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| She was selfish, shallow, and entitled. She was awarded a scholarship to study at the school of sceptical philosophy. She tells herself it is her merit, but her father is on the board of governors.
| | ==Janitorial and tidyups== |
| He was an artist. He once was a firebrand, challenging the orthodoxy, the corporate cliques that dominate the public funding of science - people like her father - for their spiritually bankrupt ways.
| | *Finish CSA |
| The establishment knocked him back, suppressed his views and drove him towards ruin.
| | *Search and destroy MANUALS |
| He went into the high mountain. At a low point, he was rescued. She was the daughter of a local priest. Her family took him in and rehabilitated him. His price for redemption was compromise – he accepted that there was not a perfect world and his contribution to it should be practical and good works. In her religion he found an inner peace, but his creative edge was blunted. He opted out of the mainstream and lived in a comfortable pile at the edge of town.
| | *Identify and kill off half-arsed anatomies |
| Her boyfriend was Orton Hatch, the son of one of daddy’s partners. He wasn’t bright but he was pretty and he loved her to bits. She would often mock him fearfully in front of their friends at their regular table in the fashionable eaterie, between bouts of rudeness to the serving staff. He was so faithful to her that he took the blows and kept smiling. Even that she mocked.
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| Her set discussed the fashionable artists, couturiers and musicians. They talked about Him, the firebrand whose edge was dulled.
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| She said his mumbo jumbo was seditious. He was a danger to the forces of progression.
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| The others nodded.
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| Orton shrugged and said he rather liked the spikey style.
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| She scoffed and reamed poor Orton. “Oh, dear Orton. He’s is so captive of the prevailing fashion.”
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| Orton hated how she spoke about him in the third person when he was sitting there, her dialogue not to him, but at him, a performance for her friends.
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| “They say he attempted suicide.”
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| She snorted. “He should have had the courage of his convictions.”
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| “Harsh.”
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| “But just imagine his reputation now though. Jimmy Dean and not some doormat making pop art for the masses.”
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| But not seditious?
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| You can’t be seditious when you’re dead.
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| Orton took some air. He needed to, every now and then, when the beasting got too much. He pushed out through the kitchen, where they wouldn’t find him. He drew on a cigarette. He kicked the dumpster and told himself to compose.
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| “I don’t know how you take it.”
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| Orton looked around. He could see no one.
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| “I don’t know why you take it.”
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| Black eyes gleamed out of the half light. It was the waitress on her table.
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| “You’ve been coming here for nine months, and she treats you like shit on her heel.”
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| He said nothing. He looked at the ground. He lit another cigarette.
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| “I - ”
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| “You don’t understand,” he said.
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| She said, “I’m sorry. I should not have run my mouth. It is none of my business.”
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| The girl turned to go.
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| He grabbed her arm.
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| She turned and flinched.
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| His fingers felt the electrical jolt.
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| Her eyes flashed.
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| He gasped.
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| He said, “thank you,” and let her go. He returned to the table.
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| They were still bemoaning the seditious artist, whose later work he loved – it was spiritual and connected and grounded in profound respect for nature. We are but ants.
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| She knew this and she goaded him. She saw it coming before it arrived. He put on that supercilious face, the one she could not stand, the one by which he announced an Important Fact.
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| “His last work was great. “The Comet”. It’s an allegory.
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| “an allegory, no less.” Cilla gave a knowing look that said that’s a big word for a bear of little brain.
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| “It’s inspired by the Barber – Azinge, that’s due to cross our skies this year.”
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| “A crushing disappointment, ” said the girl. And after all the hype. I had such high hopes for the apocalypse.”
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| Orton’s face fell. “Best be careful what you wish for, Cilla.”
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| “No doubt,” she said. “Did Feuerbrandt did confect a self-righteous parable about our rationalist times?”
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| “He had some things to say”.
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| “Educate us, my handsome man, please do.”
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| A friend said, “Come on Cilla, leave him alone.”
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| “Gah. Feuerbrandt needs all the opprobrium he can get He’s a charlatan.”
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| “I meant Orton.”
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| Cilla screwed up her face. “Him?”
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| Orton shook his head and said, “I appreciate your concern, I do, but there’s no need for pity – I’m big enough, and ugly enough, to look out for myself.”
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| She laughed and her eyes sparkled with flinty glee at his foolish consent. “you may be big, but no one calls my boyfriend ugly.”
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| Orton blanched.
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| “So, come, my pretty lover, thrill us with your perspicacity. Tell us all about this Comet - an album that has passed us by.”
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| She took another slug. The others twittered, but a little less so.
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| “[little known astronomical Halley’s Comet is due,” he said –
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| “Oh!” she squealed. “astronomy! It’s little known that dear Orton’s a cosmologist.”
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| “I read the papers –”
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| “And he keeps abreast of the world’s affairs!”
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| Behind her head the waitress made a careful path back to the kitchen. She caught his eye and for moment he felt another flash of electricity.
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| Orton boxed on. He fixed a smile and kept his humour. “They say it is a portent. An omen of ill fortune. ”
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| “Oh, please.”
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| She scoffed. “You sap. How could an inanimate ball of rock and ice a few hundred yards, orbiting an entirely different celestial body, have a conceivable effect on the outcome of battle in mediaeval England?”
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| “Well,” he said, doubling down on the face. “That’s just what King Harold said when his courtier warned him of a portent in the sky. Caesar said the same. And the Aztecs.”
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| My friends, I think he’s finally lost it.”
| | ==Structure and organisation== |
| She brayed and knocked his glass askew.
| | *Reorganise overall site structure from the top down |
| “You know, she’s right.”
| | **On the way, kill off half-arsed sections |
| “Who?”
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| He ignored the question. “You’re not worth it. Not remotely.”
| | ==Content== |
| He pushed back his chair.
| | ===Technical=== |
| She swilled her glass and drained it. When her eyes swam back he was on his feet. He tossed down his napkin and a handful of bills.
| | *identify areas for development/reduction |
| “This is for the meal. I have to go. I have some things to do.”
| | **crypto? |
| “Like what? What could you possibly have to do that’s more important than this?”
| | ===Life=== |
| “I’ll think of something.” He snatched his keys.
| | Reorganise the laws of worker entropy |
| “You are drunk - you can’t drive – you-”
| | ===Systems=== |
| Her friend said, “I don’t think so. He hasn’t touched a drop.”
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| “He’ll be back. He needs me.
| | ==Marketing== |
| In the next twenty minutes she became more shrill and could not stop the conversation drifting back to him.”
| | ===Substack=== |
| Mean while the group drifted away. “I have to get on.”
| | Newsletter to-dos - see [[:category:newsletter|newsletters]] |
| She resolved to go to see him, to straighten him out. She polished off the Sangria and walked to her car.
| | Sequence |
| The bellhop tried to stop her.
| | *Technical |
| The car was small and elegant it hugged the road. Her path was not quite the economical racing line, but the car seemed to read the camber by itself and kept her safe
| | *Life |
| She would read the pretty ingrate the riot act. He was only where he was thanks to her father’s largesse. He needed to understand how things were.
| | *Systems |
| She would present him an ultimatum.
| | *Fun |
| The phone clicked in. It was Fiona.
| | ====Systems==== |
| “Is everything okay? He’s cleaned out his stuff. He left a grand on your bedspread.”
| | ===Linkedin Premium === |
| “I’ll be home in five minutes. I’ll sort it out.
| | Have a schedule of posts |
| She voice dialled the boy. It rang and rang.
| | ===X=== |
| The car swept through the bends. She remembered a blinding flash but she didn’t register that it was a speed camera. There was a low cloud which obscured the moon. It broke and then the she saw it : this rainbow array of light in flecks and sparkles and shooting stars. It was magnificent and bewitching and beautiful and peaceful and she began to see a truth about herself that she didn’t like.
| | think of one |
| The artist peered over the bonnet with a blank look. It, ah, it looks like an engine sweetheart. I don’t know why it isn’t going. I’ll call the garage but this late at night and this far out they might be some time.
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| His wife smiled kindly and said, I suppose I did not marry you for your mechanical skills. She grew up on a farm, and had tuned her share of engines. She looked in and checked the obvious points. The plugs, the points, the barbecue, the fan belt.
| | ==Admin== |
| He got behind the wheel and turned the key but nothing would go.
| | *Bills and costs |
| He called the garage and then the clouds opened and they were showered in the most glorious celestial light.
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| It is a sign, he said. Even when the chips are down there is beauty and there is light. Come back inside and watch the show he said but she insisted on trying one more thing.
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| The corvette
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