Not up for Debate

I'm not sure, to be honest, why the upcoming debate is necessary.  

If at this point you can't tell the difference between Biden and Trump, or are operating under the assumption that they are basically the same person, I just don't know how to help you.

We know what a Biden presidency looks like.  We know what a Trump presidency looks like.

We lived through both.

Biden's presidency has looked more or less normal.  Not perfect, not ideal, but essentially competent.

Trump's presidency?  I mean, y'all were awake then, right?

Trump drove America deeper into debt than any president in history, and that was BEFORE the pandemic.  His handouts to the wealthy weren't matched with a reduction in government spending, so he bankrolled the whole thing using America's dwindling credit.  BEFORE the pandemic.  During the pandemic, he (and both parties, to be fair) just printed money and gave it away, which...er...is kinda why everything costs more dollars now.  It's almost like we didn't learn the lessons of Weimar Germany.

Trump's leadership was responsible for America having the highest COVID death rate of any developed nation.  If we'd done as well as, say, Germany, which has similar population density and equivalent average wealth, hundreds of thousands of Americans wouldn't have died.  He could have rallied Americans around our duty to one another, and to our nation.  He didn't.  He played to the basest of his base, sabotaged doctors and epidemiologists, and acted as a chaos agent when we most desperately needed clear vision and strategic thinking.

Think of the villainizing of Fauci, for pointed example.  Fauci was fine, right up until he obviously to any sentient being knew more about COVID than Trump.  Trump felt upstaged, his ego was pricked, and all of a sudden, Fauci was a monster in cahoots with the Chinese.  Heck, as far as Trump's base is concerned now, he might even have *made* the virus.  This is Demagogery 101, people. 

Trump was a friend to autocrats and despots, and the enemy of other democracies and republics.  He palled around with monsters.  All the while, he traveled to his own properties around the world, while insisting that the taxpayer foot the bill so his entourage and security could stay on his properties.  Three to six hundred dollars a night, per person?  That adds up.  Foreign powers and agents filled the rooms of the hotel he owned a short walk from the White House.  Politics, after all, can be a lucrative business.

He was the worst sort of boss, the kind of boss who hears nothing but what he wants to hear, who thinks he can do no wrong, who bullies and mocks and belittles all but those who suck up to him.  His "administration" burned through every competent staffer, retaining only those who were either in on the grift, a little crazy, or related to Trump by blood.   

Finally and most notably, Trump refused to accept, and still refuses to accept, the most basic principle of a constitutional republic: free and fair elections.  No election he loses can be fair.  They're all rigged, unless he wins.  Remember how he incited a riot in an attempt to intimidate Congress into abandoning its constitutional duty?  Remember that?  Remember how he had to be forced to concede by the armed forces, who weren't swayed by his lies and conspiracy theories?

Yeah.  Pepperidge Farm remembers.

I don't need to watch the debate.  

That a significant majority of American citizens still do is a marker of our integrity as a republic.  

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Six

\

Chapter Twenty Six: A Friendship Forged

It took a while for us to regain our mutual composure, after which a most peculiar detente settled over our persons; it was as if, having come to the determination that the consummation of what was evidently a mutual and primal attraction was simply not our lot, we were now able to converse amicably and openly.  I suppose this might not come as a surprise to those who are more well versed in such things; I will freely admit to my callowness in regard to matters romantic, much of which arises from my natural aloofness, coupled with a healthy scepticism of both my own emotive state and the intentions of others.

Diego and I were soon sitting upon the heavy woollen blanket he had brought with him with the intent of spending his night alone beneath the heavens.  It was, let me note, a blanket of considerable size, one permitting us to maintain a respectful and discreet distance.  This might seem something of absurdity, given our recent intimacies, but in light of how narrowly indiscretion had been averted, it was most welcome.

Diego drew from the small pipe he had procured from a pocket, slowly releasing a cloud of dank and skunkish smoke into the cooling night air.  As a matter of politeness, he had of course offered that I should share in the partaking, from which I equally politely demurred.  I was somewhat reluctant, for as with the presentation of the c’anupa amongst the ancient Lakota indigenes and their present day descendants, the acceptance of such an offer helps cement allegiances; that said, I did not wish my reason to be clouded or my reserve confusticated, particularly given how both had been tested by recent events.

We sat together beneath the fulgent beams of the setting moon, as the treeline round about the outer compound wall cast ever-lengthening moonshadows; in the comfort that rises from a newfound clarity in one’s interrelation with another, we had taken to talking about our mutual losses, and then about our lives.  He was full of curiosity about the Peerage, as I was about his life and his people, and I found him to be a delightfully inquisitive conversation partner.  Often one finds that those who are tossed by the vagaries of passion are entirely disinterested by anything that does not make them the centre of their own universe; Diego, to his great credit, was not such a soul.

His interests, as it came to pass during our animated and reciprocal conversance, were mostly around my upbringing and education, and the nature of my childhood.  It was, we unsurprisingly discovered, of a radically different nature than his own.  The young scions of the Peerage are each personally tutored, as naturally we would be, with regular opportunities for social engagement both formal and informal.  Reginald, my tutor, was a venerable series five, and while my time with him was hardly a woodland frolic, it served its purpose of inculcating the values and discipline necessary for participation in Society.

Diego, on the other hand, was raised in the manner of his settlement.  My impression, from his description of the process, was of a wild tumble of unsupervised feral wolf-pups at play. 

From an exploration of my childhood, his interest led him to inquire after the nature of our economy, and the manner in which we of the Peerage managed our affairs.  He seemed quite bemused by the whole process, and at the same time intrigued.  

“So…the Queen…owns everything?”

“All of our lands, both cropland and estates, the materials with which we build, and our means of transportation, of course.  The Crown and its Ministries manage the distribution and allocation of all resources, which are of course more than ample to provide for our comfort and well-being.  All belongs to Her Majesty, who in her abundant munificence freely shares it with all those who have proven worthy to be called Peers.”

“So, what, what was the word, you lease it?”

I laughed.  “No no no.  As I stated, Her Majesty shares Her Beneficent Bounty with us.  It is a gift, given solely in the service of Her Gracious Reign.”

“There’s…no…money?”

I shook my head gently at his childlike naivete.  “Of course not.  We have our gracious society, our relation to one another, our mutual talents and abilities to share.  Why should we desire the vagaries and petty avarices created by such a crass and primitive means of exchange?  Why should we desire to recreate the very means by which our ignorant forebears brought about their downfall?  We servants of the Crown are blessed with Her abundant Beneficence, and all share in that gracious gift.”

Diego grinned, and shook his head.  “Well, xxxx.  You’re just a bunch xxxxing communists.  Ni hao, comrade!”

I assured him that we were most certainly not, and were Tory through and through, but he seemed unable or unwilling to grasp the nuances of my argumentation about the inherent flaws in Marxist dialectic and our functional differentiation from that ideology.  For all of that, I must confess I found him to be a most congenial conversation partner, and the verbal sparring that followed was entirely amicable.

Our colloquy then turned to matters more personal, as I had early shared that Stewart and I were “intended,” and Diego’s eyes sparked with interest.

“So,” Diego said, at the end of a long exhalation.  “Yes.  Tell me about this, this, what’s his name again?”

“Stewart,” I replied.   

“This Stewart of yours.  Your ‘intended’. Tell me about him.”   

“Stewart MacDougall is the Baronet Annandale, whose father and my father determined that a union between our Houses would be a…”

Diego snorted, then lolled back on one shoulder.  “Rebecca.  Jesus.  You know that’s not what I’m xxxxing asking.  Tell me about Stew-Art.  What’d you like about him?  Why do you, you know, love him, and xxxx?”  He grinned gently.

In reply, I iterated at some length all of the factors that delight me about Stewart, all of which I have previously elucidated for you, dear reader, in a prior instalment of this serialisation; should you require a refreshment of your recollection, I shall offer those reasons in sum now:  the uniqueness of his mind; his estimable and particular contributions to the interests of the Crown; his deep reserve; his doting consideration of my needs and interests; and his choice to love me with the entirety of his person. 

When I had finished my systematic account of his many admirable features, Diego laid back upon the heavy wool of the blanket.  He sighed.  “Yes.  I can see why that’d be a thing.  He’s a lucky one.”

Gazing down upon Diego’s relaxed and particular form, a question most impertinent rose to the fore of my mind.  In other circumstances, I would not have deigned to speak it aloud, yet here having shared so much that was profoundly personal, I felt it was entirely equitable that I might inquire.

“I have answered your question, now I would pose one to you; if it offends, please do tell me so.”

“Fire away.”

“Your augmentations.  Their workmanship and design appear to be of our own, of Her Majesty and the Crown.  I have seen their like described in circulars from the Royal Society, but they are not frequently used among us.  How did they come to be a part of your person?  Again, only if it does not offend, or is not too painful to recall.”

“No.  No worries.  Six years ago.  I was twenty three, part of our settlement’s defence brigade.  It was Minsky who was xxxxing with us back then, before Caddigan put a bullet in his head and took the reins of the Hammer.   We were responding to a support chit from a settlement in the Carolinas.  We’d hit the Hammer hard, had them on the run.  I was on a forward recon patrol.  Stepped on a mine they’d left to slow us down.  Once second I’m walking, the next second, nothing.  Don’t remember it.  Lucretia got me to one of those machine hospitals of yours. Took six months to recuperate. So.  Here I am.  Better than ever.”   

He extended the perfect and intricately constructed metal of his arm, opening and closing the elegantly crafted hand.  “You people did a xxxxing great job.”  

There was an odd set to his face as he said this, one that told of some unspoken discomfiture of his soul.  

“Something about it still troubles you, Diego.”

“Yes.”  He took another puff from his pipe, and again the oddly tumaceous perfume of his herb filled my nostrils.  “Not to be an ungrateful xxxx about it, but I wish I’d been xxxxing asked.  The whole thing was...you have no idea.  It would been better to die.  I still think that.  Death would have been better.  The debriding of burnt flesh, amputations, weeks of microsurgery, the initial nervous system rejection and the reinstallation after secondary amputation, all of it, weeks of xxxxing torture, even with everything that your robot doctors could do to shut down the pain.  And the whole time, six months, not a single human face, not xxxxing one.  The intent was good and xxxx, but it was a surreal horror.  I’m not sure, even now, if it was worth it.  Seriously xxxxed me up.”

“That sounds dreadful, Diego.  I know the intent of the Royal Charitable Hospitals is only for the restoration of those brought to their care, and I can assure you no malice was intended by Her Majesty’s therapeutic interventions.  Does it…does it still cause you discomfort?”

He shrugged.  “No no, not at all.  And I’m strong as xxxx, which is great.  But I’m like, well, you’ve seen me.  I didn’t used to just xxxxing explode at people.  Didn’t used to get so xxxx intense.  I mean, I always had a temper, sure, but I could control it.  Mostly.  Now, it’s just like a switch gets thrown.  It’s not like I want to be such an xxxhole, you know?”

I nodded in quiet affirmation.  “Yes.  I know, Diego.  I know.”

For a while, we sat in silence.  Then our conversation turned to matters of less weighty import, as I queried him about the music of his people.  The night deepened and wore on, and our discourse slowly faded again to an utterly comfortable quiet.  He drew repeatedly from his pipe, and seemed to disappear within the mist of his own thoughts.  

I reflected, as we fell into silence, of how deeply Diego’s sojourn in our care had shaken him.  It provided much explanation of his fierce fascination with the Peerage, his simultaneous enmity towards us, and so very much else about his attitude towards all who served Her Majesty.  

I mused, too, of the implications of his testimony should I bring it before my sorors at the Ladies Aid Society.  It had been our considered opinion, and not an unreasonable one, that the automation of the Royal Charitable Hospitals was a wholly positive advancement.  It meant that these forward redoubts of Her Majesty’s Beneficence were capable of tending and mending the commoners far more efficiently, certainly, but the absence of the human touch…particularly in such an instance as Diego had described…should have been given greater reflection.  

I was attempting to formulate my thoughts on the matter when I found my mind drifting in a most peculiar way.  All manner of flighty and whimsical cogitations sparked into being, which now strike me as so utterly nonsensical that it is difficult to even articulate them.

A hypnagogic calm then descended upon my person, at which it occurred to the fading spark of my consciousness that my peculiar mood likely had arisen from my proximity to Diego and the moufette-scented haze of his soporific herb.

As there was nothing that could be done about that, I lay fully back upon the woollen blanket, the slightly yielding firmness of turned earth a reassurance beneath me, the stars crisp and unchanging in the sky; my eyes fluttered and closed, my thoughts a slow and pleasant whirl of chimeric character, and I was soon lost to dreaming.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fire at Sunrise

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Five

 

Chapter Twenty Five:  A Moment of Lunacy

Diego was standing as steady and still as an oak on a windless night, clearly lost in some deep contemplation beneath the perfect sky.  From my still yet secret vantage, I could see that his eyes were mostly closed, not looking out at the silent dark of the firmament, but rather basking in it as one might with the sunlight on a beachfront holiday.  As I moved closer, my approach masked by the rustling of the gentle twilight zephyrs and the lowings and rustlings of nearby livestock, his affect did not change, nor did he shift the stance of his noble posture.  

It should have been the wiser course, without question, to have left him to his silent mourning, yet something drew me on and closer, a something that at that moment I could not fully name.  In retrospect and with the lazy exactitude of hindsight, I know now that it was my still fresh-turned grief that drew me towards him, for in his person were viscerally manifested the overweening sentiments that in that hour so coloured my heart and clouded my reason.  

He knew my grief at the loss of a dearest one, he knew my rage at those who had taken them from me, he knew my fear that those same barbarous creatures might threaten all that I held dear.  His soul and mine sang in this thrice darkened harmony, and it was that song that drew me as a seafarer towards the siren’s rock.

It was a feeling most gravitic, and as I grew ever nearer, it redoubled in intensity, growing to a nearly unbearable and vertiginous thrill.  It was as before, as that moment in the burning ruined prison of my fallen carriage, when I first glimpsed his countenance and his hand first reached out for mine.  My heart swelled and leapt, and I was as unsteady as if Mother Earth herself trembled beneath me, as if I were the moondrunk and enchanted Giulietta declaiming her affections in Offenbach’s glorious, notorious Barcarolle.  

I was but several metres from him when he at last discerned my presence.  He didn’t startle, merely turned ever so slightly, his aquiline profile sharp against the moonlit treeline.

“Rebecca?”  His voice, soft and calm, and I knew in that instant that my appearance was a welcome apparition.

“Yes,” I replied, stifling the irritating quaver that arose unbidden in my voice.  “You…couldn’t sleep?”

“No, no, I did.  For a while.  Enough to be less…less insane.”  He sighed.  “Again, thank you for not putting up with my xxxx.  ‘Cretia always used to do that.  Since we were kids.  She…”  

Here, he stopped, and inhaled deeply, his broad strong chest expanding with a hint of the same tremble that I felt in my voice, and that I imagined stirred the ground upon which I stood.  His face was as a mortal who at that very moment gazed upon bitter Oizys and her undying woe, and yet even so, and perhaps because of this, his beauty was neither blighted nor diminished; indeed, it had become nearly unbearable.

“She always looked out for me.  Since I was a little boy.”

“She…she was your…older sister?”

“She was.  Five and a half years.  After Papi died, she helped Madrecita raise me.  After Madrecita…died, she was…she was what I had.  I mean, besides everyone, all my siblings, right?”  He gestured to the sleeping heart of the compound, in which all of his people dwelled.  

“So much loss.  Life is hard enough for us, without xxxholes like Caddigan making the xxxx worse.  I really thought…that ‘Cretia would…that she couldn’t ever…”

With this, Diego’s voice again failed, and the immediacy of his bereavement overcame him.  His mouth worked helpless for a moment, and then closed, lips trembling; the tears streamed down his face, and yet still he fought to maintain his crumbling composure.

In the face of such utter desolation, such struggling resolve, I found myself unable to restrain my compassion, and swept to him a great rush, wrapping his well-shaped form round about with my arms, wordlessly pressing my head against his chest.  I knew all too well that loss, and where I was wholly able to keep it in its proper place in my own person, to see such torment manifested in another simply broke me.  

Beneath my embrace, his body shook with sorrow, and as he did I, too, was moved to weeping.  There is a time for composure, and a time for release, and though it was not my wont to engage in such catharsis in the presence of a recent acquaintance, how could I not?  For truly I felt the great emptiness that Father’s death had left in my world, and though I had the most robust confidence in the condition of his immortal soul, still did his absence leave me reeling.

Feeling my sobbing rise to echo his own, Diego’s virile arms enfolded me, one steel, one flesh, and pulled me closer still, his great strength stayed by the gentle cause of our mutual care, and for a long while we remained in profoundest sympathy entwined.

Then, with great tenderness, he loosed his hold enough that he could gaze down upon me, his bedewed eyes like the golden sunset following a storm.  Within them, dear reader, I saw the great and sudden stirrings of his affections, that ineffable light that shines as a beacon declaring the regard of another.

“Rebecca,” he whispered, in a voice whose velveted purpose was utterly clear; I felt his strength draw me upwards, his perfect face and the inviting fullness of his well-formed lips wholly prepossessing my every attention, my own heart leaping in my bosom, and the great rising desire of Eros welling up from my own person.  I felt myself drawn towards him, as a rocky world might, its orbit degraded by some great impact or cataclysm, yield to the gravitic pull of a consuming sun.  

I was overwhelmed, entranced, my passion and yearning almost unbearable.

“Diego,” I replied, in a voice so faint that I myself could barely hear it.

—-

It is necessary here, dear reader, for us to pause for a moment, so that I might interject and contextualise this event with three vital relevancies.  You may not think such a pause essential, but I most certainly do; as I am the one telling this tale, it is entirely my prerogative.

Relevancy the first: as has been made most abundantly clear during my exposition, I was in a state of considerable emotional turmoil at this particular juncture.  Father’s loss was fresh, and I was, for all of my considerable capacity at keeping tight rein upon my passions, in an unusually agitated state.  Diego, too, was similarly fragile, although as you have learned, he was and still is naturally far more prone to such impetuosity.  Of this there is no question.

Relevancy the second:  Within the mourning traditions of every culture of humankind, it is well known that the act of mutual consolation between the sexes oft fills each partner with the stirrings of Eros.  It is a deeply shared and wholly reciprocal experience, one in which the heated intimacies of commiseration and condolence regularly ignites fires of a very different sort.  Those fires rise, one reasonably speculates, from causes both emotive and biological, as the flowing sap of life stirs defiant against its encounter with mortality.  What better way to rage against the dying of the light, than to defy it with an act of procreative pleasure?

I do not for a moment deny that I felt a strong attraction to Diego; he is an unusually and superlatively attractive man.  Knowing this, I should perhaps have been more guarded, particularly given my weakened resolve.  But my only sin was the depth of my compassion, and for that, I trust I shall find forgiveness.  

Relevancy the third, and of most significance:  This is not that sort of story.  There are countless penny dreadfuls produced for the earthy and trivial amusements of Ladies of the Peerage, ones filled with heaving bosoms, improbably acrobatic lovemaking, and all manner of similar absurdities.  

Once again, this is not that.

I am the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, Countess Montgomery, and my sacred obligation to my House and my Queen is not a mere frippery.  It is who I am.  I am not a fool, nor the sort easily cast about by the winds and waves of the moment, and I would do nothing to jeopardise my responsibility to Society and the honour of the Wexton-Hughes.

If tawdry tales of wantonness are your pleasure, and if you imagine there is some crass romanticism in allowing passion to seduce a soul into a dereliction of their duty, that is your affair; but let me be clear: you shall find none of that here.  

That I have chosen to be utterly candid about my vulnerable emotional state and the peculiar and intimate arc of my acquaintance with Diego speaks to my responsibility to be honest with you, dearest reader, rather than to the fulfilling of any prurient expectation.  

This is, after all, a document most public, and I of course shared the entirety of its contents with all who might find it troubling or improper, Stewart being the first and most significant.  

If your eager expectation was otherwise, well, then I have given you fair warning to soften your coming dissatisfaction.

Let us again proceed.

—-

“Diego,” I replied, in a voice so faint I myself could barely hear it.  

“No.”

My left hand, so recently well utilised in giving succour and comfort, I now placed between us, pressed as a firm interruption against the encroachments of his virility and my own weakness.

“Really?”  His voice, incredulous; his passion, still yet undampened.   “You don’t…you aren’t…I can feel this, you do not feel…this?”  I am certain that he sensed, not inaccurately, the depths to which I struggled to maintain my integrity at that instant, and I in no way fault him for his ardency or directness.  

“I cannot.  Diego.  I cannot.”  With that, his powerful embrace loosened again; though I remained in his arms, his intent was wholly subdued by the simple expression of my gently stated request for abeyance.  

There are other men, brutish, foolish, and selfish men, who would not have permitted themselves to hear such a request.  Diego is not such a man; for all of his ardour, he is at his very core a respecter of the personhood and liberty of others, a respect that rises as surely from his republican upbringing as an ironclad resolve to do one’s duty arises from our own.  His honour is different, but it is honour nonetheless.

“In this moment, Diego, I feel it.  I…shall not lie to you.  Right now, as we weep together, I feel it; perhaps as much as you do.  But you and I both know there is more to life than this very moment.  I have spent a lifetime learning the value and purpose of propriety, I have turned all of my efforts and my whole self to the service of my Queen.  I have intentions for my future, and duties to Her Majesty; I cannot, for the sake of passion, forget those commitments and my integrity, or I forget my very self and sabotage all of my strivings.  This is not what I want.  Not yesterday, not tomorrow, and therefore, not now.”

He released me from his arms with a delicate and not-inconsiderable reluctance, and sighed.  “Well, xxxx me.”

“That,” I said, “is precisely what will not be happening.”

To this, he let out a most singular guffaw.

Chapter Twenty Six: A Friendship Forged (forthcoming)

Bump Stocks: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy

This is why we banned bump stocks: Sixty dead. Four hundred and thirteen injured. One gunman.

Again, that's why bump stocks were banned. A massacre at a country music concert. Bump stocks permit terrorists, both domestic and foreign, to modify any semi-automatic rifle to full-auto. Thus modified, they are crude and easily accessible instruments of mass slaughter.

We banned them, and the Supreme Court overturned that ban. The odd arguments offered up by members of the Court about the mechanism involved were obviously, self-evidently immaterial, and the worst form of legalism.

With no training, anyone...I mean anyone...can put an entire magazine downrange in seconds. Reload, then do so again. And then again. Before the Las Vegas massacre, I'd watch gun enthusiast videos about bump stocks, and as they dished about how badass they felt using one, I marveled that they'd not yet been used in a mass shooting. They reduce accuracy, waste ammunition, and are useless for shooting sports. A bump stock would be equally pointless for home defense. But if you're firing into a fleeing crowd, that doesn't matter.

Watching the videos produced by avid gun Youtubers, there was no question about the purpose of a bumpstock. It was a cheap way to circumvent restrictions on full auto machine guns, for funsies. Because what's more fun than blasting away at a target with a couple of hundred rounds? I mean, it would be kind of fun, honestly, in a world where terrorists and psychopaths didn't exist.

But that's not the world we live in. The video above makes that abundantly clear, without commentary or question.

Nor is the world we live in one where making meaningless, obviously specious arguments about trigger mechanisms is anything other than evil. Sure, it's "true," but in the way that willful spin is often "true." We do not limit access to full-auto receivers because we have an issue with receivers. We limit access to full-auto receivers because of what they *do*.

C4 and dynamite aren't the same chemically, but they still blow things up, eh?

A workaround that allows you to do the same thing...to pour hundreds or thousands of rounds into a crowd of warm bodies...violates the obvious intent of restrictions on automatic weapon access.

The sophistry involved in overturning that ban is crude, self-serving, and willfully ignorant. It's argumentation straight out of scholasticism, in which the letter of the law is debated and the intent of the law is ignored. It shows a complete failure to understand the purpose not just of bump stocks, but of the entire system of justice. Overturning that ban poses a threat to law enforcement professionals, to citizens, to all of us.

This is Trump's court, after all, so that should come as no surprise.

Getting Ready for the Heat

The world is getting warmer.

There's not any question of it now, really.  I mean, sure, you can argue otherwise, but only if you never go outside.  It's not a question of whether global warming will occur, but of just how hot things are going to get.

The science is out on that particular question, although most of it points to things becoming more and more unpleasant as the years progress, with "unpleasant" meaning year after year of heat records inching up, and the equatorial regions becoming functionally uninhabitable.

Here on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, things are a little different.  Forests have made a comeback, despite all of our relentless sprawl and paving, which has helped blunt the heat in the region.  Still, it's going to get hotter.  Winters have become close to snow-free here in Virginia.  Summers have sprawled out, and grown more intense.

Which means, if we are to face this future, that we need to be thinking about ways to adapt and prepare.

That's been a consideration in my own household, as we've both reduced our consumption of fossil fuels and begun the process of preparing our house for hotter days.  We put a new roof on last year, and when we did so, we selected a lighter colored shingle.  Lighter colored shingles have a higher albedo, which means they reflect away more of the sun's energy.  It's a simple thing, but it reduces cooling demand.  Our house is nestled in the shelter of dozens of shade trees to the East, which means that by the hottest part of the day, it's in shade.  Our roof overhangs the side of our house by several feet, reducing solar load to the interior, and at 1300 finished square feet, it requires less energy to cool.

Out in the yard, I've made a shift in my garden this year, as for the first time I've planted okra. My mom being from the South and all, I'm entirely aware of the challenges of cooking okra just right, and the unpleasantness if you cook it wrong.  When I tell folks I'm growing okra, many recoil.  This is unfair, because if you fry it up just so, it's really quite delicious.  It's great batter-fried, sure, but also pan-fried with masala.  Note, again, that the key word here is "fried."  

Looking ahead to our inescapably warmer world, okra makes a whole lot of sense.  Abelmoschus esculentus is grown in tropical climes throughout the world, and is both robust, nutritious, and highly heat tolerant.   It's also purportedly quite easy to seedsave, meaning it should be a stalwart contributor to any home garden in our hotter world.  Should.  I've still not seen a crop, or saved seed, so I don't want to get ahead of myself.

It's only the fool who doesn't prepare for the most likely tomorrow, after all.

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Four:   A Walk in the Moonlight

Often, when one has taken one’s rest during the daylight hours, one finds that one has expended one’s capacity to return to the bliss of dreams; typically, such things occur during an illness of body or mind, and one finds that though the shadow of night has fallen over the world, sleep remains a distant and foreign country.

This is not the same as having wakeness forced upon you, either by discomfort or a disturbance in one’s psyche.  In point of fact, once one has accepted that wakefulness is the lot one has been assigned, it can be a rather pleasant thing.

Such was my condition when I awoke after but four hours abed; though it was yet quarter to four and the depths of the night, I felt as fresh and ready for the day as had the sunlight been blushing the sky with the generous glories of dawn.

Ernest confirmed for me that it was once again an hour most irregular, and I found myself yearning to take my leave of the serviceable but confining quarters with which I was provided.  I could see, through the small and yellowed window in my little monastic cell, that the moon was bright, fat, and gibbous in the sky, and felt myself suddenly desirous of a reflective perambulation under her soft and mystic light.  I am, when deprived for a time of my exertions at the pianoforte, rather prone to bouts of dreamy melancholy, this of an entirely pleasant sort; these are hardly the dark night of the soul, but rather a delight in beauty that verges on sorrow.  It having been days since I last wrestled with Franz and his cruelly entrancing Etudes, the rise of this familiar sentiment was hardly surprising.

“Ernest?”

“Yes, Milady?” 

“As I am utterly awake, I find myself intending a meditative walk.  If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to do so unaccompanied.”

“As you wish, Milady.  Might I suggest that you bring your firearm, in the event of any untoward occurrences?”

“I appreciate your concern, Ernest, but I don’t feel the necessity of it.  These people are peculiar, but they are not our adversaries, and should there be an ‘untoward occurrence,’ I have confidence in the protection of their friendship.”

“Very well.  Please take all due cautions, Milady.  In your absence, might I suggest that I engage Level One Messaging Protocols?  It would seem appropriate.”

“I shall, Ernest.  Thank you.  And yes, please do.”

With that, I prepared my appearance appropriately, which was rather less of a concern given the blessings of the cover of night.  Even so, the ritual of powder, brush, and pen adds savour to any outing, conveying to it the honour that rises from careful intention and respect.

Once completed, I left my quarters, venturing forth onto the quieted, moon-brushed thoroughfares of the anarchist compound.  The night air was cool and crisp, and above me the vault of starry heaven was blessed with the passing of small clouds kissed soft silver by Luna’s lips; it was an entrancing night, and I was much pleased with my choice to go out from the very moment my Tavistocks crossed the threshold.  

My heart was set not upon the narrow passages and tight alleyways all about me, but rather called to the open fields beyond the gate of the inner compound, where star and sky could be observed unimpeded, and so it was towards the guarded entrance that I walked with catlike tread.  None but I was awake, it seemed, the only sound being the plaintive hoot of a distant barn owl and the soft rustling of the hem of my skirts across the dusty path.

I soon reached the gate, where I could see a single figure standing watch in the shadows, sitting upon a stool to one side of the entrance.  It was a sturdily built person in loose fitting clothing, with close cropped hair and the indeterminate gender that was in evidence among some in this community.  That they were “standing watch” is a generous way to describe their diligence to their duty, for as I grew nearer, I could see that not only were they seated, but their rifle lay at their feet, and their chin upon their bosom.  For a moment, I was tempted to simply pass them by, for to do so would have been a trifling effort.  

This seemed both rude and unwise, for should they be startled upon my return, and a hue and cry be raised, it would disturb the rest and peace of all; I was not inclined to so afflict my hosts.

“Excuse me?”

They startled awake, and took to their feet.  “What?  Who?”  To their credit, they were quickly alert, and came to their senses quite rapidly.  Who would I be to cast aspersions on such a matter, after all?  Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, and whatnot.

“Forgive my disturbance.  I am the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, a guest amongst your people.  I was hoping to take a walk in the fields, for I am awake and it is a beautiful night.  Would that be acceptable?”

To my surprise, they…or she, as it appeared…simply smiled.  “Yeah, I know who you are.  I’m Libby.  Short for Liberty, yanno?  And sure.  You sure as xxxx can take an, um, walk.  Kinda not a surprise.  Seeing you right now.”  She gave me a peculiar wink.  “Have fun.”

“Thank you most kindly, Libby,” I said, and continued on through the gate.  She watched me pass, a most curious cheshire-cat grin upon her face, as if my walking into the fields was a source of some great and obvious amusement.  “What an odd person,” I thought.

So walk I did, and once I had moved beyond the enclosed spaces and occluded sightlines of the central compound, I found myself filled with gratitude that the urgings of Providence should have stirred me to this outing.  The wide and roughly circular clearing into which the compound was set was aglow with the lustrous pearlescence of the moon’s clear light, and as a soft breeze teased through the plantings, I was struck by the sheer loveliness of it all; it was as if I had stepped through the frame of a Caravaggio.

Framed all about by dense forest of several hundred years' growth, the compound was as a shallow bowl set beneath the firmament to reflect Tsukuyomi’s handsome visage, as he diligently and forever pursues his beloved Amatserasu through the heavens.  

I would hope, dear reader, that you availed yourself of the excellent mythological essay in last week’s Post on this very subject, writ as it was by the estimable N. Yoshimura, whose excellent treatises on the gods and goddesses of her native land are utterly worthy of your attention.

It is one of the many fascinating peculiarities, I reflected, my eyes upon the waxing lunar orb, of the Nipponese.  It is so easy to become accustomed to thinking of our glorious and singular satellite in terms distinctly feminine, and the star around which our little world orbits as masculine.  Yet within the storied and ancient Oriental traditions of Nipponese culture, that presumption is inverted, and it is the glorious Amatserasu that fills our diurnal hours with her lifegiving light, whereas her husband Tsukuyomi is forever from her estranged, consigned to his own mournful pursuit of his love through the darkness.

Suzanna is much fond of recounting such tales herself, harbouring as she does such a deep affection for that elegant, distinctive people and their customs, both martial and otherwise.  This in particular, I think, should place a deep foreboding in the heart of any who seek her hand after she becomes debutante, as she in her fierce impetuosity will brook no less a role than that of the sun in their heavens.  May the Good Lord have Mercy on that Soul, I whispered, a smile fleeting across my lips at the thought.

Further, I mused on how that myth of the sun’s lifegiving and womanly strength harmonised so beautifully with our own experience of Her Majesty and Her Kindly Beneficence.  Were not all of our lives but a reflection of Her Grace and Guidance?  Yet we Peers were not abandoned or estranged, but encountered Her shadow as one might take comfort in the sweet shadows of twilight, or the cool adumbral canopy of a sheltering chestnut in the sultry summer heat of August.

Such were my meditations as I walked, and they were most pleasant indeed.  There are few things more restorative of body and soul than a good long constitutional with no particular destination in mind, which is most efficacious in both the clearing of one’s mind and the refinement of one's thoughts.  Such a walk on such an evening was the very ne plus ultra of the type; it was, in truth, a Promenade Sentimentale, as the sublime Debussy himself originally named his interlude in the Suite Bergamasque.  

The night’s breath played cool across my face, and as I strode through the anarchist’s gardens, I found their haphazard array far more pleasing than I had on prior encounters; I experienced them not as entropy or laziness in design, but as simply satisfying as meeting a grove or grotto unformed by human hands, whose warp and woof are the joyous interplay of terroir and probability, the unfallen and sinless blossom of Nature’s pure joy in creation.

I was lost in the admiring meditation of a tall and new-bolting stand of kale, my hand playing across the first kiss of midnight dew upon their manifold flowers, when my eye caught a glint of argent light from far up the gradual sloping rise of the clearing.

It was the sterling glow of the moon resting gentle upon polished, darkened alloy, alloy that graced the shoulder of a shadowy figure standing alone beneath the sky.

There, in the clearing, his face turned to the heavens, still as yet oblivious to my presence, was Diego.

Chapter Twenty Five: A Moment of Lunacy