Conversation · Joyce Messier

"What are animals then?"

"They're like you and I, I suppose. Living organisms don't identify with abstractions. Elysium is for particular beings."

"Elysium... The world needs a term of endearment."

"It does. There are those who would call it Hell..."

"What is Hell?"

"A term of hatred that originates, like many such things, with the Mesque petrofascists."

"I've got a clear picture. Let's proceed to another term."

"Let's. I am, after all, bourgeois and female -- hardly the perfect ambassador for the world."

"I don't feel like I have got the whole picture yet."

"Oh, you want a picture of the world?" She raises her finger to her lips. "There is no complete set yet, dear. They're having some trouble reaching orbit."

"How come?"

"Great things are difficult to achieve. For now, we're viewing the world from the inside -- sideways."

"How about -- it's a ball."

"That's looking less and less likely, detective. You wouldn't know it from the tabloids, but the ORG nations have been launching weather balloons into the lower ionosphere since the Thirties."

ORG: Occident-Revachol-Graad.

"There's a steadily increasing trickle of images. Between the big three they're piecing together a dark grey corona."

"A dark grey corona?"

"Yes." She pauses. "Pale covers 72% of the surface. There are grey flares and prominences, even arcs above entire isolas... The images are blurry, but if there was a sphere in there it certainly looks like it fractured a long time ago."

A cold fear seeps into you.

"The pale...? And what do you mean corona?"

"They say there is a rarefied envelope of matter surrounding the darkened disc of our planet. That is, if we are still living on a planet. Or, to speak more plainly, imagine vast swathes of land disrupted by nothingness."

"I am sorry, dear," she looks around. "It must sound quite terrifying through the acute encephalopathy. Even scientific positivism isn't entirely convinced about what we're dealing with here..."

"But -- this is one of the great questions of our time. Maybe when they get the complete set together it will jolt us out of our rut -- bring us together. However naive it may sound."

"Okay. And then everything will be okay?"

"I don't know about things of that scale, my expertise lies in nations and trade routes, one or several layers below everything."

She thinks. "But yes, you'll be fine, don't worry."

She does not seem convinced that you'll be fine. If anything, she is realizing how deep your condition runs.

"Okay, forget all this stuff. Let me ask something else."

"Yes!" She claps her hands for warmth.

"Thanks. Okay."

"You may have mis-imagined it. I don't have the power to convey to you the effect and geometry of the images that depict our world from below low orbit. It's..."

She looks up: "It's like the crowning of the world. It's insane. Very disco. You'd love it."

"Doesn't sound like any kind of disco I'd like to go to."

"But you already have," she looks around. "And you're doing just fine, despite the rubble."

The cold seeps into you. The air is heavy with 80% humidity.

Suddenly you're conscious of yourself standing there, on... whatever this all is. Your arms hang down by your sides.

The lieutenant observes you both, silently. He adjusts his glasses.

"I don't care about disco, I only care about the Commune."

"See? Everyone finds something worth holding onto in the world -- however wasted its opportunities."

"Well, if you say it's disco..."

"See? Everyone finds something worth holding onto in this world -- however wasted its opportunities."

"It certainly doesn't feel like I'm fine."

"You have mis-imagined it. I don't have the power to convey to you the effect and geometry of the images that depict our world from below low orbit. It's..."

She does not seem convinced that you'll be fine. If anything, she is realizing this whole reality low-down is less philosophical than you've led on.

"A fractured corona doesn't feel like it's gonna bring anyone together."

"I am sorry, detective," she looks around. "Philosophically speaking -- it must sound quite terrifying. Even scientific positivism isn't entirely convinced about what we're dealing with here..."

"Oh my god, wait -- what the hell are you telling me?"

"You seem to be spooked. Please don't be." Her voice becomes homely, calm. She lets a moment pass.

"Inside sideways? What shape is this world then?"

"We used to think it was a sphere, but that is beginning to look less and less likely by the day. You wouldn't know it from the tabloids, but the ORG nations have been launching weather balloons into the lower ionosphere since the Thirties."

ORG: Occident-Revachol-Graad.

"There's a steadily increasing trickle of images. Between the big three scientific contributors, they're piecing together a dark grey corona."

"This world does not deserve a term of endearment."

"There are those who would call it Hell..."

Say nothing.

"The best of all possible worlds."

"Indeed. There is a term of endearment they coined for it. In the Dolorian century, when humanity was high on this world, discovering more and more of it -- these archipelagos included..."

Say nothing.

"Of bodies of water and forest-covered surfaces, clusters of light where the cities lie. You've seen the montage, we all have -- this world is enough," she concludes.

A strange coldness comes over you, as you look at the world. The waves sway the sloop, slowly. That's all.