SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023)

Sit.35: The Correction

I fell asleep standing up. I was up again instantly, walking on the paved streets in an urban Japanese city (I knew by the brush-stroke letterings on signage). It wasn't as strange as those futures I'd seen prior, but actually kind of slummy, and familiar to my own time. There were no blinking lights, no flying cars, and no automatons as people. It was dark, and only the streetlamps warmed the glow of orange onto side-walks. I could tell that I was drunk – more-so than I'd ever been in all his life. I mean, my life? No, his. I walked with a tall girl of black hair and bleached white tips, exactly like The Mistress, but younger. And on my other side was a guy much like The Lancer, with fuzzy beard and dangerous narrow eyes, much thinner than the ones I was used to... but no less alert. He held a briefcase in his hand, and adjusted his flattened ascot – unlike the men of grey flapped suits, he wore only a white dressing shirt underneath; a modest, cleaner version of something I'd have worn myself on any given day. Even his leather shoes and cloth slacks, all-black, were a far-cry from any future I'd seen to that day, and reminded me of who I was used to at home... only snappier. The girl, of course, was in a thin white dress that accentuated her curves down to her mid-thighs like none made before, but was already very similar to the one I'd seen The Mistress wearing; if not for its simpler, harder-cut shape. And while her ice-blue heels of glossy shell clacked on the wet, drizzling pavement, the rain did patter upon. Behind me was a smaller, daintier-looking Mystic, dressed in white shoal coat and dress of black and grey, with shoes much more like my own – I looked down at myself to see I was dressed as much like The Lancer as he was, only sneaked in what looked like rubber-soled shoes, as quiet as a mouse's paws. Unlike his leather, which flapped and clapped about underneath 'im. Mine practically squeaked, and so did 'ers. She, The Mystic, was reading a tablet of some kind – a brochure, perhaps, but on hardened wood. Something about the local museum, I'd guessed, and perhaps a souvenir. We walked underneath another streetlamp, and its light flashed in white and blue, gold and pink, upon her face – and only hers, for some wild reason. The rest of us stood orange, and none noticed this but myself. I was walking sideways just to look at her as I pressed on forward, so I was quite taken aback to see what I saw next – as she stepped out onto harder, blacker pavement, to wave her goodbyes to us... she was struck by a speeding, careening vehicle, instantly flattened against the road. And I saw in slow-motion the man who had driven to her demise was holding a bottle, and looking at our faces as he lost control, smashing his truck into a streetlamp all enframed. He was wrapped around it like a tulip's petals, and bleeding from 'is head, while his glass was shattered and tired horns played from his wreckage. And I stared at that, for a while, while my friends looked around for help. With them gone, somehow disappearing into the lighted rain, I heard a cough. The Mystic of future's time woke up, still laying on the street, and said without moving a single muscle of her body: "It never ends."

I snapped back to, and I was in the pub again. The Mistress and Lancer were at my sides, we all sitting at a larger table, and The Mystic was smiling before me. Eyes closed in trust, and soft, gentle sigh. I furrowed my brow and smiled back, anxiously. I wondered to myself how I knew what a 'car' was, or a 'truck', or a 'shoal coat'. But I dismissed these imaginings as drunken stupor, for I was partaking of a little myself this time. I got thinkin' how Africa, despite its outward brutality, was just a mere inversion of the inward kind I'd found here... and how one of their crowning achievements, aside from the smooth stone towers, might have actually been the haram policy on drinkin'. In some ways, they were more advanced than us over here in em'rald and highlands. Made me proud to remember I was blood with all three.
"So," said The Mistress. "I'm thinking – you'd like to see less drinking here, aye? More of that tea and soda, I think, will balance your little market out. We'll limit sales to those, let's say... young adults and above. Around sixteen, for now? Maybe lower it if there's demand."
"...right," I nodded cautiously, waiting for the catch.
"We'll make your people sober up yet, alright? Starting with the kids," she assured me. "I'm seeing them – it's no wonder we thought sales were so good. He's been feeding them twice the ale of a large city, in a town barely pint's size. You all must be knackered by now, drank to dust in fact. We'd never sell so many to a single person in our finer establishments, not before carting their asses off home to sleep off the first batch. Has your tender been paying attention?"
The Mystic looked miffed. "My DAD is doing his best – The Heathen instructed him to sell more, or else. He wanted that coin of theirs, more than anything else – more than for them to even be alive."
The Lancer sipped on his mug of foam. "I hate this crap, by the way. I always go for a local brew, and your roddy tap has none. It's always this same, lukewarm pisswater, courtesy of The Mistress and her ilk."
"It's just mead," I shrugged.
"Mead?" he leered. "You think this is MEAD?"
The Mystic and I looked at each other. She asked, "Isn't it?"
"IT'S ALE," he condescended.
I asked, "Is there a difference?"
He scoffed, slammed the table, and said, "IS THERE- oh, fuck, PLEASE tell me you're joking."
We looked at him blankly, The Mistress enjoying his riling.
He shook his head. "Okay, listen up: BEER is the same as ALE. That's MALT and HOPS fermented from GRAINS using YEAST and SUGAR, although sometimes, the grains themselves suffice." He used his hands to divide the space in front of him, and show his passion for the topic. "Meanwhile, MEAD is a YEAST and HONEY fermentation – sometimes with fruit, sometimes with hops. So to even CALL it a 'Honey Mead' is as stupid and redundant as calling beer a 'Grain Ale'! It's fucking bollocks, ask me, but that's marketing for you: telling someone twice something they should already know once."
He drank his pint some more, and tasted it, eyes on the ceiling. "Ah, see, I told your father to surprise me, but THIS... this is ALE. No honey, and it's more bitter. AND, it has a lower alcohol content ON AVERAGE than wine or mead – while mead is higher than even wine, but still less than a liquor. See? I'm not just a dumb face in a pretty mask, unlike some of us here."
I frowned, unsure if I should speak back to 'im the same way.
The Mistress spoke up for me. "Hey, watch your mouth, he's done nothing but defend his town-"
"I meant you," The Lancer jabbed, and after a second of silence and being glared at, he erupted into laughter.
Without knowing what he was on about, other men uproarious raised their glass to 'im. All were laughing along to their own jokes each, it seemed. It was a celebration of sorts – we'd locked The Heathen in the church basement, where exorcisms were often done. It was a practice for those too sick for recovery, and mad-claimed by disease or demonic possession. Although, in my mind's eye, I knew truly that my usage of the word 'demon' for them was wrong, now. It was only a monster, by air or miasma, and a mind-flayer at that – but not a demon, or daemon if you like. More traditionally, a daemon was an animal-man-hybrid, though commonly styled after local consumption habits... hence the red goat, and the bull's horns, for those who regularly ate of their cheese, meat, and milk. Something spiritual or otherwise had been passed on to them, perhaps, by subsumation of their essence – it mattered not. They were a friendly sort, I found, in my many mental travels upon the globe and globes void-roamed. My dreams had taught me that daemons could be trusted, whether fuzzy, scaly, or feathered. They could be cherished, even loved, the same as we – they were as pets and people together, a natural reminder of our true origins in the green beyond. It was the MONSTERS that scared even them, and made viciously into horrendous evil the ones of red goat's feet and bull's horn. The Satanic Prince himself was merely a fawn, bereft of play and appreciation, who rebelled against his sheepish flock because they regaled him. The lavishing of praise for his beauty and feist made him feel unyielding pressure: the cottony behavior and morals for which he had (and still has) no patience. The grand sheepdog, God mighty tall, was a noble sort who let his ikes wander when rowdy. He assumed his son would simply mountaineer his way back eventually, for this was as good as anyone could have it: a sunny field of soft flowr'd green for the timid, and a peaking cave for hard-hooved fights and the braving of nature's challenges. This was the natural order of things, no more contentious to say or riotous in cause than a horse in its own front yard. Or a bird on the wind, flying 'tween leaves on their appropriate trees.
My mind drifted back. I sat and drank tea, spot of wine, for all my trouble in post-hence; last of which should be a wandering thought among good, sturdy friends. And we supped upon food I could like, The Chef having learned my preferences and sharing them all for the town – it was cheaper to cook my way, he realized. He could sale for exactly the same price, too, which made him a killing of the other kind. It was to concentrate the town's regained wealth, which we all picked from bags on the floor to spend at him. It was charity among men, following in The Reaper's "noble example", I The Reaper was told. And it was in fellowing with the new name's branding, not Golden Showers anymore, but something snappier, and fresher, and less likely to bite us back in time: the Cup O' Sparks. In this way, we drank to heroes who slayed monsters; we drank to those like The Author and the actors that brought them to life abroad; and we drank for the people who celebrated them, and gave them a kind world to come home to.