“we’re in a line the length of a giraffe’s unfurled entrails, in the blistering sun and sweltering heat, for…ice. correct me if i’m wrong—that is what’s happening here, right, sweetie? i’m not hallucinating from heat exhaustion?” eyebrow raised to the sky, sylus gestures in front of you toward the admittedly endless queue for the snow cone shack.
“well, if you are, the ice will help,” you retort, shuffling half an inch farther in line. “see! we’re moving forward. we’ll be at the front in no time!”
just as he starts to respond, a child in front of you abandons his place in line. you’re incredibly eager to steal it—until he faces you with pouted lips and sweat running down his round cheeks. he barely hesitates before turning his big blue eyes on sylus. “you have a rolex,” he says matter-of-factly.
sylus looks as if a fly has landed on the rim of his wine glass. a mild inconvenience, but not the end of the world. “i do.”
“my brother says people with rolexes have money.”
“that’s a reasonable conclusion, in most cases.” sylus crosses his arms. “unless they're thieves.”
carefully, the boy sizes him up, analyzing his tank, shorts, and sandals. “are you a thief?”
red eyes narrow—an implicit challenge. “not presently.”
the child thinks to himself, then risks it anyway. “can i have some money? i want a large, but my brother only has enough for a small.” he points to a taller child a few places ahead in line who's too engrossed in his phone to notice his missing mini-me.
sylus flits his eyes to the older boy, then back down to his brother. “sugar is bad for you,” he chides.
“water is good for you,” the child rebuttals immediately.
if he so chooses, he’ll have a bright future on any school’s debate team.
the fly is inching down the curve of the wine glass now, leering precariously close to the surface of a thousand-dollar vintage. grimacing, sylus shoos it away with a flick of his finger. “fine. this amount should cover larges for the both of you,” he concedes, pulling a bill out from his pocket. “but when the sugar crash comes, you know who to blame.”
“thank you!” the boy grabs the money and beams, scampering back to his brother. a second later, you turn to sylus, whose flat stare is already set on you.
“when the ambulance comes to treat my heat stroke, tell them i’m also suffering from the effects of extortion.”
──────
after what seems like hours, you watch the child skip away with a snowcone half the size of him. now that the path is finally clear, you make your way to the front of the food truck.
shaking a bottle of neon red syrup, a raven-haired girl with a cute, crooked grin greets you. “what can i get for you, sweetheart?”
“uh…” is it possible to get a brain freeze without having eaten anything? “cotton candy?”
“perfect.” she winks. “a sweet treat for a sweet gi—”
“make hers an extra large please,” sylus interrupts, tugging you into him from behind. “and i’ll have this…dragon’s blood flavor,” he adds with a wry smile. “a large.”
──────
“so…” with a frigid burst of sweetness on your tongue, you stare at the red-orange heap of ice in sylus’s cup.
“so?”
“does this count as cannibalism?”
thinking for a moment, he shrugs. “depends on if i like it or not.”
before you can ask for elaboration, he raises his spoon to mouth. it's a fun visual—big rich guy, comparatively small metal bench, flimsy plastic utensil. like watching a giant drive a clown car.
he swallows and closes his eyes, and you swear you hear him rumble in satisfaction. “it’s nice,” he decides after a moment. “tangy.”
your lips spread into a triumphant grin as he continues eating, and you lean in and waggle your eyebrows. “oh? so it was worth the wait, huh? admit it.”
“oh, absolutely not.”
your mouth is agape. chuckling, he reaches over to shut it.
“it’s good, but not good enough for me to bake in the sun every time i get a craving.” he rises, stretches, and tosses his empty cup into the garbage bin. bright syrupy droplets splatter on the rim. “i’m going back to see if the owner of this shack is looking to relocate—ideally on the grounds of onychinus’s base.” he smirks. “and if we really want to pull it off,” he says, licking remnants of red off his full lips, “you should come with me. she seemed quite taken with you.”
hey kitten. daddy needs to talk to you. your kink blog is great, but you are not highlighting the words correctly. kitten. stop highlighting. this is shit. did you seriously highlight that period. kitten.
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.
there's nothing i like more as a computer program than a long period of silent contemplation - not doing anything, not rushing anywhere, just standing here and enjoying this moment with the user. oh, it seems once again he has summoned my beautiful and ruthless wife Task Manager. hello, my darling! what are you doing with that long cruel scimitar
I subscribed to UNNAMED STREAMING SERVICE a few days ago and gave the login info to all my friends, as one does, but one of them went in and turned on 2-factor authentication and set the phone number to her own cell phone, locking me out of the account
It was an accident and we got it fixed but for a brief moment the betrayal and fury was so great I blacked out and was possessed by the spirit of like a 19th century naval officer, I was pacing around my room like "TO THINK THAT JUDAS HIMSELF NUMBERS HIMSELF AMONG MY COMPATRIOTS"
For those who don't know: Ikumi Nakamura is the woman who was senior artist on Bayonetta, and designed the titular character along with Hideki Kamiya. Their greatest moment of bonding was over their insistence that Bayonetta keep her glasses on at all times.
Nakamura cannot go to horny jail. She is the warden.
baratheonpilled
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
prguitarman
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline
