dat ubuntu nothing drag

"Stokely Carmichael was a Righter, 'til he changed his name to Ride the Tetrahedron an' grew wings."

Old Suh sipped heroin tea as he spoke. A melancholy sun shone through multitudinous clouds high above, letting light trick-iluminate the zillion dustmote wannabes hovering in and out of small town America. None of this fazed Old Suh. He was in the moment, remembrancing, telling Challie what things were like before the Big Break. The Stillness. Man's Dead End. National No Gun Day.

Call it what you will.

Challie would need to know. He wanted to be a Righter, long desired it, but only today did it begin to sink in deep. To be Right meant knowing what 'right' was supposed to do. Can it be defined? Or, like existence, did it ebb and flow as mercury along the sharp baleen beaches of a New England fantasy?

"What does that mean?" Challie rubbed a head shaved close with lightning bolts carved into it, latest fad for the fadless. Do it to do it. No protest or statement to make there. Feet in orange slip-on polyurethane high tops twitched under a circular glass table.

Heroin tea being stirred, sipped, bringing peace of mind to this old mentor. Old Suh looked at him with two glass eyes and a herd of white stallions roving hair to pick apart the question.

"Meaning is tough these days, boy. You best watch yo'self."

Young eyes squinted. Challie's jaw hung, inaudible words, so he looked around to clear his mind. Hard act to attain. The air, new yet humid, gave the day a pungent age. Summer here had been six years long but it snowed before he had left the house. He remembered it clearly because snow that giggles is hard to forget, even 'these days' as grown ups say. Challie wanted to be a Righter since he turned eight, when Grandpa gave him the stirrups to ride a horse Challie never owned, right before he wandered down the street to talk to the Cookie Cutters. Grandpa. Grandpa did Right long ago. Challie wanted to as well.

"This about your Grand?" Old Suh caught the memory, sugar on the tip of the tongue, and came to life.

"Yes, sir." Grandpa. Dad's attention span. Hip hop. Mom. Those that came and left.

"Hmm..." A few of the stallion strands leaped off the scalp of Old Suh, kicked up on the shoulder before joining the dustmotes in glitter limbo. "Things come and go in the world, even existence. That's how it's been since the Big Break. Now, before it, people had a set of what was right. Not everybody agreed on the what, but it was there. Buildings went up, folks went to jobs. Shoes were put on your feet after the pants. Dancing on the weekend. Wars. Yeah, I remember the war. Viet-whatcha-call-it. It's a place. Was a place. It never was. Who can say? Nobody's seen what was since the Break. We're living dead, no motivation, wandering. Now you only see caustic blisters, hear the sound of visible light crunching under your feet."

"I wear shoes," said Challie. Best to stick to one point. Old Suh talked like everyone else, puzzle words from a hundred separate logic games spat out on an invisible chessboard. Challie didn't get it. But he wasn't like the rest, didn't take the coke, heroin or alcohol the government handed out to keep people passive since the Break. He had eyes open, in order to see whatever it was from one day to the next that lay out there. Seeing truth is right. Right? The Righter has to perceive with unblurred vision. Most days, to be fair, Challie's eyes wax melted from the truth.

A woman in a perky red dress walked her caravan of dogs down a pavement made of horizontal, rotating obelisks. Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania clothed itself in the dust sun. Birds flew about, some changing shape, others dying, more being birds. A few real, live birds? Nice change of pace.

"Shoes? Good for you. Asphalt cuts the toes. Seen it happen. Once. Not sure if it was an accident or your Grandma made the streets angry. When was I? Oh. It's about ladders, Challie. Ladders and Concepts. Our thinking didn't turn real when I was your age. That part ain't changed, 'cept for who's got the rungs to climb an' how conceptualization works. See that cow over there?"