#roevemberxiv

[from the journal of Estelle de Laussienne.]

Every day I spend here, Alexandria finds new ways to test the limits of my patience.

I had found the Everlasting Light a poor companion for sleep in those initial days on the First. And yet, despite the fact that the sun had never once set in a hundred years, I was still provided a powerful tool that I could utilize at a moment's notice: a heavy pair of drapes. Simple! Problem solved! A dark, quiet night's sleep awaited me every time, without fail. Truly, the testament of a people's adaptability in the face of hardship.

I have had no such fortune here. One could imagine that a state so technologically advanced might have puzzled out the balance between comfort and industry, yes? The folly of relentless optimism strikes again! Against the darkness of an eternal storm, Solution 9 has decided that it shall dispense of a day-night cycle entirely. What is the point of sleeping at all? At any hour of the day, half the apartment block is awake, clattering through the halls on their way to their shift at the "tee shirt" factory where they print a ceaseless parade of inane advertising "logotypes" upon fabric of a quality so impoverished it would make even the most gil-pinching monetarist gasp in horror. I darken the windows and I am still afflicted by lights: personal computers and digital chronometers and battery chargers and thermostats, everything needing to make itself known to you that it is ready to turn on at a moment's notice whether it has your permission or not. That has certainly been my experience, as I have been woken from a dead sleep on more than one occasion to the coffee maker brewing without my consent, playing music from a "playlist" that has been "curated" based on my brewing habits. Did the inventor think themselves clever for this? Do they think that our kettles in the morning ought to sing a tepid love ballad? And do not get me started on that infernal contraption they call a television. Six o' clock in the morning it is jolting awake, as if it is a matter of national priority that I must be delivered the news of a chain of restaurants deploying their seasonal menu (now with real rroneek flank steak). Seasonal! Does such a thing exist here outside of a financial quarter? I recognize that the people of Alexandria have not spared a single thought to the concept of mortality, but at least a few of them will begin to when I arrive at the broadcast station.

Solution 9 is simply too loud. It is every market hawker in every market I have ever been to, all at once, and they never pack their stalls for the evening and retreat into their homes. Never. It never stops yelling, with honks and whistles and little jingles and glowing advertisements that scroll infinitely for as long as you can be bothered to look. And this? This is what it has to say?

With the coin of each other's lives in hand, the people of Alexandria have decided to spend themselves on disposable bottles of water and individual packets of dehydrated vegetables. Self-warming coffee cups decorated with their favorite entertainment mascots, that they might collect all eight. Suits designed for "aerodynamics," and specifically for the act of jogging. Limited Edition energy tonics. Limited edition! Limited! As if the Everkeep did not have all the production facilities at its disposal to continuously churn out whatever such flavors of wyrm piss they see fit to produce at a moment's notice, they have to pretend as if it's as fleeting as a ray of sun under the dome, never to be known again on this star.

Artists dedicate their lives to their craft not to enrich the corpus of their culture, but to tie little bells onto a fashion line's self-proclaimed "refresh," itself shouting its intentions on a fifty fulm high screen of electrope to a disinterested crowd that putters about its business. Everything in Solution 9 -- lives included -- is made to be forgotten. I wonder if the people who killed and died for this country during the Storm Surge knew that this would be their children's future. If a man guarding a cache of electrope saw the trajectory of a Lindblum missile tracking towards his location and his final thought was, "I give my life gladly so that one day, in a time of peace, this precious resource for which we butcher our neighbors might make a pair of kitten-print pyjamas change color."