|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- CLOWN CENTAUR ARCHITECT--CUP 5--"FINJEAR MORNO" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Clown Centaur Architect  ||  -------> (Cup SRcc005, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Free of the girls for now, Finjear Morno eyed his home in disgust. It was either the war or his love life that would eventually kill him, he thought. Dailan Fogordy was there. He hated Dailan. "Yeah, Finjear." the fat, messy Dailan said. "Yeah." These days, if you had a house, you had to decide between tolerating fools from your past or casting them out to an almost certain doom. He'd cast Dailan out many times before, but somehow the fucker always managed to avoid certain doom and wound up back here. Finjear had horns, and this was what gave him surer footing in his war-torn country. The horned always managed to hang onto the top of the hill, despite a general distrust among the non-horned populace. Dailan had two little bumps above his forehead--he shaved his hair up there to show them off--but they weren't real horns. Genetic mix-ups like him were rare, but not unknown. He always asserted that he was horned, albeit with very short horns. Scientists regarded such as him victims of an abnormality which has nothing to do with real hornedness. "So you're back, huh?" Finjear said. He was a large guy with a limp and a cane. His hair was prematurely white, and his eyes were narrow, a condition many of the horned suffered from as they aged. He wore a green suit with copper chains. He must have been about 40. "Back..." Dailan said distantly. "Look pal, why don't you get your ass down and join the army like you should have done a long time ago." Dailan regarded him with mock shock. "Could it be that this war has made enemies out of brothers?" Finjear sat down on a chair next to the couch Dailan was sprawled on. "Look friend--I know I'll never dissuade you from your belief that you have horns--but horns or not, you're no brother of mine. Just look at yourself. It makes me sick--all those wonderful, healthy young men, being destroyed in the most hideous ways, every day. I sit and think about the contributions they could have made to this world over the course of their lifetimes. All just swept away. Then I look at you. It... it takes all your talent to come up with the complex excuses you dupe yourself with to explain why you can't make it by yourself." Dailan scowled at Finjear as he continued. "You have no skills. But you're 'an architect'. Yeah? An architect. You design buildings... not A ONE OF WHICH HAS EVER BEEN BUILT!" "That's false." Dailan said softly. "How?" "The Jayn Sisters... I helped them build their relief center..." "THAT WAS A TENT! A TENT IS NOT A BUILDING!" "It's a structure! You... Finjear... you're such a pussy for popular notions, aren't you? Hah! I could rattle off a dozen innovations I built into those tents... but you wouldn't..." "Look--a man has a trade! Look at the fighters out there--everything they need has to be fashioned by the hands of men and the machines they build and work. Every food ration, every cartridge, every shirt--all have to be made. You're not a part of that." Dailan struggled like some severely-injured insect to sit up on the couch, wriggling in a pathetic laziness. He glared at Finjear. "Don't kick me out again, huh? I can't take it out there. Do you know what it's like to sleep in wet woods?" Finjear held his hand up. "No, no. I'm not going to boot you out. But it's not compassion on my part. I don't really like you at all. But I DO have a job for you, and your staying here is contingent upon you accepting it?" "How you I hear the same song every day..." Dailan sang, quoting from a popular song. "I know you're intelligent, Finjear, but you have a mental block as far as reality is concerned. Look around us... buildings bombed and blown up in massive fashion. Yeah. You know that this war will end someday. Uh-huh. And there will come a time to rebuild." "Yeah? So what's your point, Fogordy? That time will come, yes. But what does it have to do with the present?" Dailan snickered. "You think that my time would be better served in a factory than in the SERIOUS PURSUIT of architecture?" "Yes, I do. But the job I have for you is not in my factory. It's in a bar that I just acquired." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----