- Joined
- Mar 28, 2023
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- 330
- Thread Author
- #1
PREFACE
THE author, Stephen Palfreman, has the terminal illness of Old World Blues. The kids nowadays are stale and almost uncultured. Me? I breathe and live and eat and shit all things human, at least before the Incident. I have Marx and Engels on my shelf, my television plays Clockwork Orange every other day, my neighbor filed complaints about me to the Civil Protection because I played Van Halen too loud. I'm the real deal, not like Merlion Chaffee, or the fifty other journalist outlets in the city. In my articles and books will be the truth, and nothing but the truth, with the best and worst of humanity on display. Don't you forget it.
CHRISTMAS DAY
SEVEN years ago, I had my last turkey for Christmas. Three years ago, I had headcrab for Christmas. A year ago, I spent helping my neighbor (yes, the one that reported me to the cops) climb out of his apartment's ruins after a construction Strider stepped on it for Christmas. This Christmas, I spent it with my found family of rioters and looters and criminals and other degenerates while they looted the precincts of the city.
I never liked spending Christmas day with an extended family. The twenty-fifth of December was usually reserved for me, my wife and our third wheel in marriage -- bourbon. But this year, I took the time to socialize with my fellow citizens. A rat faced man in a black leather jacket, called Smokey, talked to me about the situation in District Seven when I visited it during the initial protests:
While I might have been a brawler back in the day, I knew I was no match for this thug. Taller than me, fatter than me, his hair much greasier than mine, I knew I'd be visiting my good buddy at the clinic if I ever thought to ask him for another cigarette. Now, from my brief and fearful time when I visited Jersey, I knew Smokey was the real deal. He had the walk and the jaw and the mean eye that would tell me I'd end up as crow food if I mentioned Northern Italy.
If there's one thing you ought to know about Italians, it's that they like to eat and love to drink. District Seven has a lot of goods coming in and out, but there's one thing that goes to it and never comes back: booze. In Seven, there''s more drunks than there are literates, and I suspected that Smokey was the former rather than the latter.
I took my newfound buddy to Old Lad's, where the bartender owed me a couple hundred Francs after I fixed his lightbulb. Turns out it was only a wiring issue, but who can complain about it other than the 'tender? Anyway, Old Lad came about and slipped me and my companion our preferred drinks. What did Smokey drink? I forgot, but it got him loose lipped enough that I could bug him and steal a cigarette.
So here was the reason for the Red Winter riots, a tearing of societal fabric that resulted in thousands dead and thousands more imprisoned or shipped off to the Non-Corplex Territories, caused by one drunk worker slipping off his ladder. I mean, makes sense, World War One and World War Two happened because a Serbian kid shot the Archduke. But still, a bricklayer drinking on the job is one hell of an advertisement for the government to start firing us en-masse.
Smokey, brave motherfucker that he is, stumbles out and finds a patrol team of Civil Protection officers. Maybe they came here trying to grab and bag a couple suspicious shmucks for their quota, maybe they wanted to get drunk and visit the local ladies of the night, but sooner than later I find my non-Italian friend on the ground and handcuffed. He squealed like a pig, like a hog being butchered, and those squeals attracted nearby malcontents.
Someone swung first, my wager's on the cops, but I was witness to a proper throwdown. The cops got overwhelmed, one got hit in the head by a bycicle and got knocked unconscious, and they had to run away with their tail tucked between their legs. In the following days they tried to retaliate, be it by trying to detain more clueless kids or wrecking Old Lad's joint, but there was always something in turn coming for the Thirty-Seventh Precinct.
THE CAPTAINCY
ON a gloomy winter afternoon on the 27th of December, the Captaincy held another emergency conference. I was dispatched to it by the grace of my employer (who shall be named at a later date) and out of my own morbid curiosity. There was the entire gang of thirty, LaRue with his pig face and Barbier with his resting bitchface, Delafose with his womanlike chin, Veil with sunken eyes and a more receded hairline, Alberts with his small hands. LaRue looked like his fifth wife found him with his soon to be sixth, while Barbier was always one comment away from firing his secretary, Delafose and Veil eager to box in front of us as entertainment.
When the topic of the riots spreading into the city came up, Delafose took the stand after the typical, bureaucratic assurances from LaRue and Barbier. His eyes were blinking rapidly, as if his dealer gave him a larger dose than usual, and he was sweating in a fashion befitting his weight. The poor belt he wears has certainly seen things and stood its ground, albeit its service is coming to an end and will break its buckles soon.
I do not subscribe to any doctrine of moralism, but I still find it greatly worrying that these poor sons of bitches are being sent out of the city and to the mercy of the wilderness. Some junkie will try and find his fix, inevitably become a headhumper's husband for life, and kill thirty unarmed residents before being subdued by nothing but pipes and wrenches.
When this was brought up by another colleague of mine whose name I have gladly forgotten, Delafose murmured something and walked off the stage. For a moment, you could see something resembling human thought in those wide eyes of his, but you can always count on Delafose to disappoint your expectations. There's a reason why they call him the Badger of District Six: he's small yet fat, he fights with no regards for honor, and he smells of shit.
Of course, we know what happened for New Year's. Fireworks louder and bigger than anything we've seen, culminating in a gross amount of people dead. After all was said and done, a great silence filled the streets -- from Four to Eight. Pelletier implemented a decree that would take rotating around the city much costlier and slower, which- of course - fucks me and my career over tenfold. Everyone forgot about one thing, though, from the cops to the rioters to the administrators to the journalists:
What's going on in District One?
THE author, Stephen Palfreman, has the terminal illness of Old World Blues. The kids nowadays are stale and almost uncultured. Me? I breathe and live and eat and shit all things human, at least before the Incident. I have Marx and Engels on my shelf, my television plays Clockwork Orange every other day, my neighbor filed complaints about me to the Civil Protection because I played Van Halen too loud. I'm the real deal, not like Merlion Chaffee, or the fifty other journalist outlets in the city. In my articles and books will be the truth, and nothing but the truth, with the best and worst of humanity on display. Don't you forget it.
CHRISTMAS DAY
SEVEN years ago, I had my last turkey for Christmas. Three years ago, I had headcrab for Christmas. A year ago, I spent helping my neighbor (yes, the one that reported me to the cops) climb out of his apartment's ruins after a construction Strider stepped on it for Christmas. This Christmas, I spent it with my found family of rioters and looters and criminals and other degenerates while they looted the precincts of the city.
I never liked spending Christmas day with an extended family. The twenty-fifth of December was usually reserved for me, my wife and our third wheel in marriage -- bourbon. But this year, I took the time to socialize with my fellow citizens. A rat faced man in a black leather jacket, called Smokey, talked to me about the situation in District Seven when I visited it during the initial protests:
While I might have been a brawler back in the day, I knew I was no match for this thug. Taller than me, fatter than me, his hair much greasier than mine, I knew I'd be visiting my good buddy at the clinic if I ever thought to ask him for another cigarette. Now, from my brief and fearful time when I visited Jersey, I knew Smokey was the real deal. He had the walk and the jaw and the mean eye that would tell me I'd end up as crow food if I mentioned Northern Italy.
If there's one thing you ought to know about Italians, it's that they like to eat and love to drink. District Seven has a lot of goods coming in and out, but there's one thing that goes to it and never comes back: booze. In Seven, there''s more drunks than there are literates, and I suspected that Smokey was the former rather than the latter.
I took my newfound buddy to Old Lad's, where the bartender owed me a couple hundred Francs after I fixed his lightbulb. Turns out it was only a wiring issue, but who can complain about it other than the 'tender? Anyway, Old Lad came about and slipped me and my companion our preferred drinks. What did Smokey drink? I forgot, but it got him loose lipped enough that I could bug him and steal a cigarette.
So here was the reason for the Red Winter riots, a tearing of societal fabric that resulted in thousands dead and thousands more imprisoned or shipped off to the Non-Corplex Territories, caused by one drunk worker slipping off his ladder. I mean, makes sense, World War One and World War Two happened because a Serbian kid shot the Archduke. But still, a bricklayer drinking on the job is one hell of an advertisement for the government to start firing us en-masse.
Smokey, brave motherfucker that he is, stumbles out and finds a patrol team of Civil Protection officers. Maybe they came here trying to grab and bag a couple suspicious shmucks for their quota, maybe they wanted to get drunk and visit the local ladies of the night, but sooner than later I find my non-Italian friend on the ground and handcuffed. He squealed like a pig, like a hog being butchered, and those squeals attracted nearby malcontents.
Someone swung first, my wager's on the cops, but I was witness to a proper throwdown. The cops got overwhelmed, one got hit in the head by a bycicle and got knocked unconscious, and they had to run away with their tail tucked between their legs. In the following days they tried to retaliate, be it by trying to detain more clueless kids or wrecking Old Lad's joint, but there was always something in turn coming for the Thirty-Seventh Precinct.
THE CAPTAINCY
ON a gloomy winter afternoon on the 27th of December, the Captaincy held another emergency conference. I was dispatched to it by the grace of my employer (who shall be named at a later date) and out of my own morbid curiosity. There was the entire gang of thirty, LaRue with his pig face and Barbier with his resting bitchface, Delafose with his womanlike chin, Veil with sunken eyes and a more receded hairline, Alberts with his small hands. LaRue looked like his fifth wife found him with his soon to be sixth, while Barbier was always one comment away from firing his secretary, Delafose and Veil eager to box in front of us as entertainment.
When the topic of the riots spreading into the city came up, Delafose took the stand after the typical, bureaucratic assurances from LaRue and Barbier. His eyes were blinking rapidly, as if his dealer gave him a larger dose than usual, and he was sweating in a fashion befitting his weight. The poor belt he wears has certainly seen things and stood its ground, albeit its service is coming to an end and will break its buckles soon.
I do not subscribe to any doctrine of moralism, but I still find it greatly worrying that these poor sons of bitches are being sent out of the city and to the mercy of the wilderness. Some junkie will try and find his fix, inevitably become a headhumper's husband for life, and kill thirty unarmed residents before being subdued by nothing but pipes and wrenches.
When this was brought up by another colleague of mine whose name I have gladly forgotten, Delafose murmured something and walked off the stage. For a moment, you could see something resembling human thought in those wide eyes of his, but you can always count on Delafose to disappoint your expectations. There's a reason why they call him the Badger of District Six: he's small yet fat, he fights with no regards for honor, and he smells of shit.
Of course, we know what happened for New Year's. Fireworks louder and bigger than anything we've seen, culminating in a gross amount of people dead. After all was said and done, a great silence filled the streets -- from Four to Eight. Pelletier implemented a decree that would take rotating around the city much costlier and slower, which- of course - fucks me and my career over tenfold. Everyone forgot about one thing, though, from the cops to the rioters to the administrators to the journalists:
What's going on in District One?
