Two Women and Some Books
It ain’t all beer and skittles
The sun don’t always shine
Some days winter dribbles
And you run fresh out of wine
It ain’t champagne and chocolate
Coz them things make you fat
You’re gonna have the odd regret
You can be sure of that
It ain’t all beer and skittles
And I ain’t the perfect wife
And if the sweet brings bitter
Well, that’s just the way of life
“You can confirm your registered name is Charity Sweetling?”
Charis nodded, expecting to see the usual smile when she gave her full name, but this official just raised an eyebrow.
“I need you to answer me, please. You are in no way disabled so a full verbal answer is required.”
“Oh. Sure. Sorry. Yes. That is my registered name. But could I ask what this is about?”
The official glanced up, looking back to his screen, as if he had not heard her question.
“You were born on a non-Coalition planet and arrived in Central when you were assessed as being an estimated four years old, a certain Vor Franet declared you as a seeker of asylum on the grounds that were you to be returned to your home you would face certain abuse through enslavement.”
Charity nodded again, then realised and said quickly: “Yes.”
The official went on in the same uninflected voice as if he were reading a shopping list rather than dissecting her life.
“You were accepted into the Coalition Protected Children Program and placed with a family who ensured you received an appropriately supervised upbringing and education. On achieving full majority and adult status you undertook the required military service of the Program and completed it successfully.”
The official stopped again and looked across at her.
“I think it’s a bit unfair to describe my upbringing as just ‘appropriately supervised’. My parents gave me the very best they could. They gave me an awesome upbringing, a loving upbringing, a fun and caring upbringing – ”
“Var Sweetling,” the man cut across her, “are you wanting to challenge your upbringing as not being appropriately supervised? Or report the Coalition Program has been at fault in some way?”
Charis shook her head. Then, under the expectant glare of the man sitting opposite her, said: “No, I do not want to challenge anything about my upbringing.”
“And you will confirm the other details I stated are correct? Or do you need me to repeat them for you?”
Charity began to feel uneasy. This appointment, at almost zero notice, had been pushed on her out of the blue in a severely worded linkmail, which made it clear failure to comply would lead to any number of unpleasant consequences. It meant she needed to take half a day off work and fly back overnight from her scheduled stop-over to make it, forcing poor Ebon to jig some very creative adjustments to the roster. But since it came with the badge of the Central Immigration Taskforce, she was obliged to attend. Charis linked her mother as soon as the appointment arrived, but even she had no idea what it could be about.
“Probably just some un-dotted I or uncrossed T in their internal files,” her mother said. “But if it turns out there is a problem, just let me know and we’ll get it sorted out. Do you want me to come down there with you as your legal representative?”
Sometimes having a lawyer for a mother could be very reassuring. But Charis, not wanting to force her into the three-day planet hop it would have meant, told her not to bother and promised to let her know how it went.
“Var Sweetling? This is very important. Can you please confirm -”
“Uh – yes. Yes, you have the facts right.”
The official went on: “You have been employed as a pilot for the last eight years, working for the Rota Corporation in a role which complied with the reserved occupations list.”
“If by that you mean shunting big freighters around the galaxy, then yes.”
The official nodded as if pleased she grasped the idea of the interview at last.
“And you recently moved your occupation to work for – ” He paused as if in doubt about the words on the screen he read from. “The Wild Ride Superb Bus.”
There was an awkward silence.
“It is a tourist shuttle a good friend of mine, Ebon Wild, set up – it’s not really a job, more of a sabbatical. Just a chance to do something a bit different before I go back to cargo shunting.”
“I only require you to confirm the veracity of the details I have here, please, Var Sweetling.”
“Oh for -” she bit back the words and tried to calm down. “I mean, yes. Yes, I can confirm it. But what is all this about?”
“Your present occupation is not on the reserved list, Var Sweetling.”
Charity struggled to see that as an explanation and shook her head.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It is a temporary contract and when it expires I’m back to the big ships again. Rota even told me they would take me back right away no need to go through the application and trials again. Like I said before, it is more of a sabbatical to help a friend get their start-up off the ground. Literally.”
The official seemed to be listening and waited, wearing a polite expression of indifference until she finished.
“Your present occupation,” he repeated, in the same toneless voice as before, “is not on the reserved list.”
Charis felt the confusion returning. It made no sense.
“I really do not understand what this is about.”
“Let me put it in plain words, Var Sweetling -”
“Oh please do, plainer the better – this is just sounding bizarre.”
“The Security of Place and Persons Committee has decided the term of your asylum is now over. The original conditions of it being in place – you being an unescorted minor in need of safety – no longer apply and the sole mitigation you held through working in reserved employment, is no longer valid. As a result, Var Sweetling I need to inform you that you are no longer a citizen of Central nor – since you were born outside it – of the Coalition.”
“Let me get this right,” Charis said, incredulous. “You are telling me that because I took a break from the freight shunts to help a friend with their new business I am – ” It felt surreal and for a moment Charis had to close her eyes.
“No longer a citizen.” the official finished for her. “That is indeed so, Var Sweetling.”
She opened her eyes again and tried to deal with the situation in a calm and logical way.
“Look, if the Coalition needs me on the cargo runs so badly, I’ll go back to Rota tomorrow. They will be happy to have me back. They told me they would.”
The official’s face wore an expression which might even have held some trace of regret.
“I am sure you would and I am sure they would. But, I am sorry to say there is an issue with your doing so. Those posts are only open to those who are citizens of the Coalition. And, as you have now confirmed all the details which underlie the ruling of the committee, the status of your non-citizenship has already been confirmed.”
Charis felt her mouth dry up as her throat became suddenly constricted and sore.
“I want a lawyer,” she said, snapping out the words and without even waiting for permission she sent a link out to her mother. It failed to connect and dropped away.
“You are welcome to seek legal representation if you wish to re-apply for asylum, appeal the decision or seek citizenship, but only once you have been deported. As a non-citizen, you have no right to residency in any of the Central or other Coalition worlds, so whatever legal steps you feel you need to take will have to be conducted from outside them.”
The full horror of her situation impacted then and left Charis feeling weak, as though her muscles could not support her body. She felt herself slump back into the chair.
“I need to go home if you are going to deport me, I need my things. I -”
“That is not going to be possible. You will leave here for a detention facility where you will be informed as to what options may be open to you. I do suggest you co-operate as it makes the process less unpleasant for everyone, but most of all for yourself.”
“But – you don’t understand. I am a citizen of Central – raised here, educated here, my parents live here, all my friends are here, I don’t know any other life. I couldn’t survive a day on half the Middle World protectorates I’ve shunted cargo to, let alone on some below low-tech Periphery hell hole. I won’t know the culture, the way of life, the people. Why take me in and teach me, nurture me, make this my home – then throw me out? What was the point? It’s beyond pointless – it’s – it’s cruel.”
Her voice broke a little on the last word and she had to stop talking or risk allowing the tears of anger and frustration, which pricked in her eyes, from showing.
The official looked a little weary as if he found himself dealing with this situation one time too often.
“The Coalition always takes the cases of displaced minors, children who need asylum, very seriously and the Protected Children Program has been long established as a humane and fair way of treating unaccompanied or orphaned children who come to us in need. Those, such as yourself, who are accepted under Amendment D are required to repay the community through military service, which you did. After which you may be accorded rights of citizenship if you are working in reserved employment – as you were for many years. There is nothing unfair, pointless or cruel about it.”
Charis heard the door open behind her and, still in denial when her arm was taken in an iron grip, she felt as if the end of her life had begun.
From the Fortune’s Fools book, Trust A Few, which is the first part of Haruspex trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook.
The witches
Roam the marches
With evil
In their minds
They bend
Beneath the arches
In the search
For womankind
The men
Say we should suffer
As we
Bring forth life
They watch
And wait and mutter
But each
Cares not for his wife
They hunt
Us with their certainties
They will burn
Us at the stake
They hate us
For our dirty knees
And the choice of life
We make
In the time I’ve lived on this earth it seems to me that shopping has come full circle.
When I was a girl my sainted mother (a woman of humour, kindness and a very hard hand when applied to the back of the leg) ordered her groceries and had them delivered – by a man who wrote next week’s order (with a stub of pencil and painful slowness) in a dog-eared book.
These days, of course, the man who scarfed ginger snaps like there was no tomorrow has been replaced by a robotic female but the principle is the same.
Almost.
The difference?
The grocer with his brilliantined hair and nicotine stained fingers generally brought precisely what Mum ordered. And if there was a slight deviation the replacement item was very close to the original that had been ordered and was usually reduced in price by a penny or two in compensation.
So what happened in the intervening fifty years?
We all got conditioned to the hell of the supermarket and the joys of the trolley whose only mission in life was to career sideways across the car park like a drunken juggernaut. Thus it was that we mostly looked with some relief towards online orders.
And how we were disappointed. How we tried to order our modest needs – only to be thwarted by sudden death of websites, ridiculous delivery slots, and the replacement for goods that had become unavailable between the order and the fulfilment of same with random crap from the returns cupboard.
We are sorry we have run out of Cornish butter, we have replaced your order of that product with a jar of nappy rash cream. Or. We are sorry we have run out of bananas, we have replaced your order of that product with a pair of flip flops (size 3). Or…
I could go on…
So we drifted back to the weekly trolley dash and the amusement of choosing our own bruised apples.
But then.
Horror of horrors. The supermarket was declared a place of lurking plague, and we deserted in our thousands once again.
Online we went. Whether through the offices of a creepy talking box or the efforts of our fingers. Only to find. No delivery slots available until 2023. Limits on what we could buy.
The screams could be heard as far as the empty beer garden outside the Dog and Scrotum where the landlord sat alone drinking Old Stumpblaster and wishing he had sold up last summer.
But I digress.
Shopping online? I don’t fu**ing think so.
Me and Gyp fire up the Micra and make our stately way to the emporium.
Gyp minds the car.
I shop.
Masked like the frigging Lone Ranger.
Bottoms up!
Grandpa built the shed at the end of the garden and used it as a place to keep his gardening tools and the mower.
He kept it sound and when children came along it became a wendy house, with a little table and chairs for the teddy bear tea-parties.
When they were teens, he rebuilt the shed so it could be a teen-den, with record players and a TV.
When they left, it became Gran’s craft studio.
By the time they inherited the house, the shed was close to collapse.
Dad rebuilt it for Mum to keep her gardening things…
Dai Llewellyn was all but home when a gigantic figure loomed out of the darkness.
“Edbert, you spado, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“No. I’m trying to save your life.”
“Come again?”
Edbert’s laughter rumbled deep in his massive barrel of a chest.
“Julia has been in the kitchen. All day.”
“Julia? In the kitchen?”
“Yes. She has decided she should learn to cook.”
Dai digested that one and braced himself just in time not to buckle at the knees when Edbert clapped him on the shoulder.
Julia met him at the door with Canis and Lupo at her heels. He bent to kiss her and she dimpled demurely.
“Good day, love?” He asked with careful mildness.
She lifted a shoulder. “Same old. Same old.”
He grinned down into her face, noticing signs of frustration at the back of her bitter chocolate eyes but deeming it safest to say nothing.
“Go and wash your hands, supper is ready.”
Dai ambled off, and he could swear he felt his wife’s eyes boring into his back. This, he thought, could be about to get sticky.
He returned to the winter sitting room, to find the table set and have his nostrils assailed by a savoury aroma.
“Something smells good.”
She showed him her small, white teeth and he gave her his best grin in return.
“Sit,” she said firmly, before serving him with a bowl of thick soup and a hunk of buttered bread.
She brought her own smaller portion and sat opposite him watching as he dipped his spoon into the bowl. He tasted with some trepidation but the soup was fine. It wasn’t as delicately flavoured by any means as Cookie’s handiwork but it was hot and meaty and filling and he had no complaints. He ate his bowlful and cleaned out the bowl with the end of his bread. Julia eyed him narrowly, and he smiled into her eyes.
“What’s up love?”
“Nothing. Why do you think there is something the matter?”
She got up with what was perilously close to a flounce and whisked away his bowl and side plate.
“Cheesecake?” she asked.
“Yes please.”
Julia brought a glass stand to the table, on which rested a cake decorated with raspberry sauce.
“That looks nice.”
She frowned at him and put a knife into the confection, which promptly collapsed with its undercooked centre dripping over the edges of the serving dish.
Dai knew he had to act quickly to avert a potential meltdown, so he stuck his finger in the gooey mess and licked it.
“Yum, yum,” he said before taking another dollop of goo and spreading it on his wife’s face.
She opened her mouth to protest and he forestalled her by pulling her across the table and licking her face, to which treatment she responded with some enthusiasm.
A considerable time later she lay in his arms and he grinned down at her.
“You can cook anytime you like….”
I may be as old as dirt. But that doesn’t make it okay for you to patronise me, or not bother to ascertain my name. So many times I have ambled up to a plexiglass screen to be faced by a face with a lot of orange make-up and nothing going on behind the eyes, who will then refer to me as ‘dear’ throughout.
I read the other day about an old lady in Utah, who suddenly got out a gun and blew off a bank clerk’s face. I rather suspect she had been called ‘dear’ once too often
…. or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago
affrection (noun) – the fondness a male feels for his partner while his penis is turgid
chocoalte (noun) – high caused by the overconsumption of Cadbury Flake
defract (verb) – not to reflect
ehter (noun) – one who believes a kebab is the cure for all evils and later loses same kebab in the gutter someplace
friedns (noun) – crispy bits of chip and batter from the bottom of a deep frier
frisustrate (verb) – to cook bacon until it resembles roof slates
gassropper (noun) – smaller relative of the praying mantis that lives on the smell of farts
lifst (adverb) – of walking, to lift the feet very high and put them down gently as if creeping upstairs drunk
meman (noun) – northern expression indicating the speaker’s husband
osmat (noun) – prayer mat for antipodean use
pruitan (adjective) – of dress, spectacularly slutty
recongise (verb) – to throw dog toy again
reserach (noun) – little-known dialect spoken among the nomadic peoples who roam the western borders of Germany
sxe (verb) – to establish the gender of baby rats
topato (noun) – vegetable, not one of five a day, always served fried
wehat (noun) – small headgear
zbeu (adjective) – having the texture of elderly porridge
Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.
“The moon is in the seventh house…” Natasha lowered her voice to a thrilling whisper. “You need people around you, sensitive, loving people.”
She made three syllables of ‘loving’.
Her client shifted impatiently.
“Yes but will I get married this year?”
Natasha hated direct questions like that.
“The tides of fate do not ebb and flow in human time,” she said quickly and moved on.
“Jupiter is aligning with Mars in your sign of Capricorn. That will give you great energy. Abundant energy.”
Her client left soon after and decided to enter the marathon rather than propose to his girlfriend.
My apartment was, annoyingly, on the third floor. Annoyingly, because I needed to use the service elevator and the thing was designed to move slower than mucus. It added almost a quarter again to the time of my commute. I’d been looking for a ground floor place in a good part of the city since the day I moved in, but, on my pay, it wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. Sitting there waiting to reach my floor was the time I always felt the most frustration and the time I always seemed to get the same thought: I could’ve retired and lived a very different kind of life.
Maybe I should have.
It was touch and go if I’d even live at the time. You don’t walk away from that kind of damage whistling. I’ve worked out the pension they’d have given me would’ve been five times or more than the amount I get now. That is calculated under the ‘local adjustment’ rules, designed to avoid having us CSF personnel out in the sticks living it up like a powerbroker from Central. Of course expenses are available when needed, but those you’ve got to justify to a fussy AI with zero ability to be flexible outside the permitted parameters.
But no, I chose this.
I didn’t want to give up doing the job I loved just because some of the bastards I was trying to stop had made mincemeat out of me from the pelvis down and left most of the rest shattered and broken. When they assigned me to this placement, it was in the expectation I’d be doing a lot of data collection and providing hosting support for those who were sent in to clean up any real problems—people like Grim Dugsdall. And yes, I did a fair amount of that, but I also pulled my weight and more with the workload. They hadn’t expected that.
Home was my personal sanctuary and the one place in the entire galaxy I could feel at ease. Here, everything worked for me and around what I needed. It had taken some setting up, but it meant from the moment I got in through the door I could feel relaxed. Normally I’d have an ambiance selected on the way home so the stiff grey furnishings would be overlain with the appearance of opulence or grandeur, depending on my mood or more usually set to cosy, But today I didn’t bother, just cancelled the quiet music which I had preset to greet me and made sure the internal monitoring system for the apartment was shut off.
My hiding place for the few unauthorised items I kept handy wouldn’t fool anyone in the CSF for long, but then that was never my intention. If ever my own people came searching my home, I’d have lost the plot and be in freefall. I licked my fingers and pressed. The wall panel behind my bed slid open as its biometric sensors read my DNA.
From ‘The Invisible Event’ a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook, in the Challenge Accepted anthology.
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