Civitas Chapter 8 The Unexpected Expected
Civitas: How to Die Together with Your Scholar Colleagues
By Tristan Norman
Ed. Aran Meredith & Northern Mittler Solomon
Chapter 8
The Unexpected Expected
Normally Terrence Norman would not travel to the engineers’ quarter, because a lot of them who went here had disappeared without a trace. However this time he got a referral invitation, and he needed the money. The money is always good, however do no evil.
The southernmost technological industrial park is like another city, all the architecture is fresh off the shelves and brand new, the pre-agreed upon three-story building has been remade to ten story height with add-on spacer plate to make them dwellable, and the first floor’s commercial ground is inundated with mechanical toy shops and vendors of electronic components. Mechanical puppets walked with humans and walked before humans.
Norman had worn his usual coat, forest green and with an acceptable amount of thread residue, according to customer’s demand he had applied some makeup (some mauve smoky eyes and a glossy lip), hence to uncall irreverent attention he had donned on a pair of sunnies, the sunglasses were cheap, because there was no need to shed disposable funds on props like these.
He had passed the age to display great expectations over the client profile, or even spare a thought to google them as background research, nowadays he mostly rests on their goodwill, to be exact.
He stopped in front of the second largest club in the Engineers’ district, after mentioning the client’s name to the manager in the lobby, name been first name, he told him “…that’s great. Mister Carlson and his friends are waiting in room 304.” He didn’t mention about friends, this was not going to end well. “Thank you.” But Terrence was already here, it seemed he had to make do.
He swiped the card, the card being a gaudy and minimalistic gilded semi-transparent black entrance card, the glamourous and dim lit room hosted four suited figures. Everyone who was waist-deep in bioengineering and eugenics prided themselves in keeping a good physical shape. Mister Carlson sat in the seat of honour, at his feet laid a large, fluffy white dog like a Samoyed.
The room was inundated with bad taste in terms of loads of velvet curtains and refurbished fake vintage mirrors. The ground was supposed to be marbled with a large piece of carpet occupying the centre. Norman’s second thought was that it must be a replaceable, washable carpet. The polyester blend looked cheap, he didn’t like it a bit.
In the middle of the room erected a video camera. Norman shed his coat, took care to fold it along the sides, exposing the slimly fitted semi-transparent androgynous long shirt, the shirt was polyester silk blend with milky white threads, corroborating with his lip colour, while hinting that he kept nothing underneath.
“Norman, welcome. I hope you are ready.”
I am. Now is not the time. “Thanks. I’m hoping the camera is outside of the service area?” Norman didn’t dispute about the dog.
“As you wish.” Someone had gone to the front to shut the camera off. He didn’t dislodge it as it will kill the fantasy.
Norman strode to the clearing in the middle of the room, and sat on the carpet to remove his shoes, and gracefully changed position to half-kneel on the carpet and began to one by one unbutton his shirt, while making and keeping eye contact with most, if not all around the room. Then he showed off his chest with a pair of diamond nipple clamps, the diamonds were synthetic ones of course, but people didn’t really seem to care.
“Present yourself.” Carlson demanded. So Norman changed shape, with spine bending forward, on his hands and knees, and revealed a freshly kept, tiny and dripping hole.
He gave a veiled and hazy look to corroborate with this story. Here he was, in open ground, pliant and servicing. He didn’t know what to expect, he certainly wasn’t expecting.
The dog must have eaten something, which made him to approach in a haste, and used his four paws or hooves on Norman, and then it went in. Only then Norman had embraced the sensation that this should not be a dog, but some kind of mutant, because the barb not the knot was inside his body, and they clang to the wall of the intestines, drawing blood while plying and abrasing inside and out.
“Yes…I liked it…faster, faster.” Norman forced out some encouraging words, his voice was light-hearted and light, because this coterie of engineers seemed to like to be in a position of power. Seemed like this way would allow this group of service technicians to prevail on top of others.
His body was in synch to play up to the mutant’s movements. For obvious reasons he didn’t bring his watch, but this kind of mechanical torture continued for more than half an hour, the spectators were practising heavy drinking and chain smoking while enjoying the service, sometimes Norman pondered it was undignified for the human, sometimes he felt he discriminated against the dog.
After a long ten minutes his unusual client had emitted an unknown substance into his bloodied pucker, Carlson whistled to recall the dog back, after a cheesy praise of “Good boy” he once again fed it some kind of reagent, and disregarding Norman’s sad gaze it went back into business. Norman was scratched by untamed nails with many reddened marks, on his scratched-out clothing and exposed skin, he thought he was injected with rabies vaccine, not knowing if it would work for this brand of illness.
At this moment he was too tired to emit any declaration of some interest, he only had some whimpers and moans. It was only later he figured he cried, hopeful it would make a bit more for him in gratuity.
His shirt was in hanging stripes, supposedly waterproof mascara was running down his Bambi eyes, and he was in deplorable positions. He should say something, but either he had grown lazy or he was not paid to say something. He was secretly glad he didn’t ingest anything before coming here, not that it was stomach-turning.
When the dog and people were satisfied, Carlson went forward and crouched to pet his face, “You did well, puppy or pup?” Puppy or puppet? That was uncalled for. He made his speech, and rolled back a stack of paper money into his white and red hole. Norman thought it was GB Pounds but he might be terribly wrong. He was too out of it to come up with some witty replies. It was up to another young guest to call him an ambulance, and professional people delivered him to Vienna Medical School’s ER room near Plaza Nebula, because Padua doesn’t accept this type of contact problem.
It all came in a breeze. Once he was accepted he received from the anaesthetist a sizable portion of pain-relieving reagent, and was placed on a cute bed to one of the rooms way down in the facility.
“My child, how come to you?” A blonde elder gentleman with blue eyes scanned through the case file and regarded him in professional sympathy. Norman took notice his blond hair was dyed.
“I was screwed by dog, more importantly, I consented.” Norman used humanoid’s human language to narrate on the issue.
“Oh, that is the case. You should take care of yourself.” The ER doctor pulled out some gloves and flipped him open to have a look. “According to circumstances you should proceed to full mouth reconstruction, but please don’t worry too much as we are in possession of a few new drugs, although not on regular insurance coverage. Whose insurance you were on?”
It sounded great. “I’m using Archive of the Anarch’s City’s.” Norman was leisurely enough to chat with him, because once he got the opportunity, he would deny this loosely strung expenses.
“Aye, Northern’s. As faculty or student?” The doctor further inquired.
“Is a faculty and a student.” Norman disclosed reluctantly, because the character relation was thus convoluted. Actually, Northern’s coffer paid well, it was just that the literature department doesn’t have that many funds running around, hence all rooms and boards have to be resolved by himself.
“There’s another way to resolve this, I can give you an alchemist’s carrier reagent, it can alleviate a part of the irregular action’s lesion, I don’t know the reason but it’s covered by insurance.” Irregular action or irregular activities? The nice doctor jotted something on Norman’s incomplete medical history and pursed his thinning lips. “But here’s the catch, you have to apply the meds yourself.”
You can’t catch me now? “And how long would that be for?”
The doctor gave him a look. “At least two weeks of solitary pursuits.”
“I can take two weeks. Thank you. And your name?”
“Doctor Fulcher. Terrence Norman right? Keep up with your research.”
Norman recognized it was not to be the last time he was seen by Dr Fulcher, so when he was at home standing to study and laying down to dress his wounds he asked around for the med students in his contact list, the child said Fulcher is a diagnostician, and he was in rotation in the ER, and had encountered interesting affairs.
Norman rounded up his collected maps (of where the rich and wealthy go), for where would a not diagnosing diagnostician frequent? The medical schools’ bars or upscale restaurants? He could enter none of them.
Hence the second time he saw Dr Fulcher was a mere coincidence. He went to the living room chat by an assistant professor from Heidelberg’s department of literature, and gladly found Fulcher wearing tweed, neither drinking nor smoking. They were talking about Dumas and Stendhal, although the question remains “Which Dumas, which Juliens?”
Professor Ilian told him when Dr Fulcher was not being doctor he was writing anti-psychological novels.
“Ohms, all conversational?” Stream of consciousness is a bad word in some cultures more than others.
“All conversational people drinking wine while being conversational.” Fulcher confirmed the conjecture.
“Isn’t that the elevated commonplace? The elevated commonplace was a bunch of people hugging typewriters or laptops while drinking tea.” Norman does not shy away from being curt and adorable.
“Until then who’s still committed to a handwritten first draft?” Ilian curiously asked. Some, not several of the seated guest raised their hands, because they could not afford the eternally updating computers or held some pathological sentiment toward paper and pens.
They proceeded to talk about typology and “font over content”, Norman mostly listened, nothing too close at heart.
Metzelder received him in his or her office, which is technically abundant and decoratively sparse, furnished with oakwood contemporary table and lightwood chair, he bet he or she does not sit in this room quite often, as there was nothing personal in this little room save the scent of lacquer and winter sun.
They did their round of pleasantries, and then after a short shot, Metzelder spiked the ball, he/she passed to Igor a letter of prepared speech and expressed “The division asks you to make the statement in the colloquium.”
Igor received and skimmed through the speech, all thinly veiled pleasantries and pleasantries exchanged, he replied I am no man’s puppet, however what was elucidated was that “The department of political histories shouldn’t receive the influences from the department of contemporary politics.”
“I think you are talking about contemporary marketing, hence this.” Metzelder didn’t seem to make a fuss and handed out two pcs of what appeared like handwritten tickets, “Before the game officially starts you should go and see this.”
Because they were private concert venue tickets Igor asked Fran to give one to whomever he wished to give to. Notwithstanding this, Fran came either way. They soon figured out it was a puppetshow using real puppets, however in the main stage downstairs they were casting realistic ball jointed puppets, with the clockwork puppets holding strings one story from now being the puppeteers.
This production had three puppets in total. One was a young prince, one was an evil wizard, one was a gloomy version of beauty’s caricature. The prince had blonde hair and light-coloured suit, the wizard wore black robe, the beauty was ethnically ambiguous. Igor instantly felt he was disinvited into some talented young girl’s dream, the young girl not being Metzelder nonetheless.
After a heavy load of dialogue, we came to know the wizard was a priest, the beauty was a god, and the prince was revealed as a smart idiot who didn’t know anything. In the opening scene it seemed that the prince had fallen in love with the beauty, in reality he was pursuing this evil mage.
Fran made a smiley face at this point, Igor smiled back artificially. Then the plotline experienced through waves of messy recollections and montage of random events, at last the prince disappeared, the wizard and the goddess proceeded with a far-fetched dialogue, they both claimed that the other had killed the prince, one for political reasons and one for romantic reasons.
What was most scary is that this story was narrated using Hell’s (literary) Latin transcribed into Italian, hence Igor only heard the bare backbone of the story, people who were in the know and delegate people who were there appearing for show seemed to have enjoyed it.
The lines ended with the sorcerer’s musing which more or less translated to, “He’s gone to where better places dwell, or that is what I have been told.”[1] After the 2 hours were over Igor inquired to Fran “How was it (as you were liking it)?”
Fran regretfully commented “You might have been set up by Metzelder, you shouldn’t be here.”
A thoughtful comment. “Because this storyline satirized against Northern and the public figure alchemist?”
“Because what is a god? God is not a woman.” Fran insinuated that he should do a little catch up with the only correct version of history of heaven.
“I know it! The prince and the beauty were one of the same person, it was his fantasy, the sorcerer can be anyone.” Igor forcefully interpreted it as a psychological drama to stay clean of all of these.
“If you think so then it’s okay.” This line didn’t feel like Fran’s, on the brighter side of things, at least he didn’t say it’s perfectly alright.
Afterwards the dramaturg who was bowing on stage rushed out, and concocted a conversation with Baldwin Institute’s official figurehead. Donatello is a playwright from the Fifth Ring of Hell and an independent producer, he opened with “Hello GM Igor! [handshakes and a pat on the back] I have seen your CV; can I write a one-act play based on you?”
“Hello Mr Donatello, I’m flattered, but what would you like to write?”
Donatello made a charming smile, which made his fresh water boiled egg face even oiler, “Something along the lines of an international chess player abandoned his calling, went on to pursue power and pursue love’s kinda story.”
Igor didn’t know this story had been broadcast to the Fifth Ring, but that was not his story. “Can’t his callings be power or love?” “That way people won’t read and won’t watch.” Donatello brushed his addendum aside. “I mean, I can write something good, like in the end he got power and harnessed love.”
“And here I thought people forgot to like to watch a perfect happy ending?” Igor made a deliberately unintelligible gesture, “For instance, what happened after offers are issued and beauty is embraced?”
“Demotion, and an embrace of a handsome bone.” Donatello insinuated darkly.
“That’s it. Good luck to you.” Igor shrugged, and walked away with the spectating Fran. They stopped at a nearby little pub that was looking good for some rest and a drink, because the dialogues and re-enacted actions were intense albeit with that little time and that little money, he didn’t know he could connect at this deep a level with the conflicted past stories of a fantasy dolled-up figure (he won’t disclose which one).
For some conducive distraction Fran told him “Good thing to know, Professor Bourdain’s and Professor Periwinkle’s students had entertained an argument.” Out of courtesy Fran was drinking an unspiked beer which would make him very sick.
Igor put his medium to heavy drink aside, “Or so I have heard, so what happens now?”
“Now what? They have scheduled a written conversation repackaged as article competition using the department’s room and spaces, the topic is preselected, but the papers were probably written by the two Professors.”
“They can do that? I look forward to the rematch.” Igor looked forward to any type of match, even this kind of deformed written match.
[1] ft. trans. È andato dove vivono posti migliori, o almeno questo è quello che mi è stato detto.
