Conceptualization
Judit Minot
Nix Gottlieb
The stairs descend -- to Central Jamrock. A man named Kuklov has a snow-covered stall there, in the market across the bridge. He sells kebab infested with fly larvae to your colleagues who believe eating it will make them immune to food poisoning.
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Snow falls on the utility district: the library, the florist, the Saramirizian restaurant that offers homemade wine. And also on the brothels and drug dens, and the chop shops of the zemlyaki.
All of this built around a lake that formed in a meteorite strike. At the centre of this lake, there is a little ship. There are lights at the bottom of its hull. They are lights directed toward the sea floor, looking for something, like whiskers...
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A chill comes over you, crawling down your back. The sand under your feet is wet. Somewhere in the south, tarpaulin flap in the wind.
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Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare rushes down the station stairs, angrily hunched over in the falling slush.
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On the bridge, Officers Torson and McLaine are standing guard. The muscular Torson wears jeans and a leather jacket. When Vicquemare passes him, the young man remarks...
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"It's not like that. They're what is called hetero-sexual life partners. They have a battle-tested relationship. A 'bröderbund', if you will."
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"Funny apery." Vicquemare finally manages to pull his gloves on. There's a small tear along the inside seam of the left glove. "Male-centric workplace humour. Have you seen him?"
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"No, nothing. It's just... Judit went to his place and found the Monday mail unopened. I think he's still there. You didn't, like, drink with him over the weekend did you?"
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"With that animal? Never again, man. What, is he still down there, in... you know, south of the interchange? The... what was it?"
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"Wonder if Vic's found his hetero-sexual life partner yet." The man in the fishnet wifebeater looks over at Chester McLaine.
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The raised motorway, 8/81, separating Martinaise from Jamrock. Vehicles whoosh past one another day and night, while those who reside in the labyrinthine alleyways beneath the motorway attempt to carry on with their lives in the snow and the slush. And south of the 8/81 is the Pox.
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More winding coastline lined with abandoned buildings. Crumbling piers, salt water lapping at their dark piles. Grey and red, forgotten city blocks. What remains of the pre-revolutionary effort to gentrify the coast.
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The waters turn black. Coal City in the shadow of Saint-Martin, a boom town, back when coal extracted from countless shafts near the city was needed to power Revachol.
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No more. The coal was supplanted by petroleum from the ocean floor and hydropower from the Esperance. Everything crumbled. These days, only the weakest remain in Coal City. Their hopes of getting rich linger in the defunct shafts under their feet.
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Below the old mines -- L'Ossuaire Municipal, Revachol's underground cemetery. Les petits rats brave the underground passageways, trying to get to Le Royaume...
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...where the Filippian kings were interred, with their doctors and their admirals. Mausoleums, burial chambers, leaf gold still remains on the Double Door of the Morning.
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Children under 14. They go underground, looking for artefacts to sell to foreign museums -- and for fabled relics. Their parents let them. They go deeper...
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Few petits rats return from the shafts -- and even fewer find what they're looking for. A small child steps out of a black tunnel, with silver trinkets in her pockets.
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All around her, white snow on the extinguished coke furnaces, and on the weather-worn shacks, where fathers beat their sons after drinking. The snow melts on your fingers, turning to water.
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...after rubies, melchiorite, lapis lazuli plundered from Safre and Seol during the time of the Suzerain. In the burial chambers of the kings: Grand Old Filippe, Guillaume II, and even in the mausoleum of Filippe the Opulent.
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Two kilometres underground, in a winding shaft along whose walls mirrors have been placed so that daylight may eternally fall upon the richest of all the kings.
The mausoleum contains untold quantities of gold -- and that special, purest-of-the-pure magenta cocaine favoured by Revacholian royalty.
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Did someone say untold quantities of cocaine? Drop everything immediately and go looking for this hoard!
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The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. Grandmothers don't let their grandchildren out dressed so lightly in this weather. At least your hair is protected from getting wet and sticking together. You look around...
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The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. At least your hair is protected from getting wet and sticking together. You look around...
The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. The toes of your bare feet are growing numb. At least your hair is protected from getting wet and sticking together. You look around...
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Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. Your hat is of little help. To distract yourself, you look around...
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Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. Your hat is of little help. To distract yourself, you look around...
Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. Your bare feet are growing numb. Your hat is of little help. To distract yourself, you look around...
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You're warm in your coat, though your cold, damp hair sticks to your head unpleasantly -- you should have a hat. You survey the landscape around you.
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You're warm in your coat, though your cold, damp hair sticks to your head unpleasantly, and your one bare foot is growing numb. You survey the landscape around you.
You're warm in your coat, though your cold, damp hair sticks to your head unpleasantly, and your bare feet are growing numb. You survey the landscape around you.
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The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. Grandmothers don't let their grandchildren out dressed so lightly in this weather. You look around...
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The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. You look around...
The melting snow seeps through your thin clothes. The toes of your bare feet are growing numb. You look around...
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Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. To distract yourself, you look around...
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Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around...
Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. Your bare feet are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around...
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Looking up at the sky, melted snow dripping from your hat.
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The sky is full of great battleships. White clouds collide with one another, and the world is drenched with their debris.
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Map points
1- Observation · MartinaiseObservationDialogue · 1