Reminiscing
Zariel reminded me today of a day in High Training. The temperature felt quite cold, not unexpected for a place like the Northern Border. We had HT in Ste-Paul, which gets very cold, indeed, though Zariel and I cannot agree on whether New Helena is colder or not. Of course there are records, but they do not tell how cold it FEELS.
Anyway one November day just before December Break, we had to go out and interview a street person. Now, street people tend to be unsavoury as we all know, and some of them even reject their Syms and go without if they feel tough enough. Scary! Frankly, street people naturally terrify most well-bred and raised humans, and besides, the wind blew so fiercely that day that we simply couldn't keep our appendages from turning blue. Leaves still fell, but they had all turned brown long ago even still on the trees. Sometimes the high wind would catch them and whirl the leaves high into the air, as if they would never fall down. Zariel wanted to fly with them, but I feared the wind: what if it caught her and carried her too far away to return?
The street person we found was quite harmless, happily, though dressed exceedingly quirkily in the manner of people from the early 21st Century... Zar insists it was more of a "historical mix," and since she's the one with photographic memory and instant access to any Net information she desires, I won't disagree. He wore a brown bowler, very neat brown jacket - sportcoat, Zar says - brown... uh... "slacks" pressed neatly, and very shiny blue shoes. He had no teeth and refused any dentures of falsies of any sort. Finally, he had a type of very strange facial hair growing on his upper lip. I wonder how he managed that, when all males these days are designed not to grow hair on their faces? I think it was real... Worst, of course, was the fact that he had no Sym. Zariel could barely stand that fact.
In any case, he spoke most quaintly and completely insanely about historical events as if they were recently in the News. The crash of the American economy, the terrible (apparently) retaliation of terrorists on the weakened nation, the regime change after the double Bush fiasco. Oh, he sounded quite sane until you realized that he was completely crazy. He even asked what Zar was as if he'd never seen a sym before!
I do not recall how we scored on that project, but we feel quite sure that on blustery, cold, sunny days we will always remember our talk with the man in the brown suit.
Abbè
Anyway one November day just before December Break, we had to go out and interview a street person. Now, street people tend to be unsavoury as we all know, and some of them even reject their Syms and go without if they feel tough enough. Scary! Frankly, street people naturally terrify most well-bred and raised humans, and besides, the wind blew so fiercely that day that we simply couldn't keep our appendages from turning blue. Leaves still fell, but they had all turned brown long ago even still on the trees. Sometimes the high wind would catch them and whirl the leaves high into the air, as if they would never fall down. Zariel wanted to fly with them, but I feared the wind: what if it caught her and carried her too far away to return?
The street person we found was quite harmless, happily, though dressed exceedingly quirkily in the manner of people from the early 21st Century... Zar insists it was more of a "historical mix," and since she's the one with photographic memory and instant access to any Net information she desires, I won't disagree. He wore a brown bowler, very neat brown jacket - sportcoat, Zar says - brown... uh... "slacks" pressed neatly, and very shiny blue shoes. He had no teeth and refused any dentures of falsies of any sort. Finally, he had a type of very strange facial hair growing on his upper lip. I wonder how he managed that, when all males these days are designed not to grow hair on their faces? I think it was real... Worst, of course, was the fact that he had no Sym. Zariel could barely stand that fact.
In any case, he spoke most quaintly and completely insanely about historical events as if they were recently in the News. The crash of the American economy, the terrible (apparently) retaliation of terrorists on the weakened nation, the regime change after the double Bush fiasco. Oh, he sounded quite sane until you realized that he was completely crazy. He even asked what Zar was as if he'd never seen a sym before!
I do not recall how we scored on that project, but we feel quite sure that on blustery, cold, sunny days we will always remember our talk with the man in the brown suit.
Abbè