“Obsessed with tradition,” she added. “Beastly man.”
“We just waited for the right time to respond,” Claude continued. “And when the time was right, we planted you. We knew he couldn’t resist your Athenian craftsmanship. Then we used you to work out the best time to come◦– once the terraforming was complete, and the market had developed to its maximum potential. Now, we own some of the most valuable real estate in the solar system◦– handed to us on a plate.”
“Easy for you to say,” Cornelia added. “Oh how I need a bath. You can draw one for me, Felix.”
“So you did this,” Claude said to me, “and we thank you for it. You were certainly lucky for us.“
“I guess, despite his fancy education,” Cornelia concluded, “despite all this crazy Roman nonsense, Magnus never bothered to learn a simple lesson like caveat emptor.”
-
AIR, WATER AND THE GROVE
KAARON WARREN
We’ve got food for seven days. Water for 12. Because sometimes the Saturnalia doesn’t end when it should. It’s hard for people to settle, after. Mid slash, mid fuck, mid theft. Do you just stop, then carry on with your suburban life? Leave things half done? Most people prefer to see it through. Take the extra hour or two. Chase away the doldrums for a bit longer.
We’ve stocked up on hydrogen peroxide and oxalic acid. There are going to be a lot of blood stains and they’ll be coming in after with their bundles of clothes, “Oh, I had an accident,” is a good one. Or “I was helping an injured person”, is another, not one of them wanting to admit what they’ve been a part of.
Seven days where nobody works. Nothing is open. There are no arrests, although crime occurs, it does, I’ve had friends murdered. I’ve lost worldly possessions. But you’re not going to be arrested, not during Saturnalia.
We’ll be called out to deal with carpets and mattresses. We’ve stocked up on pepsin powder for those, and we’ll charge for travel. It’s a good business, stain removal. Especially after Saturnalia. I hate having to go into people’s homes, though. Other homes are dirty and they reek and I don’t feel safe there. You never know what people will do, what they consider normal, in their own homes. I’ve had clients stand naked watching me. I’ve had food offered that I wouldn’t feed a dog or a goat. I always need a shower after being in a stranger’s home.
Though people are mostly dull these days. They care less than they used to. They’re tired and old. I know I feel older.
We’ve stocked up on sodium percarbonate. That’s good for chocolate stains and there will be plenty of those. People think they are original, as if they’re the only ones to cover themselves in the stuff. I say, “Seen it before. Seen it plenty.”
I’m lining up my stocks, counting the bottles, when my son says, “I’m not staying home this year.” He’s 21 and perhaps I can’t keep him safe anymore. “This year, I’m going to be a part of it. I’ll help you with the clothes when I get back.”
“You should stay at home.” I try not to cry. I don’t want to make him feel guilty. That is never a good reason to do anything. “We can watch it on TV.”
“I want to be the one on TV. Can’t I be happy, for a little while?”
“Don’t go,” I say. “I’ll make you a steak dinner tonight. And tomorrow night a chicken dinner. I’ll cook you your favourite food every night for a month.” He nods, and he eats two steak dinners, but when I check his room at midnight he is gone.
He’s slow, though, and loud, so I hear him stumbling to the front door, kicking the umbrella stand as he does every single time, and knocking the Saturn Tree we keep high, under a light, as he does every time as well.
What can I do? Tie him down? Join him to commit our own saturnalian acts, in our own home?
Maybe it is time to let him free.
He fumbles with the door locks, as he always does, forgetting which turns which way, and how many turns, and whether or not he’s already turned one or the other. He looks almost like a shadow in the dark, not a real person at all.
I don’t say, “This is why you have to stay home,” because it’s my fault he’s that way.
I’m the one who did it to him.
It’s been 23 years since the return of the Tarvos. Can you call it a return, if the ship never made it back whole? I was only four when it set out amidst a wild fanfare, because they like to make a fuss, don’t they? The rocket scientists. As if they are the ones who’ll save us all. They’re still like it, years on. Discovering new planets. “Earth-like’”ones, and you find out it’s all bullshit. You know? What they mean is Earth ten million years ago when the only things here were crawly little worms or something.
Speaking of which, there will be dirt to get out. Some of them get buried, up their necks. They showed it on the TV last year. Being used as a toilet, one of them. If those clothes had come in, I would have burnt them and paid the difference.
I was nine by the time the Tarvos reached Saturn. Those pictures of the swirling north pole made me dizzy, that’s mostly what I remember.
Most people were more interested in watching it suck in samples of the icy particles orbiting the planet.
We’ve stocked up on bottles of filtered water. The drycleaners’ greatest trick is that air and water are the best cleaners, at the end of the day. We can charge what we like, but our basics costs can be minimal.
I was 14 when the Tarvos returned; I remember that clearly. All the adults so excited by the return of the thing, the rest of us not caring all that much. Happy that they were distracted so they’d leave us alone, and we could party. Skip school without anyone noticing.
But we were all out there, watching the sky for a glimpse, when it blew up.
They calculated wrong, or something. Didn’t think the ice would be as heavy as it was. It’s all about the micro millimetres, isn’t it? And they get it wrong.
We’ve stocked up on methylated spirits, and we’ve got plenty of clean absorbent paper. Candle wax stains are always a problem. People get carried away, and there’s spillage. There are fires, too, but that’s not up to us. Other people manage that. Or don’t.
They love the fireworks, don’t they? And the fires, they don’t care about safety or property. They’ll set things on fire purposely, to see them burn. In the shade of the Saturn Trees, all of it seems to make sense. Is it because of the Tarvos? How it burned on entry, exploded in the night sky like fireworks?
Six crew onboard (and the ones with children mattered more, according to the media), all of them now with streets named after them. Suburbs.
It felt like rain but the drops were solid and stayed heavy on your skin if you left it. I wiped all the drops off but some clung to my hair, and my ears, and in my eyebrows.