Slave Stories by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Omnium Gatherum
Published: 2015-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

The Map is not the Territory

—Andrew Coulthard

When Jill awoke he was in the alley amidst the filth and smoke. Steam and sulphurous vapours were rising in trails through cracks in the ground.

It was hot.

“Ersatz,” he mumbled, because his mind told him so.

He’d been lost for a long time. When you got lost the way Jill had you could never be sure where you’d find yourself on waking. He cleared his throat and spat, glancing about at his surroundings. His vision was as hazy as the acrid air, but he could see that the dead people were still there, so maybe he hadn’t really changed locations during his sleep.

He sneaked a look upwards, something he did every day first thing. But there was no sky today either. Just smog. Risky business, looking up, but he kept on doing it. He supposed that made him a bit of a gambler.

Somewhere off to his right lightning crackled. A wave of thunder pulsed through the turgid air right on its heels. Close. Then something occurred to him—he couldn’t ever remember seeing lightning on the left, only to the right.

Was that some kind of a clue?

A chunk of plaster thumped onto his shoulder and bounced off onto the debris-strewn ground. The cracks covering the walls and paving stones were that little bit wider today. He sighed. The city was falling down. On the other hand it’d been going on for years, and everybody knew you didn’t get hurt as long as you didn’t look up.

Jill shambled off along the alley and at once the queasy blend of paranoia and anxiety broke out like a bad case of the shakes. Breathing was hard for a time as his body came to terms with it—just a typical morning in Ersatz.

He had no idea what would happen today, probably wouldn’t remember it tomorrow anyway, but one thing he never forgot was that he was on a mission to find the mapmaker. And when he found him he was gonna get unlost.

Someone had once asked him how he stayed sane in a place like the Ersatz Lost Quarter. She hadn’t been lost herself, their paths just happening to cross somewhere. He still remembered her angular face and long limbs and that trans-abdominal piercing she’d showed him with such pride. Attractive girl.

She’d been sitting on a folding deckchair in some godforsaken square when he came stumbling by. He recalled her wearing grubby blue shorts and a plain T-shirt, and she’d been smoking something strong. Her T-shirt was knotted under her breasts leaving her belly bare to show off the piercing. Not something you saw every day in this part of town.

“How do you keep it together without any reference points, constants or other means of attaining the illusion of stability?” she’d asked in a weird, lilting drawl that he couldn’t place.

After thinking about her question he decided not to trust her and asked a question of his own.

“Could you show me the way to get unlost, ma’am?”

“Well, really, I asked first,” she frowned.

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