Chapter #58A Story to Tell by: Seuzz   While the pie bakes, Kali puts you to work at the table writing that essay on American history. You press yourself over it, for you want to impress her; and you also figure that the more knowledge you show, the less history you'll have to study. But you can't shake the feeling you're making a hash of it. Did the Civil War happen before or after the Mexican War? you have ask yourself at one point. There was a war with Mexico, right? Or was it with Spain? Was there a war with Spain too?
Miko returns while you're still bent over the paper, and grimaces when she sees you. "I haven't seen an expression like that on my face since I was writing essays in middle school."
"That's what I'm doing now."
She groans, and disappears into her bedroom until it's time to eat.
The two women each take only a dollop of the pie; you scoop out rather more, but put most of it back when Miko shrieks that you'll "get fat." You finish the essay, and Kali reads it with a cool and skeptical gaze while Miko peers over her shoulder. "How'd I do?" you nervously ask.
"At least you don't have Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires," Miko snorts.
"Do I look an idiot?"
"You look like someone who wouldn't have the Americans bombing Pearl Harbor."
"Where did I--?" You snatch at the paper.
"Peace, both of you," Kali says, and keeps hold of your essay. She slides another piece of paper toward you. "Now let's see if you can be entrusted with the franchise. Explain the American system of government."
"Franchise?" you ask. "You mean like McDonalds? What's that got to--?"
"Oh for the love of Arbol!" Miko exclaims.
"Are you trying to set her off, child?" Kali asks with narrowed eyes. "Because if I had to describe who you look like, I'd say you look like someone who enjoys giving her colleagues grief."
Miko turns a bright red. You feel your own cheeks flush, and maybe that further embarrasses Miko, for she turns redder and redder.
"As amusing as it would be to see the twin Krakataus erupt in my own kitchen," Kali says, "I would prefer to have only lunch to clean up after. Miko, dear, Will was asking after our personal histories earlier. It helps to orient him, to understand how each of us came to be a part of the Stellae. I told him about myself and about Frank and Joe. Would you like to share your story?"
Miko jerks her eyes between you and Kali, and makes a kind of choking noise through her nose. But she gradually reacquires her composure. "Well, why not," she finally gasps, and throws her hands in the air. "As long as I've got to walk around looking at myself, it might as well be someone who knows something about me."
But instead of speaking further, she stalks from the kitchen.
"I guess I'm supposed to go after her?" you ask when she doesn't come back.
"No, she's leaving it to me," Kali says with a rueful smile. "She wants me to suffer as much as she is likely to."
You give her a puzzled look, but she just rises and starts to clean up the kitchen. "That essay on American governance, child," she says. "It's been called a machine that would go of itself, but it will not write of itself." You grimace and pick up a pencil.
* * * * *
Kali murmurs something about "Schoolhouse Rock" while looking over your effort, and then gestures you back into her office. "I said Miko wished to see myself embarrassed, and I will accommodate her." She takes a box from a shelf, and rifles through it. "If you wish to embarrass me further, I give you permission to read the other compositions in this collection," she says as she draws out a thin notebook, like a school composition book. "Perelandra is my secondary ousiarch, and that is why I am a successful designer." She gestures at her office. "At least in part. I employ myself and amuse myself in creative endeavors. They are rather a compulsion, in fact." She strokes the notebook. "I know the stories of each of our members. I have written them down in dramatic form. Written some of our adventures down in dramatic form as well." A shadow passes over her face, and then she takes a deep breath.
"I fear for their quality." She looks up at the ceiling. "One who walked under the light of Perelandra and Kenadandra was a great composer even as he did our work, for creativity and industry can summon forth great music. A great novelist, though, would be better for having Perelandra and Viritrilbia as ousiarchs, for the latter is the master of words. Alas, I am only a great theorist and not a great writer, though I may flatter myself that I am a competent storyteller."
She sets the composition book down on the desk. "You may read Miko's story, as related by a frustrated scenarist, here." She leaves you alone in the office.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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