“So we’ve gathered here at the cubes to save the planet. Are you with me?! Okay, great,” he said, listening to the enthusiastic response of his small group. “Cause if *not* we’d have to kill you because you’d be a continued *whore* to this world, equal or worse to those litterbugs down at Burger Shot. Am I right?!” More enthusiasm; no one dare let up. “So let’s move just down the street a bit and go clobber us some litterbugs, fellow Planetarians!”
What planet actually *is* this? she thought while putting down the futuristic book in a pause. Uranus somehow came to mind, maybe because of this so called superhero’s blue face color, she rationalized. Such a funny name. The discoverer must have known it would be the, ahem, *butt* of a 1000 jokes down through the years. Been almost 65 years since its discovery, she knew. She intuited on the spot that we’re about due for another one. So this puts the year at 1845 or so. Handy to understand.
Claude stared at her with a bottle in front of me, she thought. Better than a frontal lobotomy, she completed the joke from that old sea shanty, carried to land locked Tousaint by roaming rug merchants long ago. Just had to develop some feet. “Claude, bring your keister and your bottle over here and make yourself useful for a change,” she said to her admirer since Tuesday. “I have a question for you.” Claude was good with geomancy and astrology, she knew, so probably also geography and astronomy, their more modern, more mundane counterparts. “Come here and sit down beside me.” She didn’t sit up to give him more room. He’d have to perch on the very end of the bench she lay upon like a useful big talking bird in the moment. Control.
“So, *first* off, what planet are *we* on?” she said as he wiggled about on his cramped little spot, too close to her head with its puffy bonnet hat for any real comfort, physical or psychological. “I have to get my bearings here before I can grasp another one. Futuristic writing is *confusing*.”
The question certainly came as a surprise to the man, learned in so many ways if not comedy. “Well,” he started, thinking of history more than astronomy or even geography, “we live, let’s see, on the world of the great North-South conflict. To the North are an assortment of many republics, led by Reddania, Kaed–.”
“*No*,” she interrupted Claude. “I mean, what’s the name of the *planet* we’re on, not the names of the lands of that planet. I know what you’re talking about here. I’m an educated woman — can read and such as you can see.” She holds up the futuristic book to his nearby face, returns it to the bench. “Don’t treat me like some kind of doofus, pheh.”
“Right, mum,” he quickly responded, still hoping for that date to come out of their conversation. If he steers it well. “Well, as you know, we have the Sun of course, then the Moon… of course. Then about 75 years ago–”
“*65*, Claude.”
“Beg pardon?”
“65 years ago. You were going to say we discovered Uranus and the known Universe expanded quite a bit. The blue planet. We know this from our more powerful binoculars and monoculars. Yes, I know about the Sun, the Moon, Uranus. But what is *this* planet? I repeat for your ears. Think about it before answering.” She became somewhat more seductive in her laying pose, or at least tried — hand on hip I believe.
“Well,” he said more carefully, glancing over at the head, the body, those hips (a celestial object herself, he considers). “We know that the Sun, the Moon… Uranus, are *spheres*.”
“Okay,” she said expectantly. Don’t go weak on me, Claude, she thinks. I haven’t had a man in weeks.
“So logically you would think we’d deduce that we too, us Touisanters and all the rest, live on a sphere as well. But this isn’t so, dear lady. Scientists — you know, the geographers and the astronomers that counter the oft termed fantastical studies of geomancy and astrology–”
“Just thinking about that,” issued, er, forgot to give her a name! Let’s call her Miss S.
“Well, *they* think we actually live on a cube. Not a sphere. Have you… heard that… theory?” Would she make fun of him again? If so, she’s making fun of the scientific community he considers himself on the fringe of as well.
“Cube,” she considered, turning around the word in her head, examining each side. “And, let me guess, the *known* world only exists on one of its sides, the Northern and Southern countries you started listing out before.”
“That’s right, mum.” He points to the east from their bench. “And beyond the Blue-ish Mountains over there lies another *side*, the start of one.” He points west. “And beyond the Grand Sea lies another — we haven’t been out there either, as a people I mean, or at least returned with any real, useful information. And to the north and the south — more sides. And then the back–”
“Dark side,” interrupts Miss S again. “Our opposite.”
“Correct. So that would explain the monsters. We’re a lighted side surrounded on all sides by chaos coming from this back. The theory’s all the rage in scientific publications like the Long Lane Journal, the Redd–.
“STOP, listing things,” she barked. She’d had enough information. Time to shoo this bird away, too bird brained for a love interest. Cube PFIFF, she fumed. Not a sphere. The idiocy of these *men*.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 