Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your [leader]. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your [leader]; like a mildew’d ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thrall’d
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so [vote].
DATE: January 9, 2017
LOCATION: The Colosseum
TIME: 4:30 PM
The sun has sunk a bit lower now, drawn to the horizon as all lovers are. It will embrace its darling later, surely, but there’s work to do—worship to oversee, paths to light. For now, the west side of the Colosseum will do; for now, the better half of the arena is still bathed in the warmth of anticipation, and for good reason: the moment they’ve all been waiting for—some for years, some for mere minutes—has arrived at last.
They come in streams, not waves, the witnesses of a miracle yet to occur; nothing builds up and breaks down individualism quite like faith, you know. If they wanted to carve out the stone of the Colosseum and make it the eighth wonder of the world, they could. But the people of Verona have always been gluttons for a show, and the beauty of something so subtle would surely be lost on them—an insult, even.
There are already seven wonders, after all. If you want to be remembered, you’ve got to be the first or the only; the stuff of legends is not to never die, but to never lose. Nine horses in the field will know nothing but the smothering comfort of mediocrity; the other faces an even worse fate: the agony of having immortality in one’s grasp and letting it slip.
But it’s the spectators that stand to lose the most, for a victory in the hands of another is scarcely a victory at all.
They line up one by one, beasts stepping obediently into metal cages simply for the purpose of escaping them, and the world seems to fall silent. A gentleman could drop his pencil and demand the ear of every soul in attendance, if only they were able to draw their eyes away from the gates long enough. But he doesn’t, and if he does, no one notices, for things like these—coronations of lesser kings, but coronations just the same—demand utter and complete reverence.
“And… they’re off and racing!”
They surge forward as one, tails streaming and eyes wide, and the stadium erupts once more into a glorious cacophony of the shouts of the crowd, the blaring of trumpets, and the beating of drums. It’s awfully humbling to think that the fate of each soul in attendance is somehow tied to a race run and won in a mere few blinks of the eye—the time it takes the pack to round the arena three times—and for that reason, few stop to savor the moment, to recognize their own insignificance. For a few minutes, the riders and their jockeys are the sun around which Verona orbits.
And what a glorious few minutes they are.
The Capulet horse rushes around the first turn before the others, looking for all the world like a firebird in flight. The Montagues in the crowd shake their heads in disgust, avert their eyes; some even retreat to the outer edges of the stadium, hellbent on watching a horse they support take the crown or not watching at all. Waves of regret lap at the feet of more superstitious gamblers who condemned the chrome horse as little more than trouble, for the markings on his feet are scarcely visible in the way he moves—quickly, with the sort of conviction only possessed by a creature giving ruthless chase. He’ll show, certainly, if he can hold the dark bay off, netting a silver medal to match the silks of his jockey, but the horse in third is as ravenous as his rider, and the distance between them shrinks with every stride they take.
They hurtle around the second turn of the final lap, close enough for those brave enough to stand at the barrier to jump back for fear of being struck, and the dark bay closes in on the blazing sorrel.
“Brielle King moving into first as they turn for home!”
A king’s steed falls to a ruffian’s pony, and the Colosseum seems to gape at such blatant revolution.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what you’re about to see is history in the making!” The announcer is nearly giddy now, the change in his tone and the sight before them rousing nearly every person in the arena to their feet.
History in the making.
The dark bay thunders down the home stretch, relentless even in victory. It’s the only way to win; anything short would be but a lucky coincidence. He’s within a few lengths of the line now, and the crowd is beside itself, damn near in hysterics—a newcomer unseating a dynasty? Impossible. Incredible. Everything a poor man dreams of and everything a rich man fears.
History in the making.
And then the bomb goes off.
(TW: violence, gore, body horror, death, severe emotional distress)
Please note: All Montagues were made aware of the day’s events prior to their arrival at the Colosseum. Precautions of varying degrees have been taken on their parts.
4:35 - Blown skyward by the blast, Brielle falls from her horse and finds herself half-deaf and disoriented in the path of nine fright-crazed horses, each in its own state of disarray. Few notice her fall from grace, too busy fearing for their own lives to fear for hers, but those that do shout at her to stay where she is. Hugo elects to take matters into his own hands.
4:35 - Celeste, having tried and failed to lure the Capulet heiress away from the track by any other means, all but drags her out of range in what seems to be the nick of time. She and Juliana run for the nearest exit. The Capulet wants to know why, but there’ll be time for questions later.
4:35 - Santino, seated next to Maeve by chance or perhaps the pull of would-be friends, reacts as if on instinct and shields her from the blast. They’re relieved to find they’ve both survived what seems to be the worst of it, but their concerns clearly lie with others. They split up.
4:36 - Orion and Orpheus manage to locate each other in the smoke (there’s nothing quite as familiar as the voice of the man you’ve tried so often to spite) and, after a minute or two of arguing, make their way toward the exit, knives drawn. Courtesy demands that they use them against those responsible for the destruction, but the unspoken rivalry between them is quite the tease.
4:36 - In a rush to find Maeve and Theodora in the chaos, Catherine runs directly into Castora, knocking the two of them over the backs of nearby seats and leaving them both with more wounds than they started with. She recognizes the Aguilar woman’s voice when the Montague woman snarls a warning and bites out her own, accusing the other woman of being involved in the bombing. Castora makes a snide remark about Maeve, and the Daly woman throws the first punch.
4:37 - Mallory, having escaped the wrath of the explosion and seen to it that their sibling (well, one of them) has, as well, cants their head at Cinead and insists that they’d known all along that something interesting would happen at the Palio. Nevertheless, Hea is missing in action, so they agree on a place to meet up and part ways to find them.
4:37 - Bellamy, who was struck and wounded by shrapnel as he ran to save a child who’d wandered dangerously close to the blast, nearly slams into Maeve. She insists on finding him help and asks if he’s seen a certain few Montagues, but unsure of her identity and her intentions, he doesn’t tell her that he already knows that they’re alright (or that they should be). He spots Hugo carrying a battered Brielle through the smoke and apologizes to Maeve, saying he has to go. He joins Hugo in helping Brielle and suggests that they find Roman.
4:37 - Roman catches sight of a bloodied Easton stumbling out of the smoke-choked arena and approaches him. He inquires about Celeste, knowing he’s been put in charge of her keeping in the past, and entreats him to simply let her slip away in the pandemonium, but the Craven man merely laughs. When he swings, Valentina rushes in to attack him from behind. The three of them fight for a few minutes, but Valentina urges Roman to break away to go to safety, to which he reluctantly acquiesces, leaving the two to their quarrel.
4:38 - The sound of a child’s screams strike a chord in Vivianne, and she follows his cries until she happens upon a young boy trapped under a pile of rubble—and none other than Giya crouched before him. She stands back, conflicted, before moving to join her, equal parts determined to get the child out and determined to make the Godrej woman pay for being involved in putting him there.
4:39 - Hector, while waiting for Hiran to emerge from the stadium, sees Orion leaving mostly intact—ashen suit and handsome face cut—and moves to follow him, to accost him for telling Hiran what happened between them, but Lucrecia swarms out of what seems to him to be nowhere, claws unsheathed and hackles raised. Nothing angers a dangerous woman more than being caught unawares; she’d like to make his skin match her lipstick—red.
4:39 - Hiran slips past beneath Hector’s nose and taps Orion on the shoulder, seizing the opportunity to make him rue the day he ever laid a finger on Sawiris. It hardly matters that it was just as much Hector’s fault as Orion’s or that he’s had a little too much to drink; he grabs the older man by the lapels and shoves him against the nearest stable wall.
4:40 - Celeste and Juliana run clear of the Colosseum, eyes reddened by the smoke and ash clinging to their hair, but although they escaped the worst of it together, they won’t be leaving together. Priam swoops in to take the Capulet heiress by the arm and Everett steps forward to grab Celeste, believing she’s made yet another escape attempt. He pulls her away, but not before Juliana makes it known that the Montague woman was the one to keep her safe from the blast.
4:41 - Pandora advances upon Priam and Juliana with the vengeance of an animal given just enough time to lick its wounds and acquire a taste for blood. Marcelo thinks to join her in trying to incapacitate the emissary and make off with Cosimo’s daughter, but they spot Everett escorting Celeste out, and seeing the opportunity they’d all hoped would present itself, they hail the already-injured captain with more blows.
4:42 - Priam takes a hard hit to the head and is brought to his knees, but Theodora steps in to assail Pandora, giving Juliana the chance to escape—but foolishly, she stays to help the Taravella man to his feet and away from the wreckage. Theodora and Pandora are evenly matched in both wit and strength, and their fight proves incredibly tiresome for both. Both Montague and Capulet eventually pull away bloody and with bruises blooming under their skin.
4:42 - Odessa, who was able to slip away from the race several minutes before the explosion, notices that Giya is absent from the ranks of those who made it out safely and pushes against the throng of people leaving the stadium to look for her in the smoke. A red-faced Rafaella slams into her in the confusion and latches onto her out of instinct to keep the two of them from falling, but once she realizes who she’s grabbed, she recoils, disgust evident on her features. The Capulet adviser lunges for the emissary, fist swinging at the other woman’s jaw, and for the time it takes them to declare a victor, Giya is forgotten.
4:43 - Castora, nursing wounds from her earlier scuffle with the Daly girl, and Ramona, itching for Orion to have escaped the bombing so she can take care of him herself, happen upon a clearly furious Lucrecia and a clearly struggling Hector. The two girls draw the Falco woman’s attention away from her opponent by taunting her, giving Hector enough time to slip away and lick his wounds. The two Montagues manage to incapacitate her and leave her behind one of the betting booths to be found by one of her own.
4:43 - Matthias sifts through the crowd of crazed race-goers that push out of the Colosseum and into the open, keen gaze searching for the target he’s been ordered to trail and—if possible—take. He’s distracted by the sight of Delilah stumbling past, pretty little outfit stained red. Careful to make sure none of his own are watching, he pulls her into a bathroom to tend to her wounds. She’s grateful, but she leaves not long after, terrified of being discovered by the wrong pair of eyes.
4:44 - Bellamy spots Roman near a ticket booth, and he and Hugo guide Brielle, who has rather loudly objected to being carried, over to him. After a brief assessment of her multiple injuries, Brielle reluctantly consents to being brought to the hospital, and Bellamy offers to take her, as he’s in need of examination as well. Brielle and Bellamy leave the Colosseum through a staff corridor and depart for the hospital. Hugo hangs back to speak to Roman, but the coast is far from clear. Roman sets off to find Alexander, and Hugo hangs back to survey the perimeter, guilt preventing him from fleeing the scene.
4:44 - Tiberius happens upon a battered Valentina, who looks a little worse for wear after her fight with Easton. He takes advantage of her momentary weakness and rushes in, blade drawn. He manages to back her against a wall after a brief skirmish, knife to her throat, but a pair of arms slip around his neck and tighten before he has the chance to do much damage—Santino. The Gallo man pulls the Capulet off of his sister and, in the hopes of avoiding a real fight, presses the barrel of his handgun to his back. The message is clear.
4:45 - Marcelo engages Everett in a fist fight and manages to disarm him, paving the way for Celeste to run away, but the odds of her succeeding are too slim for comfort and she’s better off staying where she is, so she refuses. Ignoring the look of confusion on their face when she all but pries them away from the Capulet captain, she quietly insists that they stand down and direct their efforts toward something more feasible. It’s not the first time she’s talked them down from a fight, and reluctantly, they hurl one more threat Everett’s way before retreating.
4:45 - Odessa watches as a certain Easton Craven skirts around his brother without bothering to back him against the Montague captain, and unable to resist the temptation of getting even somehow, she taunts him from afar, inadvertently beckoning him closer. She’s had her fill of fights in the aftermath of a clear victory by her people, but whether Easton is ready to hang his head in defeat is yet to be determined.
4:46 - Alexander watches the chaos unfold as Nero watched Rome burn, eyes scanning the crowd for anything or anyone of interest. Save for two soldiers of his caught in the blast zone by mistake, everything had gone according to plan—that is, as well as a bombing could go. He’s just about to dive into the fray to deal with a Capulet heckling one of his captains when none other than Rafaella Capulet appears, blood matting her curls and all traces of teasing gone. How dare he? He could ask her the same thing.
4:46 - Hea watches Halcyon as she pauses in an alcove to catch her breath, their interest sparked by the woman’s preoccupation with her own wellbeing while others seem intent only on bringing about others’ ruin. They approach her and inquire about her injuries but don’t readily offer any aid, eyes scanning the crowd for their siblings. Unlike mere men, gods don’t lose their heads when things don’t go as anticipated.
4:47 - While surveying the area for Theodora, Orpheus comes across Ramona, who’s hungry for more confrontation. Despite his best (read: meager) efforts to entertain her, the Capulet soldier can’t bring himself to give her the satisfaction of engaging, and perhaps that angers her more than any blow ever could.
4:47 - Halcyon rejoins the fray with renewed determination, catching sight of Vivianne’s dark hair as she leaves the smoke-filled arena with—Giya Godrej? The underboss slips away before she can ask for further orders, and since she’s in no state to exact any useless revenge, she settles for brushing past the older woman with a dignified sort of force, throwing barbed words over her shoulder.
4:48 - Mallory corners Hugo to prod him for information—or at the very least, amusement—and finds little to their liking. They’d suspected a holy man would be a little less boring under pressure, but they stick around perhaps a little longer than the priest would like, barring him from being of much use to his mob for several precious minutes. What’s a holy man like him doing with them, anyway, bringing about such destruction? They want to know all of this and more.
4:48 - Clark emerges from the smoke-choked arena to find his nephew dutifully searching for his mother. After a brief (and mistrustful) exchange, Hiran and Clark look for and locate Giya and leave the Colosseum, a family more or less in tact.
4:48 - Mikael lurks in the shadows of the mostly-evacuated Colosseum, intent on searching the perimeter for his notably absent wife before he assumes that she must’ve wasted no time in leaving the scene. He finds her where Castora and Ramona left her and stoops down to try to rouse her, enraged at the nerve of whoever has done this to her. He’s inclined to suspect the man who attacked him at the Masquerade—Matthias—and Cinead appears seemingly out of thin air to inform him (incorrectly) that it was, as if the Falco man had spoken his thoughts aloud. Whether it was their intention or not, the violence Warren wishes to inflict on Mikael is no longer one-sided.
5:00 - Matthias arrives at the rendezvous point with his hands markedly clean, prompting a questioning look from Alexander. He has failed in his mission, and the excuse he gives is poor at best. Rallis is angry, but the adviser has far more important things to tend to in the wake of the bombing; Matthias will be dealt with later.
Civilians and mob members alike flee the Colosseum, scattering like ashes on the wind. The screams have long since died down, replaced by the eerie wailing of sirens in the distance, but pockets of people remain, their cries—both for themselves and those lost—ringing out like the types of prayers uttered not for a response, but due to the lack of one. Later that evening, journalists and crime scene investigators alike would tally the death toll at nine, tentatively. A count of the wounded will be much more complex, much like the motives behind the act. They’ll call it an act of terrorism, the work of radicals far-removed from the war raging within the city. They couldn’t be more wrong, but no one stands to correct them.
Some things are best left to the imagination; the only thing that would kick up more hysteria than the threat of a distant organization would be the threat of two empires waging war on the doorsteps of innocents.
Somewhere in a stable miles away from the crime scene, the Montague stud stands in his stall, dark coat shining beneath the lamp burning above him. He’s a vision, despite the fact that no one is there to see him, and the black flag he carried has been replaced by one of striking gold. It hangs on the door for all to see, a message in disguise if there ever was one.
Our mourning hour has passed. The stage is now yours.
OVERVIEW: It’s safe to say this year’s Palio was a great deal more eventful than the last, but then again, things have certainly changed in Verona, haven’t they? You are free to play out these interactions in a THREAD or in a CHATROOM. We just ask that, should you play out encounters in a chatroom, you post everything on the dash so that we might follow along. As we have said before, these events have no expiration date and you may continue with threads from the previous event.
TIMELINE: You may now play out the AFTERMATH OF THE PALIO DI VERONA. Interactions will take place from JANUARY 9th to JANUARY 23rd. Everyone will be recovering from the event in their own way and the specified characters will be expected to carry their injuries. Even characters who were not written to be injured in the interactions will likely have taken some damage; a bombing is pretty wide-spread, after all. All of the deceased are NPCs, six of which were Capulets. Several playable characters have the potential to be in critical condition, but the extent of their injuries has ultimately been left up to each player. (If you’re willing to have your character seriously injured or even killed in the future, please let us know.)
HACK: If you are searching for interactions your character is involved in, hit ctrl+f and a small box should pop up in the corner of your screen. Type in your character’s name, hit enter, and you should be able to find your character’s name in their interactions!
We hope you’ve all enjoyed our second DiVerona event!
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind […].
Sure, he that had made us with such large discourse,/Looking before and after, gave us not/The capability and godlike reason/To fust in us unused.”
-Hamlet, Act IV, Scene iv
I think that this quote means that God made us with such a great power of thought and reason in order for us not to use it. In this soliloquy, Hamlet is getting upset with himself because no matter what he sees, it reminds him of how he should just go and avenge his father already. Although he knows that Claudius killed Old Hamlet, he still isn’t able to kill him. He has enough reason to think that the Heavens punished him for doing bad things and made him kill Polonius. He’s able to think about doing it, but he always seems to hold himself back. At the end of this soliloquy, Hamlet promises himself that he will think only bloody thoughts in hopes of getting himself to follow through with the ghost’s task.
I think this quote holds some sort of truth. I think this because in the book of Genesis, it says that God created us in his image to rule over creation and reproduce godly offspring. God always acted with thought and reason, so we were also created to have thoughts and the capacity to have reason. If we’re talking about this in the sense of someone in the Shakespearean time period, I feel like if we didn’t act with thought or reason, we’d lower ourselves down a link in the Great Chain of Being and be on the same level as beasts. You could say that you’d lower yourself down to the beasts because if you’re impulsive, you act without thinking or reason, which makes you do bad things.
Choose a character and write a COMPLETE characterization of him or her. What do others say about the character? What do the character's soliloquies reveal about him or her? How do the character's actions provide insight? Who is this character's foil and why?
Hamlet is the prince of Denmark and the protagonist of this tragedy. His age isn’t explicitly stated, but it’s assumed that he’s somewhere around his twenties. He is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet. He’s also the nephew of the current king, Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy and cynical towards his Claudius because he killed Old Hamlet and married Queen Gertrude shortly after the death of Old Hamlet. At some parts of the play, Hamlet is hesitant and indecisive, but he was also rash and impetuous. He was a student who studied at the University of Wittenburg and he’s notably intelligent, but his studies were interrupted by the death of his father.
When Hamlet returns to Denmark, he asks philosophical questions that can’t be answered with a definitive answer. He asks about the afterlife, suicide, and what happens to our bodies when we die. When the ghost of Old Hamlet appears to tell Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius and to kill him, Hamlet becomes obsessed with trying to find proof that Claudius really did commit the crime so he can kill him if he really is guilty. When he was being impetuous, Hamlet never really thought things through and it’s kind of obvious that he didn’t actually think his actions through. One example is when he takes the role of a madman and stabs Polonius through the curtain. He didn’t think about moving the curtain before drawing his sword, he just went for it.
Although he’s only “pretending” to be a madman, he goes through his transitions with ease. When he speaks, his words are laced with innuendo directed towards someone else in the play, but no one seems to notice it. This all started when he became upset with the world. Was it better to endure life or end it? Suicide is something that he contemplated at some parts of the play. Within his speech, he also has a general distaste for women all because his mother didn’t seem affected by the death of Old Hamlet.
While he’s contemplating all of these philosophical and personal problems, he spends little to no time thinking about any threats towards Denmark’s well-being. So is it safe to say that even though he is in line to get the crown, he would be deserving of the title itself?
“Talk” to one or more of the characters in the scene a question. Brow-beat them if you wish. Or support their actions or choices. Challenge them. Yell at them. Comfort them. Keep in mind their station (they are royalty) so gauge your language accordingly.
Enter Fortinbras, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching.
Fortinbras: Captain, will you please go to the King and ask if we have permission to travel through his lands.
Captain: Yes, my lord. [Exeunt Fortinbras and Soldiers.
Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.
Me: Hey, look over there. There’s soldiers marching through Denmark. We’re not going to war, are we?
Hamlet: I highly doubt it. Oh, look there’s someone coming over to us.
Captain: Hello, we are on our way to Poland.
Me: Why?
Captain: We’re going to fight to gain a small piece of land. There is no profit in getting it. I guess you could say we want it for its name
Hamlet: Then why would Poland even want to defend it?
Me: Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense for you all to shed blood for such a minor dispute.
Captain: Oh well... [Shrugs and Exits.
Rosencrantz: Let’s just get going, Hamlet…
Me: We’ll catch up in just a bit. You may go on ahead.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet and I.
Hamlet: It’s like I can’t even do something that I was made to do.
Me: What do you mean?
Hamlet: I’m supposed to get bloody revenge on Claudius, but I never have the guts to do it. Yet, Poland and Norway are willing to fight for something so miniscule.
Me: Yeah, but you’re smart and I know you’ll find some way to kill him.
Hamlet: If my personality was divided between wisdom and coward, I’d be one part wisdom and three parts coward.
Me: Maybe you just need to get all other thoughts out of your head. Claudius is a really bad guy, so focus on that and perhaps you’ll be able to do it next time.
Hamlet: Perhaps you’re right. From here on out, I’ll think nothing but bloody thoughts. Everything else will be useless until I fatten the vultures with his innards. [Exeunt Hamlet.
Me: Wait! That’s not what I meant! Hopefully nothing crazy will come out from this… [Exeunt.
Discuss a comparison the one of the characters makes (remember the Great Chain?).
In Hamlet’s soliloquy, he says, “What is a man,/If his chief good and market of his time/be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.” This quote means, “What is a man if all he does is eat and sleep? Nothing more than a beast.” This relates to the Great Chain of Being because I think he’s talking about how he’s kind of going down the chain. I think this because he doesn’t do anything about killing Claudius, but he continues living his life somewhat avoiding the subject when he’s able to kill him. Along with contemplating why he never has the guts to kill Claudius, he’s wondering why he’s similar to a beast.
Although Hamlet is willing to kill Claudius and may stoop down to being a beast, I feel like he’s not really doing the right thing in sitting things out because he’ll just sit around and complain about how the actions of others tainted his honour. I feel like one reason why Hamlet may not have acted against his uncle-dad was because if he did kill the king, the chain would be at risk of collapsing. If it this system did collapse, people thought that chaos would ensue, so maybe Hamlet was thinking of the well-being of Denmark as a whole (and totally contradicts my last remark in my characterization of him). But if the king is believed to have been appointed by God to make sure the links in the chain are stable, why would Hamlet still contemplate killing him? For the Great Chain of Being, I think you’d need a strong leader to keep the links from collapsing, but he’s corrupt, so the chain was probably on its way to collapsing anyway, so this thought could actually go either way.
It is our fault we love only the skull of Beauty
Without knowing who she was, of what she died.
We have the thief's guilt, but not his booty,
The liar's spasm without ever having lied.
The sick locust scrapes his injured song,
His thorax only partially destroyed.
Retching is prohibited. It's wrong.
The murderer feels no hate he can avoid.
Now flies bite worst where the skin is broken.
Illness triumphs. Lesions. Soon tumors sprout.
The bloated plants quiver, the seeds will be shaken.
'Your head's bashed in, darling. Look out.”
Recounted once, and reflected upon as one of the most incomprehensible and indefinable moments of time in the history of the estuary, where and when down was up and up was down, where what once had make sense had come to completely evade all definition of reason and logic; with so much of the land and the structures upon submersed beneath the rising seas, and of course the same holding true in reverse, and although such had it always been, and perhaps such is it still, never before on such a scale.
A patchwork quilt of bright pastels, bold bronzed rust and gilded umbers and braver inhabitants; each square stitched together often hastily in a race to completion, only to just as soon come to an altogether halt, and then most purposefully and with more concentration and with greater care, and then the same again and once more. A mosaic of combined ancestry and legacy, from the corner of Ursulines and Decatour through Vieux Carré, past the rivers and their bayous and out across the oceans; marble, pottery, glass, stone, brick and mortar, whether domestically dependant or internationally imported, combined and cultivated into some of the most distinct cultures and traditions this side of the delta.
Much of it supported by trade as much as tradition, facilitated in equal parts by steam as much as wind; as coal in the furnace for those steel horses, tamed and trained to keep to the tracks laid before them, as force in the cloth sails of those floating wooden mammals. Each with tarpaulins spread across all manner of stockpiled crated and boxes, affording them at least some amount of protection and shelter them from the elements, each carrying all manner of valuable goods and precious commodities, though none as important to its survival, none so intrinsic to its success as the people who accompany their luggage aboard.
... so much disaster, so much apprehension, so much uncertainty, yet never for a moment doubting, never for a moment accepting that nothing could be done and not once, even for a single skip of the tracks forgetting to care.
And though the water rises to level before spilling onto, over and across the tracks, and though the strong winds and shifting seas coerce the vessel from its intended course, and though the darkness of the night is expansive, certainty in the knowledge that it never empty.
The speechless voice calls out, the muted trumpet speaks again, the soft percussion brushes rake across the breadth of the bass like sweepers in the streets all across the quarter~
