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any% 719
Clea stood with her spear at the ready. She looked left. She looked right. She yawned. Guard duty was boring. Sure, she’d heard there were monsters sighted in the area a few weeks ago, but no monster would approach this heavily fortified gate. So she stood here, like she did five days every week, waiting for a–
Holy shit what the hell a man in his underwear jumped onto her helmet.
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This seems a good time to say that I very much like writing quick stories based off of prompts, and anyone following me (or otherwise, really) is free to offer one up for consideration.
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Hmm…
Uh oh.
I accidentally stayed up all night and wrote this story. It’s below the cut.
I’m pretty sure I’m not even sorry.
Farsail 3
We have met Felicia Baxter before, but we do not yet know her well. She is concerned with things like lineage, not for the purpose of rank or belief in destiny, but because she is fastidious. She would prefer to know who each person’s parents and grandparents were in the same way that she would prefer to know everyone’s food allergies, birthdays, heights. There is a filing cabinet in her mind and she does not want it collecting dust.
So: Felicia herself. Born a very small baby, learned to walk late, to talk early. From a rich family, to the extent that wealth exists in Farsail. Had a few private tutors, learned well, studied engineering but didn’t like it so switched to peer mediation, economics, and civics. Is indeed the great-granddaughter of the illustrious Griphook Baxter, whose barometric innovations prevent all flooding. When a storm comes, the rivers are drained commensurately into the aquifer. Then rain comes, runoff occurs, and the water level returns, right up to each bridge.
She is allergic to walnuts, but not fatally. Also dogs, which are, in Farsail, rather exotic pets. She keeps plants. Many plants.
Each morning she wakes up with the sun, springs out of bed, and does her stretches and affirmations. She reminds herself of her purpose. First her life’s purpose, which she revises along with her living will, then her year’s purpose, then a fresh purpose for the day. This year her purpose is to amplify the best ideas she hears from others. Today her purpose is to be good company to herself and others.
Her lifetime purpose is rather private, although her ex-husband still remembers its last version.
Felicia is once married, once divorced. She married late in life. They had similar values. They found each other attractive. They discussed everything openly, honestly, at the first opportunity. Dated for a few years before marrying, but not too long
All the same, it didn’t work. So.
She’d go to a brothel now and again - there are a lot of good options for people who want men - but she can’t stand the idea of people knowing she’d done it. Being happy for her, feeling sorry for her, whatever it was. Can’t stand it. So she thinks big thoughts and takes long walks and waters her plants. Mediates as necessary, sees her friends in scheduled bursts, remembers birthdays and generates relevant gifts.
She’s very good at feeling good, Felicia Baxter is. She usually does. She’s a good cook, and she falls asleep at the same time every night. Has ten different aphorisms to tell herself, when she thinks of being old, and death. They usually work.
Without her, she is quite confident, the Council would be worse off. And so would Farsail be, and so the world.
Plus her plants.
And plus it’s Beatrice Featherknell’s birthday tomorrow, who needs a new skillet.
And plus there’s Joseph’s legislation to consider. Should she talk to him before next week? She’s afraid he’ll make all three of his proposals too extensive, and they’ll all be voted down. He doesn’t think strategically, that boy, but she knows he’s got a heart.
But no. It’s his mistake to make, or not. He’s young. He’ll learn.
Three things she’s thankful for, whispered to the ceiling, before she goes to sleep each night. Like clockwork.
“My heart kept beating,” she whispers, when she can’t think of anything else. That one’s more sincere than it used to be. More and more each year.
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Farsail 2
Next we have occasion to meet Joseph Bushnell. He is the son of Arabella Bushnell, who is herself the daughter of Mackley Bushnell, the famous painter who painted, among other things, landscapes on each chair of the city council’s chambers. Joseph wears his hear in a ponytail to keep it out of his face. He has stress wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and a touch of arthritis. Today he is testifying before the council.
“Fellow citzens,” he says, “honorable servicepeople.” He’s mumbling a little because he’s nervous, but mumbling, at least, loudly. “I will not waste our time. Far to our south, people suffer. Marauders seize their farms. Pests shred their crops. Children suffer and lose their minds from poor nutrition. The time has come to offer aid.”
A polite pause to make sure his opening address is complete. His hands are sweaty. He’s got a podium at the head of their table, which his grandfather also painted. A scene of a picnic, enjoyed by the riverside.
The council table is an oval. At the furthest end from the podium, the day’s chairperson. Felicia Baxter. She offers the first question.
“Thank you, Joseph. You are right that we should think on this. What aid do you propose?”
“W-well,” Joseph stammers. “We could bring food. And a group of volunteers with stunners and intimidating armor, in case there are marauders.”
Felicia nods, carefully. There is a glass of water sitting in front of her. She raps it with a fingernail.
“We do not produce much more food than we need,” she says. “We would have to plan. Someone’s property, or public property, would have to be repurposed. And military options, even ones that seem safe, carry risk of loss of life.”
“Our suffering is little,” says Joseph. “Their suffering is great.”
At Felicia’s right hand, the richest man in Farsail. Thomas Scrampley. Bristly mustache, wide belly. He finishes his own sip of water.
“Due respect, Joseph. Those figures are not, in my opinion, our concern. Their suffering is what it is. Ours is what ours is. We care about the ratio.”
Joseph’s brow furrows. His hands are shaking a little, which is common, but also sweating, which is not. “The ratio?”
“Yes,” says Thomas Scrampley. “By your plan: we suffer more. They suffer less. If our suffering increases just a smidgen, and theirs decreases a boatload, that is a good ratio. If ours increases and theirs decreases the same amount, it is not so good.”
Felicia, thoughtful, nods.
“Yes,” she says. “But there are other considerations. Precedent. We all feel safer knowing that Farsailers will account most of all for other Farsailers. Even if our suffering decreases a bit, but we set the precedent that it is our responsibility to improve the world around us, we may lock ourselves into other charitable works.”
“So much the better,” says Joseph. “What higher aim is there than decreasing pain?”
Thomas nods a little, but he’s frowning. A short lady with white hair named Bobbin speaks up, near Joseph’s end of the table.
“We could spread our good fortune until the world around is a little better, and we much worse. But then there is no Farsail to make anything better. And the world decays or improves according to its own principles, and our institutions are gone, and our potential bound to the wider world.”
“That is very abstract,” mentions Thomas.
“But,” says Felicia, “it is a concern.”
“I don’t know if we should value the lives of outsiders in the same way as our own,” says Cabbage McElroy. “We must think on this.”
“Indeed we must,” says Felicia. “Joseph, I make a request. Draft three proposals for aid, in descending effort and risk. We will read them next week, and deliberate, and vote the week after.”
Joseph gulps, nods.
“I will be chairperson the week of deliberation,” says Thomas. “Your proposals will be read fairly.”
“Thank you, Joseph,” says Felicia.
“Thank you, council,” says Joseph.
His shaking hands gather his single page of notes, and he sees himself out.
Birthday Fiction
I turned 25 today! Here is a snippet of what may become a longer written story. in honor of that. I imagine it could also stand alone. It features a man named Almond:
You cannot believe in a place like Farsail until you have lived there. Children standing around by public fountains, discussing local politics and drinking sweet juices, roofs tiled and tilted to capture the sun’s light and heat, rivers bridged over in so many places, so effortlessly, and so close to the water. You can reach down and touch cool water as you walk across, and, a block north, cross back and do it again. City Councilmembers take, purely by convention and with no stringent requirement, a two-year long commitment to cleaning the streets once their tenure is up. Guards are strong but never fatal. The jailhouse is staffed by golden-voiced singers and prisoners fed apricots and dates. Disputes, as they are, descend so deeply into substance and analysis that to an outsider, such as you or me, their process is inspiring. People care if the tax rate on the brothels is 11% or 12%, and how that 1% would split apart. Nobody minds that the brothels exist, or that they are taxed, and in general the workers are respected.
The old are kept alive according to their wishes, and no further. Everyone, each five years at minimum, keeps a living will, starting at age 25. Inheritance is heavily taxed. Everything is heavily taxed. Few are as rich as ten poor families, and none are rich as a hundred.
And so, you ask. And so why are we here? Are we here in Fairsail to be preached to? To stretch our limbs and walk, beyond the confines of our reality, in a better place? To breathe the fresh, protected air? But no. No, it isn’t that. We’re not here to escape, though we are advised to enjoy it while we can.
You see, there are two adventurers on the way. A boy and a girl, too good and too great to occupy our attention all the time. We cannot follow them. We must set up camp here, fix our eyes on where they will be. That we may see them pass through, in from one side of the frame, out the other, while we, unmoving, keep our eyes fixed straight ahead.
And so. While we wait. I introduce you to Almond Baxter.
He is fifty-six years old. His knees are very bad. He bakes cupcakes and the ovens are low to the ground, so he bends over often. He’s just filled out his living will last week, so he’s been thinking about death and suffering. His parents are gone a decade, both in their sleep. He hopes it goes the same for him. He’s eating a cupcake. He’s sitting on his balcony, which juts out over his storefront, which is closed, because it’s Monday.
Open Saturdays, and ‘til noon Sundays. Closed Monday. No exceptions.
So Almond Baxter, bless his heart, is thinking about death. His cupcake is red velvet, and he thinks about his weight, and his knees, and the pain that’s between him and the finish line. Except he’s tired of thinking about that, and he’s upset from thinking about that, so he starts thinking of brothels. He’s only been to one once. It was too much. He’s not married. He doesn’t have children. He’s been to the brothel just once and the girl they put him with was sweet even though he didn’t have much money, but she kept asking what he wanted and he didn’t know, and the clock was going, and, and, and.
Almond Baxter is a 12%er. He’d be a 15%er if it was still in fashion, but that debate happened five years ago, and it was settled, and now the battleground has moved to 12. He’d like the extra percentage point to pay for education grants. Teaching brothel employees other trades - reducing their tuitions. So that when they aged out of the profession - the ones who did, at least - they could do something else. Something respectable. Because yes, it’s easier for Almond Baxter to pity brothel workers than to reckon with whatever other feeling he might have, if he dug deep.
He finishes his cupcake. He sips at a tall, frosted glass of water. Breathes out, and sees his breath, because it’s winter. And down there on the street is retired Councilwoman Dorrison, trying to catch a crumpled piece of paper before it blows into the canal. And there’s Peter Doinkle, who loves Councilwoman Dorrison, and has for fifty years, toddling after her, hoping to be useful.
Almond jams his cupcake wrapper into his pocket. He puts his feet up on the railing of his balcony. He whistles a tune his mother taught him. It’s 2PM. He’ll take a bath and read the paper, then go down the street for Backgammon. Home at 9:35 sharp to bake tomorrow’s cupcakes. Same deal next Monday. And the next. And the next.
But today he thinks about death, and brothel taxes, and he rubs his knee. Just like he will in five years, the next time he updates his living will. And in ten, and fifteen, if he’s still alive and thinking clearly. If Farsail still stands, better each season, not yet buried in the conflict of a broader, crueler world.
9
All who know me and have sometimes enjoyed, or intended to read, some of my fiction:
I finished writing a long, interactive story a couple months ago.
I’ve been meaning to share it, but kept making excuses to delay. It’s made with Twine.
Here it is: www.justisdevanmills.com/9.html
It will save your place as long as you don’t delete your cookies, so you can read it in several sittings. It’s about (mostly nonsexual) desire, and the number 9, and there’s artificial intelligence researchers (who I wrote about before ever having met any, so apologies for inaccuracies there), and dragons, and punks, and an entire extended arc where you just sort papers, if you want to do that.
I particularly hope that artists will explore it thoroughly, for secret reasons. I’d love if any of you shared it, though I’m most excited for it to be read by my friends and acquaintances.
If anyone finds the secret ending, especially let me know.
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Free Form Fantasy
A fully formed D&D Group has materialized before me, and requested me to be their DM. I am flattered! So flattered that I am seized by inspiration to generate some lore. If you are going to be in a D&D campaign that I am running in the immediate future, and are lurking here, I strongly suggest not reading this, lest you spoil, like, the biggest potential twist in the whole enchilada.
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