Civitas Chapter 3 Price Escond

Civitas: How to Die Together with Your Scholar Collegues

By Tristan Norman

Ed. Aran Meredith & Northern Mittler Solomon

Chapter 3

Price Escond

Perchance a little south of the academic district there was a semi-commercial street, in the front of the house of Café Adorée stood a boring young man. Boy to be precise. His pretty face hung a kind of nondescript tired and languid sadness, he wore worn cloth in the shade of brownish green, kept a dilapidated bag, between his well-manicured hands lies a cigarette in which he sometimes gives a drag. His face and his fashionable hair (art-rock-styled short ash-blonde curls) garnered a lot of attention. Terrence Norman the little one just said no to a university girl asking for his phone number, citing he doesn’t usually use his phone quite often, in reality he was quite on his phones during work.

Can mix dusk and dawn, can’t separate apart dusk and dawn, he stood for another while, it looked like today Northern won’t be here. Rumour said it he occasionally sits for a while in the café downstairs of the Archives of Anarch’s City, looking at impenetrable leisure books or drinking a cup of portio arabica without milk or milk alternatives. It is the cheapest drink out here.

Norman had sighted him in the Archive’s library’s special collection and this little coffee shop, the zombie angel always wears light-coloured attires, wearing a serene resting beach face and not knowing what he is up to. Norman sighed and came back to his reserved seat, it was a corner table worth observing everyone, there were several books of acceptable conditions on the table front. Which he didn’t read, look at the ceiling lamps emitting auras, look at the real wood furniture that cost a small fortune, look at the people playing chess, and the weird and random paintings adorning the three walls, they were in between a total shade of abstraction and a mimicry of realism, which looked like random codes, supposedly the owner likes them.

He could see a cat-like cat and a cat that doesn’t like cats, the rest is just commentary.

There was another tome in Norman’s bag, this one he just borrowed from Lange’s Engineering Finishing School’s library, strange it is their Anarch’s Archive’s library didn’t have one, not a book exactly, it was a score from an opera, which loosely translated to English as New Albion, a pseudonym in synch with the zeitgeist.

Of course, this is not the material he needed for his thesis (although he sweettalked the librarian of such and such), but material needed for his ongoing project or projection. Upon first glance this was a flourishing drunkard’s political satirical eulogy from the end of last century, it was about mechanical dolls, alienation and the city council, he is looking forward to finishing this piece during this week.

As a pseudo-intellectual, he doesn’t actually like to read. Writing is just fine, because the story is everything as meaning was concerned. He recollected his familiar professor in Oxford shaking heads in front of him, exclaiming “Obviously speaking you can walk far, but you only know shortcuts.” Back then Norman smiled timidly, and didn’t care as much. Aye, of all the passion of the student age, he handed over to Verlaine. That is to say, studying French literature in the British Isles.

When his discursive mind floated to god knows where, a very literary old gentleman walked past, “It’s not good to take coffee only, can I buy you something else?” By something else he clearly meant desserts. Who says no to dessert?

“Thank you.” Terrance said, looking at his leather shoes he’s worn half of his life and his hand-made shirt. “But I don’t like to eat something sweet.”

Liar. “That is the case,” he didn’t leave, waiting for him to finish. Norman observed his little cup on the table which he finished, and replied, “Macchiato has become a part of the past, would you like to offer a refill?”

“Too much caffeine is no good, which flavour are you considering?”

“Surprise me.” Norman gave a smile. “Sure.”

The gentleman (he calls everyone above his age a gentleman, everyone below is either a bro or a scoundrel) brought him a chestnut latte without milk, he grabbed a best-selling cappuccino and helped himself to his neighbouring table.

“Thank you (excellent taste). Let me guess: Professor in Old School Philosophies?” Norman slightly tilted his head, and used plural to be polite or impolite, depending on perspectives.

Very perceptive, cool Professor nodded encouragingly, “Non-old-school philosophy, although I mostly teach in histories of photography.”

Also an artist, Norman had an idea which school he might be perching in. “This is so cool, I’m a student.” He said he was studying.

“All good books you are studying?” Anton flirted.

“Really, all useless books I’m reading.”

Unusually, “Turns out the useless materials usually means the most.” Anton drank the cappuccino like the good man he was. “Let me guess: you were reading Stendhal and Baudelaire.”

So right and so wrong. Norman thought so. “Le rouge et le noir’s deliberation is quite interesting.”

«Disordered flowers lure and charm the eyes, to each flower we shall perish.«  He should have said to each flower we shall parish. Norman secretively rambled. “I’m out of depth in botanic and gardening.” Norman played coy.

“Please continue, you will read something out of it.” Out of it or out of it all? All of it or not at all. Anton emitted carelessly. He didn’t take dessert when drinking coffee either.

“In the creative process there is a pop-up exhibition, the photos are anonymous, an ode to still-life and moments that passed away, nestled in the corner shop in the artists’ quarter.”

“I’m interested in all things passing still.” Norman sweetly lied. He’s only interested in artists he loved and pressed-on nails, not necessarily in that order.

“There are highly interesting people there, I thought you might be interested.” A highly good and tame Norman pulled out his only fountain pen to record the address, Anton took notice there was something quite off of the pen, even if he sold the kid he couldn’t afford it. Or correctly phrased he can’t purchase it.

“You must go there on Thursday.” He said so.

“What’s on Thursday?” Now Norman is curious, and he inquired about it.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The current policy is show, don’t tell, but he’s not here for the show.

“Okay, I’ve had worse Thursdays.”

“Very well, my time’s up, goodbye, Normie.”

Accustomed to being taken advantage of, Normie raised his brow, and spelled out, “Good afternoon, Professor Anton.” Such casual irreverence.

After the brief encounter he was wandering off to nothing in particular in the café, and went away precisely when the clock struck six (or eighteen, he didn’t know better). Norman spent twenty minutes walking to his tiny dormitory. The dorm has a table, a bookshelf, a bed. He put his messenger bag on the bed, peeled off his coat and made himself a gourmet ramen noodles inside a cup, and opened a tiny jar of his neighbour chemistry student recommended, purchased from drug cosmetic store’s vitamins, and refilled the water in the mug he purchased from an out-of-town museum.

He spent five minutes to finish his meal and brushed his teeth in his favourite stall in the public bathroom, and returned to his room to retrieve the cashew laptop from his bag, after confronting with a blank word page for a little less than half a hour he started to input some flourishment: “This is a lust for larger-than-life lost world…”

The title of the article is called Mechanical Angel, it will morph into a novel and bring much chaos into Norman’s meagre living, because it is about an imaginary city with centralized means of production, the master of the city made many mechanical puppets, and turned many into mechanical dolls, after some exploratory discoveries made by the Byronic protagonist he became in the know and got lost.

It's a multiple-characters panoramic modelled writing experiment, he still hasn’t made up his mind whether to let the lead character go with the flow with the presiding power, but judging from the current workflow it appears to be the case. The core current problem is that he has yet to discover the heart of the story, but if his calendar is working ok, he has been to Civitas for only one year, and anything can happen in one year.

In a state of absolute luxury, he wrote for two hours, because the story is fresh and yet to be refreshed the progress or lack thereof went on and off. However, he soon discovers the main character is constantly flirting and filtrating with Albion, he is not sure whether to continue the tendency of this sort.

If you had to know, young architect Ashley was invited to Albion for civic design after a not-so-successful project, trailing the government contract, he and his bratty female second fiddle rediscovered some dark secret, for instance, how the masters of the city used and abused the rules and decision-making power to enslave their citizen-underlings. After all, it is a crisp clear plotline, but Norman added many materials with dramatic plotting devices. All dark materials. He thinks if the old man knows he can’t possibly graduate. But the old man seems to know of his variety of extracurricular activities, including penning.

As they had reached this point, Norman allotted half an hour of freedom to himself, and started to stare back at the screen to search for archives related to his term essay, the database is pleasant. He hopes one day they can read for themselves and self-analyse accordingly, actually the day is very near. He knows some of the scholars with engines can already do that, but everyone’s progress varies, in other words, everyone’s pursuit and needs are variegated. His need is to accelerate the flow of intersubjective time.

Not the timing, he had all the timings to himself. He is selfish like that.

Seeing no more work for tonight, he wrapped himself in a towel and went to take a shower, speaking of fresh young blood. He was using the most expensive shampoo and the most commercial soap, and in no hurry, spread almond-flavoured body lotion onto himself. He is untalented in magic, so have to use a machine to dry his hair, and then uses a type of skincare alchemists sell, which acts as both serum and cream, only one layer needed. At last he meticulously applied a berry-coloured lip stain or balm, because it is of utmost importance to keep an appearance in sleeping. Back home Norman tucked himself back into a soft duvet cocoon, he looked at narrative poems of the Romantic era. Because love, so to speak, is a flight of fantasy.

Fancy water for fancy cats, because for some, some are allergic to sweet water. Others are tired of the sparkling water some drink still water every day: it painstakingly ruins the joy and anticipation of the occasion.

Only vainglory makes him special, a special type of vainglory, that is to say.

Norman dreamt of another him walking past the imaginary city, the city is emerging in mid-morning mists, then it started raining, everything it rained was rubies and pearls. The rubies are simulants and the pearls were real. Norman woke up hearing someone so estranged and familiar saying to him, translated, “Remember if you can,” he was trying to say “You are a fish in a can,” but ended up waking up ever so suddenly.

He sighed, and reached for some museum water, passively in present tense, he thought about the futures out of reach, the wandering pasts and the futures past. Then he chose not to think. This kind of wishful thinking is helpful because someone is playing string instrument nearby, it’s one of the jewel songs, who plays faux modern instrument at III o’clock in the morning?

Norman listened for a while, he’s improved, if there is still room for improvement. Find a room, or find a noise-cancelling one, whatever.

He masterfully pulled out a pair of earplugs, which are just professional earphones per recommendation from music students, unattached.

Well-stuffed, he went back to sleep. There is no sleep, only resting.[1]

Once Igor was crushed by a beautiful woman, back when he was tournamenting in Baku, Layla was lounging around the hotel lobby of the venue, because she had pretty hair Igor went to talk to her during recess, she had black curls with intricate layering.

It came to Igor she was a WGM from Azerbaijan, naturally they agreed to an unrecorded game. Igor was little (not so much) hence very arrogant, in so much he acted as white for Sicilian defence and was still dragged by Layla in the endgame. This made him question his motive, because during the game what he was usually focusing on was Layla’s daytime smoky eyes and plush lips. Nonetheless, after some delightful conversation absolutely unrelated to chess, but committed to aspirational exit strategies (he had none, she went to finance), cocktails and leisure travels, they scheduled for another drink for another day. Because whoever lost in chess doesn’t get to sleep with the pretty one.

When was in office scrutinizing the budget report, he thought about matters like this. That is not to say there is anything off with the office, actually far from it. Comfortably nestled inside a brand new building, the official décor is very much impersonal, everything everywhere was charcoal grey streamlined industrial makeup, they said he can hang his own paintings, even the stationaries are arranged, or technically sponsored. He utilized the Nomos alien prismatic fountain pen to draw a dotted line on the well-composed report. Then he found out the coffee was out, hence took hold of his glassy cup out of the frosted glass door, Topalov was typing something at unbelievable speed in his U-shaped desk.

Doesn’t wishing to pester him in matters like this, he went to the holy presence of the coffee machine and reworked his creative juice, and added a hectic amount of powdery milk cream, which turned his pretty black coffee into a muddy and queasy colour. At this time the clockwork puppet had more or less done with his work, “Professor Miroslav (because he is not a doctor, alright, in theory he isn’t), how was the report?”

“Looks okay, a question though, why allocating so much for Professor Bourdain (and not a penny for Metzelder Laetoria)?” What remained unsaid is that it is unproportional.

“Because he has twenty students?” Topalov pointed out.

He said, “What are the circulating funds preparing for?” Because clauses are many, to be not so claustrophobic, not the causes.

“For unexpected joy and the unexpected.” Rather the unexpecting, but the assistant remained unfeisty.

“Alright, I’m done, something ought to be swapped for the money for seminars and travelling expenses. I had marked on the respective file.” “Sure, I will record accordingly.” Topalov nodded, by any chance his name is fake, not knowing what he does in person, but being an assistant is certainly out of the question (not exactly, psst).

“Anything prepared for me for this afternoon?” Igor confirmed his schedule, which he knows nothing about. Topalov opened the thread-mounted notepad, inside was some encrypted handwriting very obscure and very neat, he was all matters, all matter of fact seamless kind, or at least it is presented and picked up by Igor. “You are having a meeting at three o’clock Mittelland adjusted time, it’s going to be with Professor Periwinkle and several history department Professors from the Illuminarium, then it’s for office hour with Professor Lindale, which takes place at five.”

“Good, in the middle there’s an hour to spare.” Igor does not shy away from stating the obvious, because what’s the point in doing otherwise.

“You can take a detour and take a walk in the desert, or go off visiting the artists’ district.” Because out of no reason in particular the history department affiliated with Civitas’ city council is placed in the artists’ district.

The meeting was fine meeting, he mingled with a few Professors, said something stupid and something stupidly nice. Because you don’t flatter the intellectuals’ intelligence, you poke at their sympathy. Fianchetto is the professional word.

To accommodate Professor Miroslav (disambiguate) the elves used slightly accented Mittelland Latin. This directly impacted their voice and voicing, for each one had learned the language of a different age, implying some inexpressiveness and some polysemy.

“Verba legeris vana et venir.” The high elf couldn’t pronounce vestita similibus.

“Circa chaconne est.” For every Catilina and Catullus.

“Perisne in notis non legeris?” Are you lost in the tiny world around me?

“Non novi te editorem esse.” The art and triviality of editing.

Nevertheless, looks like the elves are experts in maintaining an elegant nonchalance while remaining appearing nice, unlike Professor Lindale who starts a war with the selected few every other day.

Professor Lindale received him in her office, it was a not so tall not so short building amidst the theatre district’s low-rise, a top-level-fenced white tube-shaped facility speckled with metal shards, her residency was at high level, but it seemed to be a corner office, which means most of the works she did at home.

According to Igor’s ill judgement it’s a long way from getting invited to her house or apartment, but a man can dream. Inside the room there are pleasing paintings, from impressionistic works of flowers and birds to portraitures from the Far East, everything and everything, Igor took notice the Powerpuff Girls’ styled portrait of a lady might be from Bai Yanshang, but he only recognized “Bai” means “White” so he could not be sure.

“What are you here for?” Leni asked directly. “I’m sorry, I came to see you. How are you?” Igor pleasantly smiled and exchanged pleasantries.

“How very well, but really, how were you adjusting?” Leni played with her jotter pen, only a click, it was a Gothic limited edition one, Igor didn’t recognize her as a Goth girl, or Goth woman for that matter.

“Very well, I found there is an abstract painting of an upside-down swan in my hotel.” He pretended to complain, made a funny gesture, and acted cute.

Cute. “You imply allegorical painting, chased by the swans?” A fairly educated guess, she took too many art history classes in a very young age to attempt to defeat the triviality of it all. A better solution might be more art market class, but what does she know about the market? The market is a place for meetings. Meeting what? Mutal mutualistic expectations.

“Noticeably I searched a little, it might be blah blah blah’s authentic work, I don’t know how to deal with it.” Igor equivocated, he searched, if it’s really blah blah blah’s, it values more than a house, a house in north Civitas.

“This treatment is too privileged, not too soon.”

“Not so soon.” Leni expected it. “It displays the institute values you.” She smiled both sincerely and sardonically. Igor is falling in love with that smile.

“Hears like a good thing.” Igor said so ominously.

“I think you don’t have to do anything, as long as you don’t do anything incorrectly.” Leni was namedropping.

“But I don’t want to avoid incorrectness, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want good things.” He pointed out vicariously.

“At least you know what you want(ed).” Leni splashed out.

“But my mathematics are rudimentary, so I’m wasted.” The articulation is incorrect, because his reluctant tutor for once praised his impeccable ability at math, which vaguely translated as “adequate enough for defeating an elementary math teacher.” Igor wished he didn’t mean teacher of elementary/fundamental mathematics.

“Everyone in this building has deplorable math, I don’t think that made any of them wasted.” Leni said so wittily, or for such an allegation. “Besides your chess calculation seems okay, why picking part your quants.”

“Thus I’m not good enough.” Igor talked casual with her, his actual question was what is to be done with the budgetary question, but he couldn’t ask her directly. “Professors of my department commented I didn’t inherit Zoran’s eloquence; I hope it’s a metaphor of compliment.”

Leni took a few seconds to pick apart the question, “Elaborate eloquence that is. You should consider being baptized by Metzelder’s rhetoric, you will meet her in the Law School Library.” Which Law School library she didn’t specify, because that’s not only impolite, but also improper in the formal sense. Formalistic if you really wish to touch up the casuistry.

“A rare gift and a rare thing.” Igor expressed enough is enough, because in case an issue arises he will bump into her. “She likes your chess, I’ve heard she ghost-wrote one of the articles about you.” Leni was not shying away from the inconsequential revelation of other people’s secrets, gossip is beyond her best of abilities.

“Really? That’s the case? Wow.” Igor replied satirically (but why are we talking about her in the first place?).

“Now you have the ropes, it’s time to rule the rules.” She implies that’s because she (Laetoria) knows about the rules and disobeying the rules. For instance, supposedly blended elves like her don’t have a last name, but for academic purposes, she picked a quite random one. Now everyone is asking whether she knows music, a gift which she sadly didn’t inherit.

“Because one ring rules over them all?” A moment later he added, “as in opera as in opus.”

“Tenderly, because it’s in vogue to design and create your own ring.” Face-value words of encouragement, why does an intergalactic bug desire a human ornament? As the string instrumentalists told them, rings inhibit movement. Prohibition is the correct common word.

A few more words to break the bread, “would you like to have some dinner?” Once the conversation is deadpanned, Igor makes this gesture, he can’t consult for free. “I don’t want to eat.” Leni replied.

“Then perhaps later.” “A glass of martini is enough.”

A glass of martini sounds good. “I’m curious, do you prefer dry or dirty?”

Is that even appropriate? “Absolutely clean.”

“Cool, once I got time, I want to systematically learn how to blend these beautiful beverages.”

Aha. Leni discreetly rolled her eyes. “Then you should find the correct schema.”

“Why not recipes?” Igor was curious.

“Because recipe won’t tell you the public tastes.”

“I thought what we need is the civic tastes.”

“All good tastes, I would hope.” Everything was picture-perfect until it was not.

“Right.” Yes and with wings. Igor joked around. He always messes around when he is nervous.

“The right has left the chat.” For that Leni had to clap back. Must be a little left of the good chat.

[1] cf’. a resting place for restive little shade.

ft. thank you for your attention.

cf’. thought you were sleeping.

ft. no time to sleep.