then, if you can find something to pay me with, you can live in the rooms on the third floor.”

“What are you, some kinda idiot? I don’t have money,” said one man.

“Then bring me an object or a service,” she said. “I will do whatever I can to help you, but we must not be parasites.”

So people gave her old luggage, jars of jam, music boxes, ratty clothes. She boarded some old women in return for cleaning the building and aid in the kitchen. It was an orphan girl’s job to let people in at all hours should they need to sleep on the sofa in the waiting room or use the showers. The plumber and his two friends guarded the building at night with makeshift clubs, and in return, she gave their families refuge in the attic.

It was difficult at first. She could not fool herself; these were gifts. Sometimes she could not sleep; her conscience gnawed at her ribs.

“You are the enabler,” it whispered. “You are creating dependents. They will suck you dry. Only look at your checkbook, your physical limitations. You are not boundless, madam; you are no god.”

Indeed, she watched her bank account with an eagle eye. The first month, her savings dropped precipitously. So she sold most of her clothes, silverware, and unnecessary furniture. She considered moving to a smaller apartment. But when she came home late at night and saw Eleanor sprawled on her bed and thought of the enemies massing around them, she turned the thought away.

She was almost never home. She rushed in and out, made cursory examinations of Eleanor’s work, and then was gone. One night she rushed in to find that none of Eleanor’s work had been done; Eleanor lay on the floor drawing mustaches on the models in a magazine that smelled like cabbage. She did a double take: Eleanor was covered with cobwebs and her fingernails were black with dirt.

“Eleanor Lamb,” she said sharply.

Eleanor flinched and jumped to her feet.

“Where did you get that?” She pointed at the magazine.

“The mail.”

“I do not recall purchasing a magazine about…” She peered at the cover. “Clothes.”

“I think it’s a free advertisement.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Did you do your work?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Lamb glanced down at the papers on the table. “You are lying to me, Eleanor. And you are filthy. Have you been bathing?”

Eleanor looked at the floor. “No…”

“Go. Take a bath this minute.” Dr. Lamb pointed at the door.

Thereafter, Eleanor was only moderately cleaner, wore mismatched clothes, and would stack old work on top of the new work Dr. Lamb assigned to fool her. Dr. Lamb was much too busy to reprimand her. Her job was one that never ended. Every weekday, she would perform her services as a psychiatrist until five, then go down to the Drop and serve there until nine or ten in the evening. She spent every weekend there, from the early morning hours until the lights dimmed for night. She often forgot to eat and slept as little as four hours a night. Her eyes were red, and the skin was drawn taut over her cheekbones.

She provided several services: vouchers for dry cleaning, a small selection of rentable suits and dresses for job interviews, temporary lodging, low-interest loans, counseling. On her lunch hour, she pored over the business sections in the papers, and took short jaunts into different sections of the city to plot the growth of various companies. If she counseled businessmen, she would ask: “Are you thinking about expanding? What about Pauper’s Drop?”

“Too much risk, not enough profit,” one said.

“Too expensive,” said another. “I’d have to buy policemen, and that’ll run the prices up too high for the people there to buy.”

So she watched, she waited, she thought. Until the poverty’s backbone could be broken, she sent applicants to the businesses with the highest growth. Every hire was like the furtive gasp of a drowning person.

When Stanley Poole from the Rapture Tribune dropped by for an interview, she gave it without reservation.

“This is not charity, this is a business opportunity,” Dr. Lamb said. “Pauper’s Drop can be invigorated by an influx of capital.”

“If you’ll forgive me for being blunt,” said Poole, “this ain’t business as it’s meant to run. This is altruism. You’re not giving loans at competitive rates, you’re giving them laughably low…”

“At the moment, it is not financially viable, it is true. But most fledgling businesses do not make profits in their first months. You must understand that I have a vision. By giving these people jobs, I am removing the parasitic element.”

“But look at what you’re doing. This lot depends entirely on you. Without you, without your money, they’ve got nothing. Altruism.” Poole smiled wryly. “You’re not benefiting the best players. You’re going after the human trash. ‘The great should not be constrained by the small,’ yeah?”

“These are the great. They were invited by Andrew Ryan himself, were they not? Their abilities are going to waste. We all pull on the Great Chain.” She spread her hands. “I am simply… rearming them.”

“And what’s it to you?” he asked. “Why should you care?”

“I believe that in the long run, it is to my best interest that the Drop is shrunk, if not done away with completely.”

“It’s said they pay you in junk.”

“They pay me what they can pay,” she said. “There is a point to this experiment. If I can start a chain reaction of productivity, it should cause a domino effect that will eventually transform the Drop itself. The profits will rise, as well as the standard of living. It will increase profits for me; it will improve conditions for everyone.”

The minute the phrase came out of her, she knew it was wrong. She closed her mouth, beheld the charged diction of the socialist, felt suddenly that she was looking in on a person she could not recognize.

“Everyone, huh?” said Poole, and sucked air under his teeth.

She looked at him without blinking. “No. You have misread my intentions. It is not that I aim to help everyone in the city. That is impossible. I seek the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This does not inherently mean taking advantage of the individual’s rights. Is my aim really that different from Ryan’s?”

The Tribune ran a copy of her resignation letter beside her interview. Soon the city was on fire. Demands for interviews poured in on every side, and soon her face was plastered all over the business section. Citizens hissed about communism. USSR ex-pats grabbed her arm on the metro, hissing, “They were starving us, and we were ‘everyone’!”

Andrew Ryan wrote a blistering Sunday editorial.

“It seems that some have misunderstood the philosophy,” he wrote. “The aim of this city is not to make everyone ‘happy.’ The aim of this city is to elevate the best of humankind. Equal opportunity has been provided; it is up to us to take advantage of it. It is no man’s duty to play nursemaid to his fellows and insulting to believe that one is required.”

The morning after the paper printed, a man in a nicely tailored suit spat on Dr. Lamb’s shoes.

“Parasite,” he said.

She looked at him. It was an acknowledgment that he existed in space and nothing more. Then she walked on as though he had ceased to exist.

But on the streets of Pauper’s Drop, the vagrants whispered about her. Strangers tipped their hats to her on the street. People appeared on the doorstep at all times of the day. These were always different from the masses who shuffled in the dimness. It took Dr. Lamb a few days to realize what made them different: the looks in their eyes, the lifted brows, the trembling lips. They were lit up from the inside.

Then the unthinkable.

The brilliant young entrepreneur who ran Demeter came into her offices for what he called “testing the veracity of this psychiatry mumbo-jumbo.” His name was Chase Milton—young, attractive, mid-twenties. Mid-session, he sat up and took her by the hand, chuckling. She froze.

“All right, all right, I’ve got to drop the charade,” he said. “I don’t need an ounce of counseling.”

She stared at him dumbly.

“Look, I’ve heard about what you’re doing down in the Drop, and I love it. That letter you wrote to the council? You’ve hit the nail on the head. You know, I’ve always thought the biggest problem about this place is that there is no heart in it. Charity with a brain, that’s what I like. Not just throwing money in a hole without aim, not just treating the symptoms, going right after the source. You’re not giving handouts, you’re setting people on their feet so they can take off running. It respects the individual, raises city standards, takes out that godawful eyesore. I like that.” He reached into his pocket.

Dr. Lamb tensed.

Milton pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and slapped it on her desk.

“Put that into your business,” he said. “I hope you understand that this has got to stay hush-hush at the moment. I want you to know it’s the closest I’ve ever come to giving to a charity in my life.”

As he rose from the couch, Dr. Lamb lunged to her feet.

“I apologize, Mr. Milton, but I can not take this,” she said. “Not in this manner.”

“Sure you can,” he said, and put on his hat. “But if you’d prefer to think of it like a business arrangement, then think of it like this: I want to expand into the Drop, but I can’t sell my goods down there without protection, and that drives the prices too high. I can’t act like you do right now, given some of my connections. My father’s Dick Milton—Farmer’s Market and Milton’s Security, you know? He’d give me hell. So open it up, and I’ll come in, open a little grocery or something.”

He walked out.

She could have chased him. She did not.

It was the first time she had ever let anyone give her money.

Dr. Lamb could hardly look at it. It made the bile rise in her throat. She stacked it neatly and put it in her lockbox, but every time she opened the drawer it was there, staring at her with Andrew Ryan’s eyes. Every time she saw it, she had to think: “This is a business; this is a loan for the use of my business.” But all she did was look.

Some days, she would stand at the top of the stairs looking into the Drop, at her white building, then at the broken structures crumbling all around her and the hunched shades shambling, and she would close her eyes. In her mind, she began cleaning out the trash, and fixing the windows, and dressing the people, and paving the street, until everything was shining and new.

At last, she took the cash and she spent it. She gave it as a low-interest loan to the plumber and a few of his cohorts, all skilled workers. They bought the building across from her own. When Dr. Lamb gave them the money, the plumber took her hand, kissed it, and said nothing.

The two whitewashed buildings sat across from each other like the gates of Babylon. They bled red ink. The papers came down to photograph them, and, laughing, called them “Lambville on Lamb Street.”

Lambs to the slaughter, sang headlines and captions. Lambs to the wolf’s den. Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?

With the plumber busy, Dr. Lamb did not purchase the services of anyone else to protect the building. His protection had devolved to a pinch of information in the background of her mind; she simply didn’t think to renew it.

~*~*~*~

One Saturday morning, as Dr. Lamb marched to meet the train, she bought a newspaper with a big headline screaming, “Fontaine Opens Orphanage in Pauper’s Drop.”

She flipped it open on the car. A big photo on the front page showed a close-up of an ample doorway, a check-in counter with flowers in a vase, and behind the smiling receptionist, a rainbow arching over images of dancing children.

“The Little Sisters Orphanage opened a new location in Pauper’s Drop on Monday. The Drop location is the sixth and newest orphanage constructed by Fontaine Futuristics. Little Sisters Orphanage only accepts girls from infancy to the age of ten. Services provided to the girls include meals, education, and healthcare, as well as questionnaires and counseling for prospective parents. When asked why boys were not accepted, Fontaine Futuristics’ owner, Frank Fontaine, said, ‘I’m going to let someone else corner that market.’

“The new orphanage was brought to the attention of the council on January 6, but following the precedent set by the previous five orphanages, it was allowed. Council members who voted for their approval mentioned concerns about mismanaged children being groomed for entry into criminal elements.

“City founder Andrew Ryan, who has voted against the orphanages in each session, said, ‘Although it is true that children cannot care for themselves, the duty falls upon their family to raise them. To foist them on the arms of an unprepared public is akin to the bloated cuckoo laying its egg in the wren’s nest.’

“‘Does this place look public to you?’ Fontaine said. The rest of his speech is unprintable.

“Some comparison has been made between Mr. Fontaine’s orphanage and Dr. Sofia Lamb’s Rapture Family Consultation Center, also located in Pauper's Drop. Ryan stated that the city council is still determining the nature of Dr. Lamb’s business.”

She looked out of the window. The city streamed past in streaks of light. When had Fontaine started building? She could not remember. She had voted against the orphanages herself. They were obvious charities. They were the claws of the parasite digging in, the amorphous blob squatting, the endless void opening.

She gazed into the eyes of her reflection. Who was this person? Two months ago, she would have been able to say. There was an unspeakable sadness in her, as though she faced her own corpse: a funeral only she could attend. To admit the death would be to rip her own chest wide open. She had never been the sort of person for great displays. She had been raised to be silent, to listen, to perform on cue: one of three quiet, washed-out shapes standing still against a wall, hands crossed on her lap.

How funny, really—that she had run so far from her father only to end up a still, pale shape listening quietly against some new backdrop. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old…

She raised her eyes. The colorless rainbow from the newspaper’s centerpiece arced over her forehead. For a moment, the sight arrested her. Against her will, she thought of Renaissance paintings and Madonnas.

If suffering is holy, she thought, what has that made me?

She closed her eyes, but the image was printed on the backs of her eyelids.

Pain was the price paid for being alive. Suffering was unavoidable except to the dead. If she were holy, oh—imagine the holiness that rolled up from the Drop! God should look down and shudder, that great coward. After all, what kind of suffering could such divine wealth allow?

The train squealed to a slow and steady stop. Around her, dark figures rose, hunched and stinking. She folded her newspaper under her arm. When she stepped out into the Drop, winged by the homeless, she drew up short. Something was wrong.

She took her time walking toward the ticket booth, head cocked, listening. Nothing sounded any different; nothing smelled any different. But the ancient animal within her raised its hackles: it sensed electricity in the air. The urge came to her: Run! Run!

She slowed her gait, breathed through her nose. Control. There was no sign of trouble, after all; there was no reason to listen to a meaningless emotional thrill when she had her reason. She was a god in the body of a beast; take the reins and twist the bit back. One step after another. Heel to toe. Five steps, one breath. In, out, in, out. The beast would listen to her, one way or another. If she had to wrench it down against the earth, she would wrench it.

She strode out of the station, one long step after another. She could not have seen herself that morning, but dark eyes followed her; she had worn white and gray and lavender; she stood out against the basalt and earth, faintly luminous. When she stopped, it was at the station steps, looking down over the Drop.

Her breath caught in her throat.

There was a crowd surrounding her little white building.

Her heart leapt into her throat. But still, she did not run. She walked. One step at a time. Heel to toe. Left, right, left, right: a soldier. A soldier. Suddenly she felt like a giant. She could see herself in her mind’s eye—the black-and-white rainbow—looming, giant-like, seeing everything, feeling everything—was this madness?

She strode through the crowd toward the front door; the crowd parted, and no one met her eyes. Her heart missed a beat: there was a toothy hole in her window and the stench of gasoline. The shakes started in her hands and went up through her shoulders. She felt as though her consciousness welled up through every cell of her body, that she was burning with the unbearable weight of all her life, and all her years, and all her self.

But then she drew short. There, sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood, was a beast of a man in a brown trench coat. His head was staved in. A bloody crowbar lay beside him, as well as a bucket of gasoline. The street was smeared with blood and brain and bits of hair.

A man set his hand on her arm.

“Don’t get your shoes soiled, miss. Walk around, if you please.”

“What happened here?” she said.

“This guy tried to break your window,” said the man. “It’s all right. We took care of him. Don’t bother calling the police or nothing. The Sinclairs will reclaim ‘im.”

“But…”

“No buts, lady. And don’t worry.” He glanced around the crowd. “We ain’t gonna let anyone do nothing to you.”

She walked into her building and sat down in her office. She could not open immediately because she could not seem to speak.

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[scotianostra]

Johnnie Beattie, one of our best loved comedian/actor’s was born November 9th 1926 in Govan.

Johnny entertained Scotland since before I was but a glint in my auld man’s eye, in a career spanning 63 years, he worked as a comedian, singer, television games show host, after-dinner speaker, master of ceremonies and as an actor on stage, screen and television: quite an accomplishment for someone who left school aged 16 to begin work as an apprentice electrician at Fairfield’s shipyard in his native Govan.

After leaving St Gerard’s High School in Govan he joined the nearby dockyards in an apprenticeship, he got involved with amateur dramatics, and by the mid-1950s he had become a stand-up comedian and never looked back.

By the 60’s he had his own Saturday night spot on the BBC with Johnny Beattie’s Saturday Night Show, which featured him playing many different colourful characters, including his alter ego “Glaikit O'Toole”. My own mum loved his quiz show on STV, Now You See It, where I think the jackpot prize was £500! Johnny has also done some acting and of course one of the shows is that old Scottish favourite Taggart, and on the big screen in The Big Man. On the set of Scotch and Wry he struck up a friendship with Gregor Fisher and went on to appear along side him in Rab C Nesbitt.

More recently Johnny played Malcolm Hamilton in the Scottish soap opera River City, a role which he had starred in since the show began in 2002.

Beattie has also had a couple of hit songs in Scotland, including the brilliant Glasgow Rap, he is happily enjoying his retirement after leaving the aforementioned River City in 2015 after 13 years.

He also gave time to charitable causes and raised thousands of pounds for charities; the most notable of these were St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank, the Scottish Show business Benevolent Fund and Friends of Winter Gardens in Rothesay, he was also president of the Scottish Music Hall Society – a role he held for many years.

I love this wee anecdote from the man, he tells the story of how he  was standing outside the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr in 1952….Suddenly, he was spotted by a wee wifey, who then approached him.

“It’s you! It’s definitely you.” “Yes, well, it is.” “Ah jist knew it was you.” “Yes, and you’re right. It’s me.” At this point,  Johnny said he took on a satisfied air, and prepared to sign an autograph. “Aye, I knew it was you,” added the wifey. “You were supposed to dae my windaes last week and you never showed up. Where the hell wur ye?”

At 93 Johnnie Beattie’s health was fading and he was admitted to the St Margaret’s Hospice in Clydebank where he died on 9th July 2020.