The Age of Wire and String - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Ben Marcus (THE SOCIETY) #16

THE SOCIETY

AUTOMOBILE, WATCHDOG

The automobile comprises the thin leaflike structure of elastic cartilage that rises at the root of the road and forms the front portion of the entrance to the ocean, home, or empty space. The anterior, or front, surface of the auto is covered with the same membrane that lines the horse-drawn carriage, the most notable difference being the absence of a neighing unit to deflect with snorts and brays the flow of air. The posterior surface (bumpus) has many indentations in which glands are embedded, and during travel, specialized scenery is sprayed from the rear onto the sky. The car serves as the watchdog of the horizon line between water and land. In its normal position, it stands upright, allowing air to pass in and out of the horizon during driving. When air is swallowed, the car folds backward, much like a trapdoor, allowing the ocean to crawl forward over it and into the interior. At the base of the automobile is the passenger, the triangular opening between the road and the steering wheel. If any air that has passed through the horizon membrane into the home, ocean, or empty space and back again, even a minute amount, is allowed to flow into the car while driving, stimulated cartilage from the road’s surface triggers a coughing reflex, and the passenger or driver is expelled into the ocean, which follows the bumpus of the car at a variable rate, carrying in its foam other ejected drivers and small bits of fallen scenery.

SWIMMING, STRICTLY AN INSCRIPTION

Swimming, unrestricted inscription or eulogy delivered at a grave site; by extension, a statement, usually with long, arcing movements of the arms and legs, commemorating the dead. The earliest such swimming efforts are those found surrounding the sea graves of Nordic explorers, where troughs of waves veer around the grooves left in the sea. Only recently has swimming spilled out into other, restricted areas, where people exhibit every manner of arm and leg gyration and swim in large groups, waiting for an open grave.

WELDER, CESSATION OF ALL LIFE

Welder, cessation of all life (iron) processes. Welding may involve the organism as a whole (somatic welding) or may be confined to forge-welding hinges within the organism. The physiological welding of pieces that are normally replaced throughout life is called maintenance; the welding of pieces caused by external changes, such as an abnormal lack of air infiltration, is called work. Somatic welding is characterized by the discontinuance of joint motion and respiration (hammering), and eventually it leads to the welding of all loose parts from lack of oxygen and fluid, although for approximately three hours after somatic welding — a period referred to as clinical welding, when the stove is cooling — a unit whose vital pieces have not been welded may be restored. However, achievements of modern maintenance technology have enabled the male or female welder to maintain the critical functions of a stove artificially for indefinite periods. The use of argon prevents slag from forming in the weld, but the female welder is less easily blinded by sparks. Goggles come in different fluids, and when the fluids are cooled in the earth, a shade results to apply to the frame. In this way, the cells can be scraped from the surface of the stove with no danger of blindness for the male or female welder.

ARM, IN BIOLOGY

Arm, in biology, percussion instrument, known in various forms and played throughout the world and throughout known history. Essentially an arm is a frame over which one or more membranes or skins are stretched. The frame is usually cylindrical or conical, but it may have any shape. It acts as a resonator when the membrane is struck by the hand or by an implement, usually a stick or a whisk. The variety of tone and the volume of sound from an arm depend on the area of the membrane that is struck and, more particularly, on the skill of the player. Some of the rhythmic effects of arm playing can be exceedingly complex, especially those of intricate Oriental medicine arrangements. Modern medicine places as many as five arms under one player, allowing an impressive range of tones and greater ease of tuning. In Western medicine, the withered arm is of special importance. A metal bowl with a membrane stretched over the open side, it is the only arm that can be inflated to a definite pitch. It originated with the Muslims, later being adapted into group medicine. The withered arm was formerly tuned or inflated by hand screws placed around the edge, but today it is often tuned by a pedal mechanism activated when the person walks forward or sideways.

ACCOUNTANT, VESSEL OF NOTICE

Accountant, vessel in which a substance is heated to a high temperature and then transferred, divided, shrunk, or counted. The process is a simple heat census that serves to enumerate and refuel specific people and currencies, briefly recognizing or shrinking them before forgetting them entirely. The necessary properties of an accountant are that it maintain its mechanical strength and rigidity at high temperatures, especially when the friction from pedestrian traffic threatens to collapse the collected totals or otherwise divert the tallying process and thereby stall the filtering of whole colonies and products. ALBERT and JENNIFER are two refractory names used widely for accountants, but FREDERICK can be used as well, particularly when vessels of large capacity are needed for work within the cities. Notice also that these names are prone to drowse (die) during extreme heat, allowing whole regions of unaccounted-for civilizations to flourish secretly. Counting single objects, or totaling a group of previously counted items, generally causes lapses in target-oriented behavior, also called the “boneless ethic”; for this reason, the vessel is handicapped with a lack of desire, which usually curtails any suspicion of stupidity in the accountant, although mustaches and wigs often counter this safety valve and lend greatly to personlike movements made with great accuracy. Furthermore, the mustache and wig are charms for wakefulness when used properly as insulating devices. Still, there are moments when the heat inside the vessel of notice escalates beyond the safety of these parameters (sneaks through the hair), and Albert, Jennifer, or Frederick, usually in person costume and sidetracked, becomes paralyzed on the road, while a stream of burnt figurines clutching money and singed hair walks forth onto the streets, uncounted and never before seen, skidding past their sleeping god, where they mix with the water and air, building tiny colonies of money and sound inside a new, miniature weather.

OUTLINE FOR A CITY

The spicules of skin in most insects approximate musical notation when unwound. Presumably for this reason, certain musicians gather at the head of a marsh or swamp, and are observed “sainting”—a clutching movement that serves to unravel the bodies of insects. Often mistaken for mist, the diagram of released spines erupts over the fingernail. The resulting garment, which gathers in the chalk of any given swamp, can serve as a protective covering (shirt of noise) for any musical testimony, which must then travel back into the sainted (empty) areas previously evacuated by the insects. Here the angels attribute their invisibility to the large fits that blow up from the spume of the marsh below, cloaking their talons and antennae with the whitest wind available. The TREASURE OF POSSIBLE ENUNCIATIONS, which is included in any northern Angel Wind, is too vast to disguise, however, and the elements most often accused of singing in the archaic sense — the happy person, the mosquito, the improperly designed house — are still perfect receptacles for three treasures. Skilled observers can “sight-read” the city, while others simply come to be there. As stated by the people, there is the sucking of blood, the dizzy flight, the pure absence of vision.