12 - Coming full circle

[lolitics_meme]

Dearest Anons,

In five days (on May 8, 2011) this meme will have existed for a whole year.

It is an extraordinary achievement, your extraordinary achievement, to have kept this going well and alive for so long. With thousands of fics and comments, this meme is one of (if not the) most amazing thing I've ever come across. Not only the amount of fic

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Fill: Hattie and the Pirates of Dodrago Cove, part 4

[anonymous]

Much can be told about an individual judging by their choice in newspaper. Those who buy the Locomotive or the Chimes, for instance, may be gentleman merchants, engineers or academics with families comfortably living in the upper city and politely forgetting about their stray cousins labouring in lower city factories. Many were educated at the Academy, and the rest indignantly claim to have been ‘very happy indeed’ at their universities.

The Solaris was never read anywhere but in public; picked up carelessly on a table in a saloon or flicked through while riding the Griddle Railway. Those who paid their one sequin for the Solaris were rightly treated with suspicion.

The Chainmail was printed entirely in capital letters, ever since the lower case typewriter keys were thrown out by the editor, who decided that the newspaper needed to pack a tougher punch. It was read largely by housewives, the angry unemployed and the senile elderly, and bubbled with hatred towards the lower city, the upper city, the financiers, the sooty-faced labourers, the weather and the goats from foreign parts that had the nerve to take up employment in Sky City.

The Ding-Dong was bought largely by those in the lower city and its articles were written entirely by squirrels breaking open fortune cookies imported from the Orient and pasting the messages and gags together into three hundred word segments, which were subsequently printed around large ink drawings of debutantes in daring stoles or bustles. The Radar, which gave a convincing impression of being lower-city friendly, was edited more fiercely, and its offices were located at the end of Stobbart Street.

Alastair Campbell’s office was one floor below ground, and the latticed windows were slanted, peering out to the cobblestone street above. The paved floor was dusty, and a small fire burnt beneath a polished stone mantelpiece. A stuffed tomcat sat at the hearth with a glassy stare and one wall was covered entirely with a handsome skeleton clock and a large glass notice case, stuffed full with newspaper clippings, addresses and a list of names, each written in angry capitals.

Nailed to the desk was a gold plate engraved with Alastair’s name, in case some upstart forgot whose office they were in while sat in the low-seated stool on the wrong side of the desk. The surface was hidden completely under piles of papers.

The clock struck nine and Alastair set down the handwritten draft, lips a firm line. He was not impressed, and wondered for a moment if bringing him this story was some kind of test of the extent of his temper.

Alastair wheeled the fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter and his fingers hovered over the keys. He began to type:

THERE WILL BE NO MORE UNSUBSTANTIATED FILTH WRITTEN CONCERNING THE PERSONAL WEAKNESSES OF MR A.C.L. BLAIR BY ANY PERSON AT THE RADAR. IF I DISCOVER THAT ONE SINGLE MISERABLE, SCUM-SCRAPING-

Too much. He ripped the paper out and impaled it on the short spike poking out above the floods of paper. The solution was simple. He pushed out his chair and scrunched up the inflammatory draft, tossing it in the fireplace. The paper curled into cinders, swallowed by the flames. If some squirt wanted to write damaging articles about Blair, they should transfer to the Chainmail. There was a knock at his door and he prodded the paper right into the fire, slipping back into his seat before calling out.

“Come in.”

A young man wearing an enormous pair of spectacles and a bow-tie tip-toed through the doorway, closing it gently behind him. He swallowed before addressing Alastair.

“Mr Campbell. The typists need those two articles from you now.”

“Of course, Ernest,” Alastair tossed yesterday’s paper into the basket next to his desk and pulled together the heavily annotated pages, folding over the corner to hold them. “That’s the leading story there. Hand it to the girls with no further editing.”

“Thank you, sir. And how about Percy’s Blair article...?”

“What Blair story?” Alastair asked dangerously, eyebrows knitting together. One fingertip began tracing the tip of his metal spike. The young man drew back, eyes wide behind thick glass.

“C-can’t remember. Perhaps there wasn’t one. Good evening, sir.”