Vincent Standley: excerpt from A Mortal Affect

<<|| [17.07.11] Vincent Standley: excerpt from A Mortal Affect ||>>

Mortal Affect Vincent Standley
Four books composed the Archaic Record: the “Book of Creations,” the “Book of Discoveries,” the “Book of Details,” and the “Book of Predictions.” Any inherent power could at any minute be toppled by a breakthrough in AR hermeneutics. If the “Book of Discoveries” contained an analog to the power in question, the inherent power became an inherited power. Those who believed all knowledge came from the Scriptures replaced inherent with placeholder. “What is it to know? There is no knowing. What is a discovery? All things have been revealed. The placeholder power, the placeholder discovery, the placeholder technology, and magic, these are merely the gleanings from scripture without knowing. Veracity is meaningless, to accept requires humility and faith in our Creators. Why should they burden us with the faculty of knowing?”

Lob was not of a mind either way. Once a discovery appeared, no matter from where, it grew. Of that much, Lob was sure. Data supported the claim. There were graphs.

Rooters were forbidden from reading the Archaic Record, and they were forbidden from developing magic or technology. The various ruling bodies tolerated minor violations, at times even encouraged them. BRRAS allowed improvements to an existing technology that countered mortal unrest. Case in point, a resourceful young Rooter named Randy Curth completely redesigned the toaster—the Rooters’ sole means of cooking food nearly twenty thousand years—by expanding the cooking area and changing the direction of the heating coils from vertical to horizontal. The toaster oven, as they called it, greatly diversified the number of cookable things, and in doing so not only made a positive impact on Rooter nutritional health, but boosted morale with a pastime most seemed quite eager to explore.

Given the prohibitions against Rooters, their innovations contradicted the notion that all technology derived from the Archaic Record. The Lineal Descendant abated the controversy with a screed declaring the threat a minimal one, as Rooters had merely modified an existing technology. To Lob, who rallied behind most conservative agendas, the idea that Rooters must have a technology handed to them or could only improve upon a preexisting one seemed a weak and specious argument intended to diminish Rooters’ contributions to the Creation Grid.

Some blamed the toaster oven for sparking the Malking interest in food, and not without good reason. Data indicated a strong analog between the advent of the toaster oven Deluxe, or simply the oven as some were now calling it, and the first evidence of a Grid-wide interest in cooking and eating. Malkings confronted a daunting list of biological deficits to simply mimic an act so fundamental to Rooter existence. Malkings lacked a sense of taste and smell; they had no digestive system nor the organs to facilitate the process of digestion; they had a very limited limbic system and could not, in the Rooter sense, experience pleasure. And yet, after much trial and error, many became true gourmands. The phenomenon occurred after gender affects spurred surgical augmentation, a pioneering technology to emerge as much from ingenuity as scripture.

Lob was not alone in considering the behavior perverse. Regardless of what they thought desirable, Malkings had no business eating: nothing but flesh, vocal cords and a pair of rudimentary lungs past the mouth. Regarding a rectal analog, Malkings were equipped with a simple cloaca, serving nothing more than a means of cooling during the warmer seasons.

First-generation food establishments were equipped with hydraulic buckets controlled by the diner’s foot. Since authenticity became a key part of the experience, Rooter patrons were always good for business. Unfortunately, they found the buckets unappealing or, in mortal parlance, unappetizing. They complained as well about the consistency of food prepared by cooks who lacked the required senses. Some eateries recruited Rooters to cook, but these establishments appealed mainly to blue collar Malkings and never crossed over into the more lucrative Admin District.

Two events transformed the food service industry. First, a precocious freed-Rooter, one Archie Coop, had inherited a large collection of recipes from his grandmother. He refined them over a number of years cooking in the freed-Rooter districts inside the Fifth Circle, eventually becoming a well-regarded author of recipe books and food reviews. To Coop, the work was only preparation for a long-term goal, and once he had perfected each recipe, he approached Hinde, owner of the Rooterie, one of the Creation Grid’s most successful eating establishments. It is said they sat in the corner booth shrouded by shadows and possibilities, and it was there they devised their epicurean cabal. Without witnesses, the encounter had been embellished by an adoring public:

Although his arrival was unscheduled, Coop chose a time between lunch and dinner, knowing he’d catch Hinde on break, thereby showing the restaurateur his familiarity with the workings of the trade.

“I make this appeal from one entrepreneur to another,” Coop said, as he opened a briefcase and removed a thick stack of rumpled mimeographs. He placed them on the table. “These recipes are the gems of my collection. Not a single one has appeared in print. Not in the newspaper, not in any of my books.” The Malking arched its brow. “With these,” said Coop, pushing the stack forward, “We and we alone can overcome this blasted problem of consistency.”

Hinde gestured with both hands, each the size of Coop’s head, giving him the floor.

“We both know that when it comes to discipline, as with so many things, Malkings are superior to Rooters.” Hinde gave a weary nod. “I propose to train your cooks and teach them my recipes till they can prepare each one to total perfection. Let me add, the dishes I present here are not just masterpieces of taste but of presentation as well. With these recipes, Malking diners will have a fulfilling…that is, a pleasurable and memorable experience with such exquisite creations placed before them.”

Coop paused, taking note of the silk-screened photos of patrons hanging on the walls. A fair share of Rooters were among the laughing and toasting diners, confirming Hinde’s reputation as a fair-minded, Rootarian entrepreneur.

“Well, Coop, I like the substance of your proposal, though I must clarify one base assumption. When you say Malkings are disciplined, we both know you mean conformist. This plan will work because Malkings are masters of conformity. If we are to work together, I want no euphemisms, and if we’re to be partners, real downright partners, we’ll do so on square terms. And if you insist on being obsequious, you can forget the whole thing.”

“Right. Okay, Hinde, let’s give it a go.”

The second significant development came when a Malking surgeon demonstrated that a fully-functioning, synthetic alimentary canal—joining the narrow air passage to the cloaca—could be implanted without disfigurement, discomfort, or complication. Later, progress in areas originally the domain of gender augmentation—sense creation, limbic enhancement, and valence enhancement/reduction—became common. There were setbacks. Most notoriously, Dr. Sturgeon’s attempt to alter the rudimentary lung into a stomach. Recipients of the experimental surgery developed acute necrosis which, in extreme cases, progressed into flesh separating from the cartilage causing discomfort if not long-term deformities and handicaps. To the surprise of Malkings and Rooters alike, the misstep led to the discovery that the Malking lung was not only functional but necessary for cell growth and replacement. All in all, though, Malking augmentative surgery quickly went from a marginalized industry catering to an underground community of, in the eyes of the public, deviants, to a mainstream success story. Lob barely tolerated the trend under any light. The behavior was wrong and defiled the dignity that made Malkings the sanctified guardians of mortals and scripture.

Food consumption was enacted in broad daylight at designated venues. The public thought it less obscene than gender affects. Lob believed the phenomena epitomized the perversion and decadence seeping into the Creation Grid. Even Inner-Circle Malkings were succumbing to temptation. In Lob’s own building bloc, a collator from the Bureau, in fact, lived in union with a working-class Malking from the Bauble District. Lob did not know if the behavior was illegal; there was no question, however, that it was irregular and distasteful. A Bauble District Malking living in the Second Circle was, technically, in violation of the Separate Equality Act. The couple made no attempt to hide the relationship or their displays of intimacies, what they called fucking. More shocking still, according to office gossip, Malking and Rooter unions were de rigueur.

To date, no one had been charged, cited, or reprimanded for even the most flagrant acts of pseudo-Rooter activity, be it gender emulation, clothes wearing, or food eating. Who to blame? The opinions differed and too often came saddled with their own agendas. The Anti-Rooter League argued the problem originated with the corrupting influence of mortality, especially since the early days after the reform, and its attempt to unify all residents of the Creation Grid. The League had lost credibility, though, after a prolonged campaign to make spelling Rooter with a capital ‘R’ illegal. Many scholars who studied the effects of immortality on Malkings argued the impulse was not so much an act of decadence but of boredom. Freed-Rooter academics, like the honorable Dr. Frame, held the opinion that the ethos of the immortal should include the desire to make constructive contributions to the Creation Grid; such an ethos would counteract the potential of immortality-based boredom, replacing it with value-based action. Regarding the transvestism of modern-day Malkings, Dr. Frame was too quick if not a bit disingenuous in his condemnation of Rooter influence. Lob had observed that freed-Rooters, especially freed-Rooter intellectuals, often espoused aggressive anti-Rooter sentiment, muddling their own arguments in the process. Frustratingly, the posturing was absolutely necessary for any freed-Rooter to maintain their status outside the Ninth Circle. Lob agreed with Dr. Frame’s main argument and once again found his thinking a great asset to Malkings’ own understanding of themselves.

Frame wrote, “Civic duty is nothing more than the citizenry reflecting the examples set by their leaders. Decadence and depravity may be understood according to the same rule.” Lob believed the Lineal Descendant should be held responsible for the actions of the citizens. Duty and leadership were rarely discussed within the Inner Circles, yet Lob felt duty-bound to broach the subject whenever the chance arose. Unfortunately, acting on the impulse had a way of killing even the most lively conversation, leaving Lob alone, a mere spectator at parties and other casual Bureau functions.

Lob’s political disposition had grown from an event now many millennia past. The second day after creation, the Kosmocratores had assigned all permanent posts within the Admin District: the Lineal Descendant, the Assembly of Forecasters and Predictive Historians, and the Circle of Nine. Lob had been one of the Nine. These positions were unique as they fell outside the Immortal Career Track. The Creators intended they be held for eternity, and over the next three thousand years nothing suggested otherwise.

The fateful event began in the Palace projection room with the Circle on Nine’s quarterly report to the Lineal Descendant, including updates and petitions. A proper telepathic link produced a sensation like a magnetic pull, as if the sender's thoughts were being drawn towards the receiver. That day, the pull was weak, and establishing a usable link took several tries. Halfway through the report, the data stream switched direction, and the LD blanketed their delivery with a conjuring of white noise and static. Silence, then a garbled mass of rumbling, and again, a very precise, very directed silence, broken by the Sovereign some hours later: The Lineal Descendant. Testing. The Lineal Descendant. The Lineal Descendant. I. Ah-hem. I. Long live mortal affects. I the Lineal Descendant enjoy many affects. I the Lineal Descendant enjoys many affects. I dress. I dress with clothes. I grow flax and jute. I plant, I grow, I harvest and spin. I use my loom; I warp and woof. I produce sack cloth. I’ve built a tailor’s shop. I draw patterns. I pin and trim. I sew with needle, thread, and thimble. And voila! A very nice skirt or pants. The reward of working with one's hands is very rewarding. I say the outcome is a miracle rivaling even the Kosmocratores’ creations!

The Lineal Descendant prattled on, while the Circle of Nine, dazed, regrouped and prepared to cloak the blasphemous thought projection. They couldn’t stop its issue, but they could disrupt the likelihood of interception beyond the projection room. As they readied to implement the defense, Lem, always the quietest of the bunch, enacted a reply in kind to the Lineal Descendant’s oration: “Freedom to mortal affects or die!”

Vincent Standley's fiction has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Post Road, Esquire, Parakeet, Colorado Review, Quarterly West, and Encyclopedia. Non-fiction has appeared in the anthology Rules of Thumb, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, and The Paris Review. He is the former editor of 3rd bed. A MORTAL AFFECT is his first novel.

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	Four books composed the Archaic Record: the “Book of Creations,” the “Book of Discoveries,” the “Book of Details,” and the “Book of Predictions.” Any inherent power could at any minute be toppled by a breakthrough in AR hermeneutics. If the “Book of Discoveries” contained an analog to the power in question, the inherent power became an inherited power. Those who believed all knowledge came from the Scriptures replaced inherent with placeholder. “What is it to know? There is no knowing. What is a discovery? All things have been revealed. The placeholder power, the placeholder discovery, the placeholder technology, and magic, these are merely the gleanings from scripture without knowing. Veracity is meaningless, to accept requires humility and faith in our Creators. Why should they burden us with the faculty of knowing?”
	Lob was not of a mind either way. Once a discovery appeared, no matter from where, it grew. Of that much, Lob was sure. Data supported the claim. There were graphs.
	Rooters were forbidden from reading the Archaic Record, and they were forbidden from developing magic or technology. The various ruling bodies tolerated minor violations, at times even encouraged them. BRRAS allowed improvements to an existing technology that countered mortal unrest. Case in point, a resourceful young Rooter named Randy Curth completely redesigned the toaster—the Rooters’ sole means of cooking food nearly twenty thousand years—by expanding the cooking area and changing the direction of the heating coils from vertical to horizontal. The toaster oven, as they called it, greatly diversified the number of cookable things, and in doing so not only made a positive impact on Rooter nutritional health, but boosted morale with a pastime most seemed quite eager to explore.
Given the prohibitions against Rooters, their innovations contradicted the notion that all technology derived from the Archaic Record. The Lineal Descendant abated the controversy with a screed declaring the threat a minimal one, as Rooters had merely modified an existing technology. To Lob, who rallied behind most conservative agendas, the idea that Rooters must have a technology handed to them or could only improve upon a preexisting one seemed a weak and specious argument intended to diminish Rooters’ contributions to the Creation Grid.
Some blamed the toaster oven for sparking the Malking interest in food, and not without good reason. Data indicated a strong analog between the advent of the toaster oven Deluxe, or simply the oven as some were now calling it, and the first evidence of a Grid-wide interest in cooking and eating. Malkings confronted a daunting list of biological deficits to simply mimic an act so fundamental to Rooter existence. Malkings lacked a sense of taste and smell; they had no digestive system nor the organs to facilitate the process of digestion; they had a very limited limbic system and could not, in the Rooter sense, experience pleasure. And yet, after much trial and error, many became true gourmands. The phenomenon occurred after gender affects spurred surgical augmentation, a pioneering technology to emerge as much from ingenuity as scripture.
Lob was not alone in considering the behavior perverse. Regardless of what they thought desirable, Malkings had no business eating: nothing but flesh, vocal cords and a pair of rudimentary lungs past the mouth. Regarding a rectal analog, Malkings were equipped with a simple cloaca, serving nothing more than a means of cooling during the warmer seasons.
First-generation food establishments were equipped with hydraulic buckets controlled by the diner’s foot. Since authenticity became a key part of the experience, Rooter patrons were always good for business. Unfortunately, they found the buckets unappealing or, in mortal parlance, unappetizing. They complained as well about the consistency of food prepared by cooks who lacked the required senses. Some eateries recruited Rooters to cook, but these establishments appealed mainly to blue collar Malkings and never crossed over into the more lucrative Admin District.
Two events transformed the food service industry. First, a precocious freed-Rooter, one Archie Coop, had inherited a large collection of recipes from his grandmother. He refined them over a number of years cooking in the freed-Rooter districts inside the Fifth Circle, eventually becoming a well-regarded author of recipe books and food reviews. To Coop, the work was only preparation for a long-term goal, and once he had perfected each recipe, he approached Hinde, owner of the Rooterie, one of the Creation Grid’s most successful eating establishments. It is said they sat in the corner booth shrouded by shadows and possibilities, and it was there they devised their epicurean cabal. Without witnesses, the encounter had been embellished by an adoring public:
Although his arrival was unscheduled, Coop chose a time between lunch and dinner, knowing he’d catch Hinde on break, thereby showing the restaurateur his familiarity with the workings of the trade.
“I make this appeal from one entrepreneur to another,” Coop said, as he opened a briefcase and removed a thick stack of rumpled mimeographs. He placed them on the table. “These recipes are the gems of my collection. Not a single one has appeared in print. Not in the newspaper, not in any of my books.” The Malking arched its brow. “With these,” said Coop, pushing the stack forward, “We and we alone can overcome this blasted problem of consistency.”
Hinde gestured with both hands, each the size of Coop’s head, giving him the floor.
“We both know that when it comes to discipline, as with so many things, Malkings are superior to Rooters.” Hinde gave a weary nod. “I propose to train your cooks and teach them my recipes till they can prepare each one to total perfection. Let me add, the dishes I present here are not just masterpieces of taste but of presentation as well. With these recipes, Malking diners will have a fulfilling…that is, a pleasurable and memorable experience with such exquisite creations placed before them.”
Coop paused, taking note of the silk-screened photos of patrons hanging on the walls. A fair share of Rooters were among the laughing and toasting diners, confirming Hinde’s reputation as a fair-minded, Rootarian entrepreneur.
“Well, Coop, I like the substance of your proposal, though I must clarify one base assumption. When you say Malkings are disciplined, we both know you mean conformist. This plan will work because Malkings are masters of conformity. If we are to work together, I want no euphemisms, and if we’re to be partners, real downright partners, we’ll do so on square terms. And if you insist on being obsequious, you can forget the whole thing.”
“Right. Okay, Hinde, let’s give it a go.”
The second significant development came when a Malking surgeon demonstrated that a fully-functioning, synthetic alimentary canal—joining the narrow air passage to the cloaca—could be implanted without disfigurement, discomfort, or complication. Later, progress in areas originally the domain of gender augmentation—sense creation, limbic enhancement, and valence enhancement/reduction—became common. There were setbacks. Most notoriously, Dr. Sturgeon’s attempt to alter the rudimentary lung into a stomach. Recipients of the experimental surgery developed acute necrosis which, in extreme cases, progressed into flesh separating from the cartilage causing discomfort if not long-term deformities and handicaps. To the surprise of Malkings and Rooters alike, the misstep led to the discovery that the Malking lung was not only functional but necessary for cell growth and replacement. All in all, though, Malking augmentative surgery quickly went from a marginalized industry catering to an underground community of, in the eyes of the public, deviants, to a mainstream success story. Lob barely tolerated the trend under any light. The behavior was wrong and defiled the dignity that made Malkings the sanctified guardians of mortals and scripture.
Food consumption was enacted in broad daylight at designated venues. The public thought it less obscene than gender affects. Lob believed the phenomena epitomized the perversion and decadence seeping into the Creation Grid. Even Inner-Circle Malkings were succumbing to temptation. In Lob’s own building bloc, a collator from the Bureau, in fact, lived in union with a working-class Malking from the Bauble District. Lob did not know if the behavior was illegal; there was no question, however, that it was irregular and distasteful. A Bauble District Malking living in the Second Circle was, technically, in violation of the Separate Equality Act. The couple made no attempt to hide the relationship or their displays of intimacies, what they called fucking. More shocking still, according to office gossip, Malking and Rooter unions were de rigueur.
To date, no one had been charged, cited, or reprimanded for even the most flagrant acts of pseudo-Rooter activity, be it gender emulation, clothes wearing, or food eating. Who to blame? The opinions differed and too often came saddled with their own agendas. The Anti-Rooter League argued the problem originated with the corrupting influence of mortality, especially since the early days after the reform, and its attempt to unify all residents of the Creation Grid. The League had lost credibility, though, after a prolonged campaign to make spelling Rooter with a capital ‘R’ illegal. Many scholars who studied the effects of immortality on Malkings argued the impulse was not so much an act of decadence but of boredom. Freed-Rooter academics, like the honorable Dr. Frame, held the opinion that the ethos of the immortal should include the desire to make constructive contributions to the Creation Grid; such an ethos would counteract the potential of immortality-based boredom, replacing it with value-based action. Regarding the transvestism of modern-day Malkings, Dr. Frame was too quick if not a bit disingenuous in his condemnation of Rooter influence. Lob had observed that freed-Rooters, especially freed-Rooter intellectuals, often espoused aggressive anti-Rooter sentiment, muddling their own arguments in the process. Frustratingly, the posturing was absolutely necessary for any freed-Rooter to maintain their status outside the Ninth Circle. Lob agreed with Dr. Frame’s main argument and once again found his thinking a great asset to Malkings’ own understanding of themselves.
Frame wrote, “Civic duty is nothing more than the citizenry reflecting the examples set by their leaders. Decadence and depravity may be understood according to the same rule.” Lob believed the Lineal Descendant should be held responsible for the actions of the citizens. Duty and leadership were rarely discussed within the Inner Circles, yet Lob felt duty-bound to broach the subject whenever the chance arose. Unfortunately, acting on the impulse had a way of killing even the most lively conversation, leaving Lob alone, a mere spectator at parties and other casual Bureau functions.
Lob’s political disposition had grown from an event now many millennia past. The second day after creation, the Kosmocratores had assigned all permanent posts within the Admin District: the Lineal Descendant, the Assembly of Forecasters and Predictive Historians, and the Circle of Nine. Lob had been one of the Nine. These positions were unique as they fell outside the Immortal Career Track. The Creators intended they be held for eternity, and over the next three thousand years nothing suggested otherwise.
The fateful event began in the Palace projection room with the Circle on Nine’s quarterly report to the Lineal Descendant, including updates and petitions. A proper telepathic link produced a sensation like a magnetic pull, as if the sender's thoughts were being drawn towards the receiver. That day, the pull was weak, and establishing a usable link took several tries. Halfway through the report, the data stream switched direction, and the LD blanketed their delivery with a conjuring of white noise and static. Silence, then a garbled mass of rumbling, and again, a very precise, very directed silence, broken by the Sovereign some hours later: The Lineal Descendant. Testing. The Lineal Descendant. The Lineal Descendant. I. Ah-hem. I. Long live mortal affects. I the Lineal Descendant enjoy many affects. I the Lineal Descendant enjoys many affects. I dress. I dress with clothes. I grow flax and jute. I plant, I grow, I harvest and spin. I use my loom; I warp and woof. I produce sack cloth. I’ve built a tailor’s shop. I draw patterns. I pin and trim. I sew with needle, thread, and thimble. And voila! A very nice skirt or pants. The reward of working with one's hands is very rewarding. I say the outcome is a miracle rivaling even the Kosmocratores’ creations!
The Lineal Descendant prattled on, while the Circle of Nine, dazed, regrouped and prepared to cloak the blasphemous thought projection. They couldn’t stop its issue, but they could disrupt the likelihood of interception beyond the projection room. As they readied to implement the defense, Lem, always the quietest of the bunch, enacted a reply in kind to the Lineal Descendant’s oration: “Freedom to mortal affects or die!”