The Age of Sinatra by David Ohle

Author:David Ohle [Ohle, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Humorous, General, Literary, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781932360325
Google: 8uk8MHp9AKUC
Amazon: 1932360328
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Published: 2004-07-22T07:00:00+00:00

PRESIDENT RATT WAS enjoying a buffet luncheon at the Squat ’n’ Gobble in Tesla Town when, across the street, an explosion at a guida factory left fifty neutrodynes with severe burns. Clouds of singed root-flour and hot poudrette fell to the sidewalk below. Neutrodyne workers and pedestrians, knowing no better, gawked at the spectacle and were blistered in the face. Some were blinded. One died of fright.

The President toured the ruins of the facility as soon as the fires were out. Gerald Hilter dogged him, firing questions. “Sir, fifty neuts burned. There were blindings, blisters, a death. What sort of action do you plan to take? This is the third ‘accidental’ explosion just in the month of Fruiting.”

“What’s actually more newsworthy, Hilter, is this. An energy-free cooling system has been installed in my office at the Rattery. A large brick vault was constructed in the basement below the room and provided with shelves of corrugated iron on which blocks of ice are placed, about a ton a day in the sunnier months. An apparatus forces the cold air blasts from the vault into the office over chloride of lime, which removes all dampness. The equipment controls the temperature during the hottest days to a degree that I and my assistants always find comfortable.”

“That’s very nice, sir, but … the deplorable working conditions in the hair mills, the mulce camps, the bakeries, the money plants. The workers are restless and the voters are wondering.”

“Making money is a risky business, Hilter. There’s your headline. Now to the meat of things. People overlooked the positive side of the Big Shift. The excitement and energy these relocations produced. The economic benefits alone were staggering—a redistribution of financial assets, new business incentives, no more stagnation and pooling of guida. But the greatest benefit, frankly, was that no one ever lost hope. You could be washing tripe in Pisstown one day, and the next day be fishing plesio off the coast of Holly Island.”

“Thank you, sir, for speaking to the point.”

“Honesty is my major protocol, Gerald. I’m telling it like it is now.”

“Of course, sir, it often went the other way. One could be down-shifted.”

“Yes, fortunes lost, great romances ended, all by random selection, a lottery to be exact, and it makes everyone potentially equal with everyone else. Finally, the American dream will come to pass. By the back door, but at least it will come to pass. Before the Forgetting we hope.”

“And in the middle of the Big Shift, you introduced—”

“That’s right. Legal microsystems. The idea was, and it seemed radical at the time, to say to these displaced populations—go ahead, take the law into your own hands. Form street-level judiciary districts, write your own laws, elect your own judges and juries, and yes, even carry out your own punishments. You hang them in the park and everyone has a picnic. It’s really a simple concept. Imagine, there we were, in the age of Sinatra, extolling the virtues of the status quo. I say constant change is the answer, dizzying change.

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