Chapter Text
To: import contacts list= "Miltons"; "Block List"
From: [email protected]
Subject: A Detailed and Objective Account of the Formation of the SRGTS (AABS)
My beloved relatives, of all personal philosophies, political affiliations and varying degrees of societal value,
I am writing to you from the newly formed Socialist Republic of Gateway Thirty Six (And Adjacent Bathroom Stalls). Its citizens have implored me to refer to it by name in this email, so as to spread the word. Magnanimously, I have agreed. I have not, however, attached a copy of their charter. I distributed your email addresses to the correct officials, who can do so on their own time.
No, seriously, check it out. I've heard you get, like, a complimentary tube of peanut butter lip balm if you sign their online petition. Wa-hey! Vancouver, eh?
For the record, in case it wasn't already abundantly obvious, that was Lucifer. Please, feel free to assume that any blatant non sequiters, flights of informality and/or gratuitous rearrangements of common adages are Lucifer's.
Nah, it's okay - I'll rearrange my gratuitous informality in italics! See? Presto! Instant recognisability.
How altruistic. I'm sure Anna would congratulate your commitment towards bettering the reading comprehension of Miltons worldwide. Speaking of which - and to return to the matter at hand - our cousin has been, to put it lightly-busy.
I'll say. She still hasn't jumped down from that chair. It's been, like, three hours. I honestly didn’t know that anyone could orate for that long without running out of words in the English language, or spontaneously combusting, or something. Should someone dial 911? Or whatever the freakish Canadian equivalent is?
I believe the freakish Canadian equivalent is 911.
Don't be a close-minded doofus, Mikey - everyone knows the Canadians always have bizarre, alien counterparts to perfectly ordinary everyday items. It's like, Loreena McKennitt? TOTALLY the creepy, lemur-eyed Canadian clone of Kate Bush, if Kate Bush weren't British. Am I right?
I have no idea who either of those people are.
You have got to be shitting me, dude. 'Heathcliff' is only OUR SONG. Callous dick.
You aren't referring to 'Wuthering Heights', are you
Michael, our life is Wuthering Heights.
-because I never read it.
Oh, right, shall we pick out a nice ROCK to summarise our relationship instead?
I always felt that biotite hornfelses were a reasonable representation.
... Okay, I just Google-imaged it on Castiel's iPhone, and are you freaking serious? That sucker has a face that only a mother could love. When you think of the two of us, do the words 'brittle' and 'gray' automatically spring to mind or something?
There are a variety of hornfelses. Feel free to pick out another.
Jesus Christ on a faulty ski lift, you're doing the rock nerd thing again. Do you think if I asked one of the protesters nicely, they'd let me slit my wrists with one of their badge pins?
It might improve the upholstery. What proportion of the airport's budget do you think they spend on these seats?
Probably about as much as they spend on security. I can't believe no-one's got around to arresting us yet.
Freedom of expression, Lucifer. Believe me. The family lawyer made it all very clear on his Twitter. I forwarded printscreens to management. Suffice it to say, we could probably open a dual abortion and assisted suicide clinic on the premises and no one would bat an eyelid. Or, for that matter, eyelid a bat.
Yeah, okay, I appreciate your attempt to relate to me on a vernacular level, but you realise the whole axiomatic mix-n'-match thing only works when it's funny, right. Someone did explain that to you once? Funny?
No one ever thought to explain the concept of 'tact' to you, did they, Lucifer? Except, come to think of it, I distinctly remember offering on numerous occasions throughout our childhood.
You mean that time you tried to enrol me in a finishing school in Alabama? I was eight, Mike. Never again would I cut my spaghetti with a spoon.
I thought it would look good on your CV. That, and I don't see what you were so worried about. They rejected your application on the grounds of sponsor ineligibility.
You were ten, Mike.
I was precocious, and I expected them to realise that. Shove over; you're hogging the keyboard.
Hey Ifsdjfn66wju6fnu
As I was saying, we're writing from the SRGTS (AABS). I'm not entirely sure why we're writing at all. Presumably to document living history. Lucifer?
Nope, I'm keeping shtum. Wouldn't want to hog the keyboard, after all.
Fair enough. Then I suppose I get full control of our iTunes account, too. Verdi it is. Don't protest - we have a political movement to immortalise.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I should start from the beginning.
The residents of Gateway Thirty Five were listening with rapt attention to Gabriel's attempts at stand up comedy (personally, I thought the one man Enoch II sketch was rather good), as Anna stared somewhat distractedly out the hallway's floor-to-ceiling windows. We had approximately four hours and twenty seven minutes to waste, and, as Lucifer and I were reasonably sure that even Gabriel would be in dire need of Soothers and caffeine by the end of the world's longest impromptu stage show, we established home base. Home base serves rather good chow mein, for the record: if anyone feels the pressing need to buy out an established purveyor of Canadian Chinese cuisine (with a four star health rating and three-for-two prawn crackers free with every purchase), I'll inform the owners of your decision.
Fuck yes, hostile-business-takeover the CRAP out of this place, people - it is legitimately the best shitty airport meal I have ever shared with a bored-looking Doberman puppy crouched under the adjacent table, whilst its owners were distracted by Gabe’s Moses on Masterchef sketch. (That said, I’m pretty sure the tricksy sonnuvabitch stole my chopsticks while I wasn't looking.) I mean, hell, stock up on enough local enterprise, and we might even set the venerable Milton institution of inept criminal dependency a-teetering, right?
Also, let me take the opportunity to state for the record - with the three squillion or so random family members we’re contacting for some reason acting as my witnesses - that Verdi fucking sucks, and screw you Michael for bringing him into this. ‘The Four Seasons’? More like ‘Four ways to make sheet music look like Jackson Pollock’s 101 Dalmatians, and brutalise public consciousness with the subsequent randomised screeching’. Ye gods.
But yeah, back to witnessing history in the making. (Which is difficult to do when you keep getting blindsided by TRULY AWFUL COMPOSERS.) So, Anna’s still quasi-comatose from introspection when suddenly, out of the blue – or, well, out of Starbucks – ambles a nonchalant-looking flight attendant, placidly stirring sugar into her Grande Frazzled Espressorino (Decaffeinated), or whatever. (It was green; I dunno.)
Luce, we're listening to Aida. That you can confuse a mezzo-soprano lamenting about her lover's doom with a series of violin concertos speaks volumes about your cultural education. There again, you've also managed to confuse Verdi with Vivaldi, of all people, so I should probably dismiss your cultural education as a lost cause. You never cease to amaze me, you know?
Love you too, you tone-deaf sack of shit. (But seriously, why would anyone remotely civilised or sane need to know anything about Verdi or Vivaldi besides the fact that they both start with V, and they’re both talentless hacks? Like, what else is there to learn? The answer is: even less than there is to distinguish, so suck it.)
But, about the staff member. Who was, for the record, drinking a green tea Frappuchino (you should probably know this, Lucifer) (seeing as it's my favourite drink). She was looking blissful and delighted (as one does, when confronted by a green tea Frappuchino) (not that you would know) when her manager approached. Now, we were mildly concerned - after all, we hadn't yet contacted our lawyer, and our younger brother had just wriggled past airport security in order to perform standup for half a dozen bemused frequent flyers - especially given the man had the kind of expression on his face generally reserved for pitbulls and school nurses.
Except, he wasn't interested in us. He didn't even smile when Gabriel told the one about fallen angels, ploughshares and guyliner. Single-mindedly, with grim determination, he headed towards the lady with the excellent taste in caffeinated beverages.
So, the flight attendant glances up over her mug of radioactive sludge, looking not even mildly appalled by its grossness, greenness or honest-to-god luminescence… and immediately begins to cower before the one-man cavalcade of impotent frustration and rage looming above her. Exercising the ol’ menacing-innocent-bystanders muscles with INTENT. Like, he’s glaring directly at her and her incandescent cup of cancer with the force of a thousand middle-management lackeys locked into mindless capitulation to The Man. At this moment, I was honestly scared for us all.
Then he curls back his lip into this heavy, super-mutilated snarl, and says to her: “WRAAARGH, I am the evil anthropomorphic personification of corporate tyranny, and I have come to ANNIHILATE your SOUL with my arbitrary dress code constraints!”
“Oh no!” she squeaks, in really squeaky terror. “Not my soul! Not my immaculate dress sense!”
Or rather, the mild-mannered, eminently reasonable manager - sniffling into his handkerchief and looking justifiably harried, even as he set his loudly buzzing phone to mute - asked the flight attendant whether she was aware that she wasn't wearing regulation uniform. Guiltily, she admitted that it was laundry day, and promised that she would wear a blouse in the correct shade of magnolia tomorrow.
He wasn't satisfied. Then again, I wouldn't be, either, regardless of the subtle good taste hinted at by the lady's Starbucks order. After all, uniform regulations are the foundation of authority, and flouting them sows the seeds of sedition within any business' ranks. Just last year, Chonae Oil's middle management threatened strike action over the company cracking down on fingerless gloves at staff briefings, and I'm reasonably sure that the whole fiasco had its roots in one secretary's insistence on the validity of Visual Kei as a mode of expression in the workplace.
That aside, the manager raised his voice, and the air hostess looked too close to tears for anyone's comfort, and, to be fair, pink isn't actually 'diametrically fucking opposed' to magnolia, necessarily.
So, the anthropomorphic personification of rampant corporate douchefuckery raves with nigh Shakespearian aplomb at the cowering, innocent, fashion-forward employee with the rotten taste in frappuccinos like there’s no tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Meanwhile, all this time, little Annie – our protagonist, ladies and gents! – is overhearing all this vitriol, expression edging into that steady, impenetrable corpseface she gets when she’s pissed beyond human comprehension.
Showtime.
The lights dim. The background noise stutters to a hush.
Anna gets up out of her seat, strides on over, and proceeds to flay the living verbal fuck out of Mr. Slavering Tool.
“How DARE you try to impinge upon this woman’s right to express her individuality through attractively-coloured, pastel-hued, work-appropriate clothing! How dare you attempt to smother the creative potential of a fellow human being in its cradle with your tawdry, propagandistic totalitarian bilge! How dare you slander the colour pink! You, sir, are the most wretched piece of putrefied crap the capitalist system ever deigned to excrete, and I PITY THE CANADIAN POPULACE FOR BEING SUBJECTED TO YOUR WORTHLESS REEK.”
The personification of commercial tyranny directs his attention towards this new challenger, with a sadistic glint to his (squinty) (jaundiced) (disproportioned) eye. “Is that right, puny proletarian scum? Well, I happen to ENJOY abusing my PITIFUL, WOEBEGONE, UNDERPAID workforce, and I shall PROCEED TO DO SO UNTIL PHYSICALLY COMPELLED TO DO OTHERWISE!”
Anna shoots him a look of loathing. “You truly are detestable,” she tells him, shaking her head in enraged disbelief, whilst simultaneously reaching behind her back for the steel katana she happened to have packed earlier. “In which case – I, ANNA HARVELLE-MILTON, CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL
So, I would like to take a moment to assure anyone still reading this email: the above is not actually what happened.
If you genuinely believe that the above is possible in the universe you're currently inhabiting, you have qualified for a grant from the family therapy fund. Well done. Contact Raphael.
Otherwise, read on.
See, although the SRGTS (AABS) has my full and continued (if not financial) support, I'm hesitant to condone its humble routes. For one thing, I don't see what possesses anyone to pair – to unironically pair - a pastel pink blouse and a maroon blazer jacket (with navy piping). For another, Lucifer didn't quite made it clear that there are uniform regulations at Vancouver Airport, and that this particular Frappuchino-swigging employee was disregarding them. She wasn't even telling the truth about it being laundry day - some people have the most obvious tells.
I'll concede that it was unprofessional of the manager to lecture her on colour coordination. Even so, Anna's reaction was somewhat disproportionate. I don't understand why she took it so personally, either - she could have filed a complaint with the man's superior, and it wasn't as though the flight attendant could justifiably claim to have suffered emotional trauma and/or discrimination on the grounds of colour-blindness.
All that, however, is irrelevant. Because something miraculous occurred. So miraculous, in fact, that I'll allow Lucifer to type, if he promises not to spill sweet and sour maple syrup on my keyboard.
Michael, you’re my brother, and I love you to a degree almost pathological, but I’ve gotta be honest here. You have no freaking clue how to spin a believable yarn, y’know? I mean, for someone who I’m convinced absolutely MUST wax his eyebrows –because let’s face it; nobody’s facial hair is that goddamn tidy au natural –you’ve got one hell of a psychological beef about waxing lyrical. Sometimes a story needs more than just some sparse contextual framework and the obligatory snippet of snark or five - and this story in particular deserves so much more. This isn’t just inane dinner table smalltalk-in-the-making: this is COLOSSAL. It’s more than a stick to poke Raphael with in the future; it’s practically ALLEGORY. Proof positive that the human spirit (as represented by Anna) can throw a stone of unstoppable rhetoric at the vast, hulking Goliath of economic privilege (as represented by Sir Jerkface of Jerkchester on his mighty steed, Jerkington) and watch as the entire edifice of ignorance crumbles.
Anna is no longer a person. She’s a living legend. She’s Joan of Arc, Helen of Troy, Jesus of Nazareth and Bruce Springsteen all rolled into one, diminutive red-haired package.
And because I know that otherwise these shitloads of symbolic nuance would fly straight over your head, I embellish. Friggin’ sue me.
Anyway, so Anna proceeds to give Officer Pukebreath the 411 on why he’s the douchiest douchelard ever to douche – but like, I guess, calmly, in actuality? She puts an arm around tearstained-but-stylish-employee-with-the-taste-for-neon-Starbucks-monstrosities– who has the grace to give a grateful sniff - and explains exactly why it’s out of line to lecture someone on their fashion preferences until they burst out crying. And Michael and I can’t help but notice that people are, well, noticing. Like, all around, there’s total hush, as everyone in Gateway Thirty Six tunes in to the one-woman wonder making a stand against aesthetic injustice. And then SHE starts to notice that people are noticing, too.
So she climbs up onto the nearest chair, and starts to address them.
“Denizens of Gateway Thirty-Six!” she begins, and yes, I swear to god Michael, that IS what she actually said so keep your hands off the keyboard already. “Allow me to present to you an example of classic workplace injustice! Yes, admittedly, one employee being lectured over her choice of clothing is, on the surface, seemingly trivial. But look deeper and the cracks of institutional despotism begin to show.” She pins them with a blazing look – and I, for one, cowered. “Do we really live in a society in which the colour of one’s button-down blouse is more fundamental to a person than the contents of one’s heart? Because I am amazed that we, as a nation, could have sunk so low.” (Presumably she meant Canada as a nation.) (I wasn’t about to argue the specifics.) “Ask yourselves. Is this really a culture of which I want to be a member? Is this really an airport of which I can be proud? The answer, Gateway Thirty-Sixers, is no! No, it is not! Because this idea is vapid, sexist, discriminatory and vile! But I look around here, right now, and I do not see people who are vapid, sexist, discriminatory and vile. No. I see people who are decent, talented, non-judgemental and bright! Now, answer me –WILL YOU STAND FOR THIS?”
There was a dim sort of silence. The air hostess sniffled bravely. Even Gabriel had stopped talking.
Somewhere, a toddler started to cry, but its voice was quickly stifled.
Eventually, a man wearing an 'I Went to Moldova and All I Got Me Was This Lousy Applique' shirt stood up. He was about the same age as the air hostess, and spoke in a thick Chinese accent. He said, "Yes, um, very good. I agree."
After a moment of contemplation, a teenage girl with five piercings in one ear and a neon pink sports bag stood up, too. And she said, "That was kind of out of line, dude. She has a point." Then, with rather more enthusiasm: "Hey, aren't you that famous blogger? The one who wrote that article on free trade beehive manufacture and its impact on the sustainable candle industry?"
It seemed, in that moment, that Anna might become side-tracked by the rare chance to autograph various fans' Milton paraphernalia, but, in what was a feat of extraordinary short-sightedness (did she not realise what an opportunity this was for publicity?) she remained resolute.
"One moment," was all she said. "I asked a question."
And, just like that, the entire gateway burst into murmured assent.
"She's right," said a pensioner. "My god - she's right."
A man with three children started to cry. "Someone finally understands," he said. "People are beautiful."
Once more, morality triumphed over common sense. Lucifer looked positively ecstatic. Temporarily forgotten, the manager didn't quite know what to do with himself. He shuffled from foot to foot, face turned grim.
Ecstatic? Try satisfied at the swift implementation of justice! I’m telling you, guys. ALLEGORY. Pure allegory, right there, plain as the fastidiously tended eyebrows on your face: straight up, my-life-is-awesome, everyone-else-go-home style allegory. Man, I’m telling you: CANADA. Seriously. And even better? Was that it didn’t stop at that. I mean, sure, it might have just fizzled out after a few spurts of quasi-unanimous muttering – but, as is, Anna stood her ground (chair) (whatever), still and silent as an arthritic mime, only with POISE, yknow? –and fixed them with a weird, needle-sharp sort of hyper-stare that managed to be both equal parts hopeful and demanding. Like, as if to show that she was really, really excited and humbled at how much grudging support she’d garnered– but also, if we just dropped it after that, she’d most likely kill us with her mind.
And hell, faced with a look like that, how could you just roll your eyes and hide behind the pages of Cactus Lovers Quarterly, or resume watching the season finale of Teen Giraffe on your iPhone?
You couldn’t. That’s how. Some flagrant attempts at emotional blackmail are just DESIGNED to be capitulated to. This one was individually tailored to it, after five separate fittings and an hour-long session in which a team of expert fashion consultants deliberated over the exact proportion of lace to Venetian glass buttons – and look, basically, what I’m saying here is that, despite her non-Machiavellian default, Anna has been inexplicably damn persuasive at sporadic intervals over her life, and this was one of them.
Clearly everyone else thought so too. Because round about the time that one dude dissolved into tears, all of Gateway Thirty Six was awash with reverent babble. Suddenly, Moldova Man and Sports Bag Girl weren’t the only ones standing. In fact, a whole bunch of people left their seats, totally disregarding their scattered luggage – and the correspondent hungry looks in the eyes of the surrounding security staff - in order to yell their support. Emboldened, a few people even clambered up onto some more chairs in the wake of the din. It was chaos, my little cherry clafoutis!
I'm not entirely sure where any of those metaphors were going - hurtling down the Highway of Lowbrow Absurdism towards the Overpriced Gas Station of Rampant Incomprehensibility, no doubt - but nonetheless, they're probably adequate to describe the anarchy into which Gateway Thirty Six descended. Gabriel came over to make mildly amusing remarks about the protestors, unwittingly dragging half of Gateway Thirty Seven into the fray. The Gateway Thirty Seveners were an enthusiastic sort of rabble, taking to tables far more readily than the native Thirty Sixans. Fortunately, once everyone was two feet off the ground, some semblance of order returned, mostly because nobody had to stand on tiptoes to see who they were meant to be shouting at. That was how the shouting metamorphosed into song.
The scarlet-eared, exceptionally bemused, significantly underpaid manager shook with what could have been fury, but was probably mortification, for about two verses of 'Build a Bonfire (Put the Prejudices of the Small but Overly Powerful Managerial Minority on the Top)'. Then, he began to speak.
"Well," he said, and stopped. A lone voice warbled 'put Vancouver Airport's deluded force of grope-happy security staff in the middle', but tailed off when its owner realised that no one was singing along.
"Well," said the manager, "I don't see what you can do. It- it's not like you own the place!"
Which puts a bit of a dampener on things, admittedly. There are a few muted ‘oh’s, and a general deflating of hitherto hitched-up angry shoulders. People begin to look down a little awkwardly, like they’re not sure whether they ought to still be on a table, and they’re starting to suspect not, except it would be awkward to move. Like, they’re not certain of the etiquette of dismounting, but it’s certainly far from not being on the cards. Anna looks like she’s about to cry.
“He’s right,” murmurs the disillusioned-looking Frenchwoman with the Perambulating Rocks rucksack: gray hair bound up in an elaborate chignon; eyes swimming in ill-disguised anguish. “We… we don’t.”
“But that’s not fair!” exclaims the middle-aged investment manager in the wheelchair, with the ‘Come Visit Pigeonland!’ hoodie.
“Yeah, but what can we do?” says the eleven-year-old girl with the crew cut, fatalistically.
At this point, Anna visibly regains resolve. Straightening on her chair so that she towers above the slumped table-dwellers, she flings her arms into the air and proceeds to put her mouth where her money isn’t. “What can we do?” she asks, disbelievingly. She gives a heavy, iconoclastic chuckle. There’s a scattering of shorter, less certain chuckles from the surrounding audience. She politely waits for these to recede, before continuing. “Residents of Gateway Thirty Six, and migrants from Gateway Thirty Seven! The question is: what CAN’T we do?”
This is greeted with noisy, enthusiastic cheers. Everyone stands up now, fervour rekindled – eyes alight with the white-hot vigour of IMPENDING REVOLUTION.
Then there’s this awkward pause, as they realise something. “Um,” says the Frenchwoman again. “What… SHOULD we do?”
But Anna’s ready for this one. With a heady, manic glint to her smile, she speaks so softly, yet so firmly that it’s audible to everyone in the vicinity – and unmistakeable. “We take over.”
Luc
Lu
Lucifer, let go of the laptop and let me tell this part, now. Don’t even try to resist. I've mailed a draft of this email to myself - crude, I know, but effective. At the press of a button I'll finish writing it on my spare iPad, with none of your input. Trying to out-write me is futile, for the record. I have a typing speed of 150 adjusted WPM. They gave me a certificate for it in seventh grade, remember?
But, to get to the point: this was the critical moment in the Gateway’s revolution. The notion of rebellion duly seeded in everyone’s sleep deprived, flight-addled brains, we organised. As one force, with nary a Pidgeonland memorabilia-clad straggler, the occupants – now citizens- of Gateway Thirty Six began to build. Soon, a crèche for young Thirty Sixians had been established, opposite the communal baggage area. Rations were pooled in the centre of the adamite-green carpet. Numerous tourists donned shirts in varying shades of garish yellow, in solidarity.
The crowd of innocent bystanders had metamorphosed into something unsustainable and mildly delusional. It like a very progressive reimagining of the Stanford Prison Experiment, or a meeting between two local branches of the Green party. At any rate, it was a sight to behold. (Albeit a somewhat impressive one: the improvised town hall blanket fort was certainly a feat of architecture.)
Ten minutes later, Gabriel joined us, an arm around the shoulders of the quavering manager. Wordlessly, they sat, both looking decidedly sober. Neither appeared particularly happy about that. They drowned their sorrows in poutine and bamboo shoot stir fry.
Meanwhile, as for our sweet little Annie-get-your-gun? We’re talking major elation here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so satisfied since that time when she was twelve, and managed to use Dad’s credit card to buy eighty seven crates of root beer in order to stage a postmodernist re-enactment of Noah and the Flood for her end-of-semester Art project. Which is not to say that she’s shirking her duties as chief stateswoman of the new Republic! No, see, I truly do reckon she could have cut it as a leader of a small nation, had she bit the ethical bullet and sauntered down one of the many electorally dubious family avenues available to her – and also, you know, actually lasted longer than a week at college. (You gotta wonder: what was so great about the seventh day of seminars? Like, what made her stay for that long? Eh, who the hell knows, maybe there was free popcorn or something.) As is? Well. Let’s just say she did every last little megalomaniacal, micromanagerial scrap of the family proud. Never let it be said that a Milton can’t supervise the construction of the world’s first non-commercial airport mini-theatre using only promotional travel leaflets and bubble gum. Because if anyone ever actually said that, I now have photographical evidence to the contrary. (On that note, check my latest Twitter posts, dear Lucifollowers! I’ve posted firshand footage of the revolution that will. Blow. Your. Mind.)
That said, none of this is actually the point. The point is what we are seeing right now - at this very moment, in fact. Like, as in, this mini-narration has finally caught you up to speed on current events and is now operating wholly and completely in the present instant. Disregarding the slight – but now increasing – lag between actual, real-life, present events transpiring, and me dutifully transposing them into text, that is.
Currently, Anna and Jo, along with a bunch of delegates from each individual row of seats (as well as a couple of floor-dweller representatives), elected via proportional representation and secret ballot, are drawing up a treaty with the Gateway Thirty Seven ambassadors, and drafting a firm anti-discrimination policy for our new, non-denominational nation-state. But that’s not actually the point either, O Miltons innumerable!
The point is, Manager Doucheface. Who… I guess is actually looking several kinds of sheepish? I am willing to accept that I might have possibly been a little hasty to judge, with regards to that guy. He – maybe isn’t the anthropomorphic personification of rampant capitalist hegemony after all? At least, not too much? I am also willing to concede the point on the Pukebreath front, inasmuch as his breath probably doesn’t really smell of puke. I guess. I mean, upon reflection, something just happened that made me suspect that under the vituperative façade - no doubt forged after year upon year of abrasive corporate dunderfuckery - he might actually be surprisingly decent?
Because he just approached Anna, tentative to the last syllable, and asked if he could maybe, possibly, perhaps provisionally or partially be granted Thirty-Sixian citizenship.
To which – after the obligatory pause of appraisal - Anna beamed, and graciously assented.
Life is beautiful, people.
I must say, I would have wiped away a tear, were I the sort of person to tear up at the personal struggles of airport management. Nonetheless, I’d like to think that I’m invested in his story, if nothing more. Perhaps not to the same degree as Lucifer, but then, I doubt that I experience much of anything to the same degree as Lucifer.
Whilst we’re on the subject of people with whom I’m on a first name basis, and for the few of you who still care, Gabriel is still taking his time approaching what might best be described as ‘coercive, unhappy sobriety’. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose and wincing in between taking measured sips of his Canada Dry and devouring the contents of Lucifer’s plate (he finished his own five minutes ago).
Meanwhile, the Thirty Sixth Library is bustling with avid readers and iPhone users; the Bureau of Thirty Sixian Health is dispensing travel sickness pills; and a few wayward Thirty Sixers have gotten a baseball game going on a small pitch cordoned off with duct tape.
Harmony has been established.
The air hostess has recovered admirably. She’s enthralling the Thirty Sixan children (and most of the adults) with an impromptu medley of Han folk music and U2’s greatest hits. No one could find her a guitar, so she’s currently singing a capella. She isn’t half bad, either. I suppose it’s possible that it really was laundry day at her house? Besides, objectively speaking, her shirt’s not entirely hideous. Not that that excuses her behaviour.
…Actually, it seems that the manager agrees. He just loaned her his iPhone. She’s using the virtual keyboard app in lieu of the guitar.
Dude. Dude! You’re not telling it right. In fact, in the grand scheme of telling things right, you are a blip on the expository horizon. The quintessential failbard. A stark-faced affront to the good name of narration, and Jesus poledancing Christ, man, how can you come over all reticent about the details NOW of all times?
Can’t you SEE what is happening in FRONT of us as we TYPE? No, clearly you can’t. Because you are a man who can’t fathom a metaphor.
Guys. Compadres. Miltons et al. What Michael refuses to tell you is that these two people – once enemies poised at opposite ends of the barricades; now fellow citizens of the new Republic; brought together by circumstance, shitty beverages and political sedition – are hitting it off like a heavyweight boxing champ hits one of those cylindrical punch bag thingies in order to compensate for his deep-seated intimacy issues. Hitting it off like a generic, lab-cloned boy band composed of four chords and implausibly spiky hair hits the charts at a run. Hitting it off like you would not believe.
I mean, just look at the way their thumbs brushed, briefly yet tenderly, as the iPhone was exchanged – and the sudden, bashful pause that followed, only to be cut short by the resumption of the audience-participatory chorus of ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’. Look at the way he keeps pointlessly shuffling his feet, as though he’s not even sure what they’re supposed to be there for – like he’s practically forgotten what feet are meant to be! Look at the way she’s nervously tucking her hair behind her ear every five seconds or so, even though her hair is scraped back into two immaculate pigtails. There’s no hair to be rearranged, Michael! And as if that weren’t enough to cement this encounter as real, bona fide love-at-second-sight – well, look at the looks they keep darting at each other. As if looking at her, or looking at him, is like staring straight into the sun, and all they can risk is a single, skittering glance!
In short, it seems that after all this time, you still can’t recognise true love when it comes cartwheeling in from the ceiling, naked save for strategically placed dollops of glitter glue, in order to grace you with a contortionistic stunt display performed to the soundtrack of a thousand operatic cupids singing ‘Eternal Flame’. For which I pity you, Mike. I really do. Not the least because you have succeeded in missing the significance of this entire episode.
Think about it for a fractional mite of a second, why don’t you? Allow a little critical assessment to percolate through the statuesque plane of that alabaster brow. (Not too hard, though – right now you look like you just swallowed a bug; don’t strain yourself.) What do you notice? I’ll tell you what: every way you look at it, it fits. Michael, these two people are us in microcosm! Two sides of a political schism: brought together! Two sides of the familial gulf: reunited! In every conceivable way, they are a metaphor for us.
Wait, whoamygod, look – is he -? He is! Mike, he’s ushering her discreetly away from the group. This is it. He’s asking her out! Oh god, I can’t watch – this is too much. Take the keyboard – I need to see this properly.
Well, this is all very enthralling. Also, voyeuristic, but let's not examine that too closely, shall we? I don't see why we're all so invested in these people. Even my statuesque alabaster brow plane is capable of working out that we're nothing alike. If you think I'm at all comparable to an airport manager, please take a look at my next paycheck. Count the zeros. Then, just in case that doesn't quite sink in, have a look at my wardrobe.
And, not for nothing, Lucifer, but I'm fairly sure pseudo-me just got turned down by pseudo-you. Well then.
See, that would be somewhat disappointing, if I had an obsessive fixation on the daily lives of Canadians with a reasonable taste in smart-casual blouses. Which is to say, it isn't actually disappointing at all.
Do you think he came on too strong?
Well, YEAH, Michael, I think he came on too strong. Guess being a dick to someone and then apologising doesn’t automatically get you dates, huh? Who knew? Holy salad, what an absolute tool. Like, does he have any sense of proportion, or decency, or style whatsoever? Maybe she has a boyfriend, dude. Maybe she has a girlfriend. Maybe she has both! Or maybe she has neither, but she’s just not that into you. Contemplate that, sucker!
Honestly, Mike, I know you were hyper invested in those two, but I really do question the long term feasibility of a relationship based on misplaced fashion critique and U2. Call me a cynic, and all.
It’s okay, though. Pseudo-me may have just rejected pseudo-you, but real-me will never abandon real-you! I mean, I know you really built this up in your mind, till it became almost a weird kind of projected relationship forecast for the two of us – but you just need to relax, yeah? I mean, for one thing, I love magnolia. I actually cannot believe you didn’t remember that about me.
Hey, Gabriel’s starting to look a little antsy. Is it time for a mass Milton exodus, d’you reckon?
To think, I'd actually forgotten why we were here in the first place. Then again, so have three other air hostesses, two pilots and a security official, so I suppose it's just a side effect of proximity to The Revolution. I doubt anyone will notice us leaving.
Tell Gabriel to grab Anna and Jo if he wants to bring them with us, Lucifer. We'll just have to hear the results of Thirty Six's second general election by text. It shouldn't take much longer: ten minutes ago, they held a referendum to decide on their first voting system, and ballots are to be passed out in the next hour. (I funded their campaign, so here's hoping the Commuters National Party win a majority in the national legislature).
Yes, Gabriel, I do have travel sickness pills.
No, they aren't the kind that make you drowsy.
...And no, I don't know why Lucifer is insisting that I type the answers to your questions as well as saying them out loud. 'Posterity', apparently.
We should probably get going, before I'm forced to tell the family the entire contents of my briefcase, and/or sign a petition against pulling the wings off houseflies in Thirty Sixish territory. This is getting ridiculous, much like every other family holiday I have ever been blackmailed into attending over the course of my entire life.
Yours, with what borders on nostalgia,
Michael :)
P.S. The populace are lighting a ceremony bonfire by the ticket scanner, and a small child just put a chain of roses around Anna's neck. I think it's fair to say they noticed us leaving.
P.P.S. Keep it classy, folks! Next stop: Blow Gabriel Blow. Kisses!
- Lucy =D