19:00, the same day, the train to Wellstown
Humans didn’t like trains anymore. Everyone agreed this was because there weren’t any real windows left. The days of watching rolling countrysides, indulgent cattle, impressive rivers, or mighty marvels of engineering were consigned to documentary films. Since the dawning of the Azure age (despite the implied parity of the “Azure-Blue Earth Concord”, there was no doubt as to who held the passkeys to Earth), several million Azureans had migrated to Earth. Along with the products of their eco-sciences and their strident pacifism, they bought along their eccentricities – buy one and get the other freely imposed. Not that Subjugate partners had much of a say anymore.
Public transport is always the prime target for cultural integration. The higher ups decided that more contact between humans and Azureans was important. Cultural integration has its problems. The Azureans could not stand the sight of passing scenery in the windows of moving vehicles. As a minor cultural adjustment, window screens in most public transport systems now had images of reassuring geometrical objects on a beige background, slowly morphing into other shapes, instead of the real exterior whizzing by. The humans didn’t know exactly why the Azureans could not bear the sight of rapidly-moving visuals, but it caused a great deal of resentment. “Surely, this is a minor fine-tune to make for friends?” the Chief Azure Overseer on Earth had been famously quoted on the topic. Since that day, the phrase “minor fine-tune” had entered coffee-machine slang as a handy euphemism.
Not surprisingly, Neek had soon become fed up of the projected images on the windows. The Azure couple in the same booth, on the other hand, possessed such strangely beatific expressions on their blue features that it made him long to be in some far away alien land like them and ruminate on his own life with the clarity that distance brings. He caught himself staring at them longer than intended and turned embarrased. How long his parents’ generation would have stared at any Azureans that they encountered? The curiosity had long since evaporated among the general population. Occasionally, he would try to guess the gender of the Azureans he met from the subtle shades of colors in their faces that marked their three sexes, but today, his attention sought the past. He fiddled around with the buttons of his SurroundView, trying to get the focus of the projection right for his eyes. Before leaving for the day, he had copied relevant sections of the history of the days before and during the Concord, from the Walloon History Archives. “Play”, he said.
“[This archive article was created on Oct 30, 2124 (in the old date system). See sections 13.2 and 13.3 for related material]
You will now hear a summary article on Mey Smythe. If you’d like to explore specific aspects, please voice the relevant key phrases.
Mey W. Smythe (2073-2152) was the first Chief Envoy of the Partner States of West Europe to the International Comity. A representative of the NW regions, Smythe was a legalist by profession before accepting an offer by the then Presiding Officer of the NW regions to join his cabinet of ministers as Officer for Legal Affairs in 2105.
Comments
Post new comment