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Move-In Part One
Nov. 2nd, 2007 03:35 pmBeep... beep... beep....
It's the sound distinctive only to large land vehicles of the wheeled persuasion, moving in reverse. This particular vehicle, backing into the journalspace, turns out to be a truck of truly enormous size, bearing the legend NEXUS MOVERS--HAULING YOUR STUFF ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE SINCE GOD ONLY KNOWS WHEN. TESTIMONAL AVAILABLE. Slightly smaller text of a different colour reads: ASK ABOUT OUR ANTI-LOL INSURANCE! It's only the fact that the truck is so large that all of this is able to fit and still be of a readable size from four blocks away.
As big as it is, it's still a Nexus vehicle and, therefore, dimensionally transcendental. You try carrying an entire commune in a truck with normal physics, no matter now huge.
By the time one reaches said truck, a score of burly men are already unloading a collection of odd objects, and another one is speaking to a strange being. The man looks at the clipboard and says in the quasi-Manhattan drawl all teamsters are clearly trained to speak in, "So where d'you want the rocks, Mac?"
If the being in question has any objections whatsoever to being misadressed in such a manner, he gives no indication. Neither does he give any indication that looking up at the man with the clipboard is in any way uncomfortable, though it surely must be. The being stands low to the ground on thick, hunched legs, one of four arms supporting his weight on a complex wooden walking staff as he stretches upward slightly to do this looking. The other three hold random objects in carrying bags. The being's tail presumably balances against the ground. His clothing is rustic, decorated with spirals and sigils, and festooned with seemingly random small amulets and whatnot. A cap of similar make is tied round his horizontally-oriented head, amidst the long, thick grey mane of hair.
The teamster, on the other hand, is simply a human clad in jeans, a shirt with the Nexus Movers logo on it, and a bomber jacket. His hair is a dark curly fluff. He resembles a human malamute somehow--big, fluffy, friendly, and prone to galumphing. The man looks at the being's lugubrious, lined countenance and suddenly needs another coffee. Triple espresso. With a Ritalin chaser. Seriously. Standing before him is nothing more than one of ten examples of the cure for insomnia.
"Actually," the being says meditatively and slowly, "I am called 'Ac,' though, with the prefix it makes a little more sense. My colleague has the map showing the Stones' placement; I am merely here to record the inventory and the cost of service."
The man with the clipboard blinks at this for a moment. Right. Moving Day By Committee.
He makes a note of this. The colleague in question is easily located, though. It's the being over there in similar clothing--though sporting two limbs made of wood and an eyepatch--stumping about and muttering, carrying a parchment on which was drawn some diagramme of almost noneuclidean complexity and marking circles on the ground with a piece of chalk. Way ahead of us, then, at least as much as a being like these can be, moving as slowly as they do. Large men with moving implements are carting massive stones to the circles, then waiting about for the being to finish getting there, muttering whatever he's muttering, drawing the alignment markings, and moving on.
All about the space that's being moved into, similar things happen. Movers with large, heavy objects are directed in esoteric patterns with infinite patience and unspeakable slowness.
That is, when they aren't fumbling retorts full of unidentifiable substances, getting tangled in miles of seemingly random strings and cords, or getting caught up in interminable sessions of "a little to the left, no, your other left." The beings are unnaturally patient, the movers less so. The fellow with the clipboard looks on as two men shift an enormous and hypercomplex loom for the nth time, but everyone freezes at the sound of an enormous THOOM!
"Oh, dear," the being to whom the loom belongs says unflappably, shaking his head. "That will be taken as a bad sign."
A look outside into the quasi-courtyard reveals that one of the enormous stones had been dropped. Their owner has facepalmed. One of the other beings, however, is sketching this and swinging and dangling stones about with his other three hands. Clearly this is an event of massive geomantic significance. The entire operation grinds to a halt until he finishes drawing this and noting what the stones tell him, not to mention the spirals made by their movement, the pattern of the movers' footprints, the time of day, the wind direction, the temperature, the humidity, where everyone was standing at the moment, who dropped what, and the pitch of the sound made when the Standing Stone ceased to, erm, Stand.
F sharp, in case anyone's wondering.
This will probably make all kinds of sense to these beings, these--check the clipboard--urRu. But the day's waning and no matter how many people you have on a job, it takes ages to set up enormous stones and great big implements of all sorts of trades and pursuits until the place looks like some kind of Bronze Age artisan colony and hey, did you know all of this is in a big spiral?
As dusk falls, the oldest and most heavily decorated of the lot approaches from whatever he was doing with the move-in (none of them had simply stood by--once placement of large objects was settled upon, they'd set to unpacking smaller ones), having collected the inventory and invoice of payment.
"I do hope," the being says in a sonorous, ancient voice, "that this is acceptable payment." With that, he--slowly, of course--produces from within a pocket in his clothing a ... Nexus Express Platinum Card. The juxtaposition is, to say the least, a little jarring, and it's a few moments before Mister Clipboard stops blinking and says, "Uh... yeah. This'll work." Card is swiped, found valid, and receipt is printed, which is then handed off to the previously encountered being who'd taken charge of recording things.
"A Nexus Express card?" he asks, handing it back to its owner.
"Yes," the urRu answers gravely. "We find a great many things of interest on eBay."
Best not to ponder that. You don't want to see the collections of everything from out-of-print books to Muppet plushies. Lesser beings have experienced aneurysms at the idea.
The beings return to their tasks and the movers pile into the truck and drive off. They aren't done, after all; the neighbours are moving in in the next couple of days.
Subdivisions. Oy.
It's the sound distinctive only to large land vehicles of the wheeled persuasion, moving in reverse. This particular vehicle, backing into the journalspace, turns out to be a truck of truly enormous size, bearing the legend NEXUS MOVERS--HAULING YOUR STUFF ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE SINCE GOD ONLY KNOWS WHEN. TESTIMONAL AVAILABLE. Slightly smaller text of a different colour reads: ASK ABOUT OUR ANTI-LOL INSURANCE! It's only the fact that the truck is so large that all of this is able to fit and still be of a readable size from four blocks away.
As big as it is, it's still a Nexus vehicle and, therefore, dimensionally transcendental. You try carrying an entire commune in a truck with normal physics, no matter now huge.
By the time one reaches said truck, a score of burly men are already unloading a collection of odd objects, and another one is speaking to a strange being. The man looks at the clipboard and says in the quasi-Manhattan drawl all teamsters are clearly trained to speak in, "So where d'you want the rocks, Mac?"
If the being in question has any objections whatsoever to being misadressed in such a manner, he gives no indication. Neither does he give any indication that looking up at the man with the clipboard is in any way uncomfortable, though it surely must be. The being stands low to the ground on thick, hunched legs, one of four arms supporting his weight on a complex wooden walking staff as he stretches upward slightly to do this looking. The other three hold random objects in carrying bags. The being's tail presumably balances against the ground. His clothing is rustic, decorated with spirals and sigils, and festooned with seemingly random small amulets and whatnot. A cap of similar make is tied round his horizontally-oriented head, amidst the long, thick grey mane of hair.
The teamster, on the other hand, is simply a human clad in jeans, a shirt with the Nexus Movers logo on it, and a bomber jacket. His hair is a dark curly fluff. He resembles a human malamute somehow--big, fluffy, friendly, and prone to galumphing. The man looks at the being's lugubrious, lined countenance and suddenly needs another coffee. Triple espresso. With a Ritalin chaser. Seriously. Standing before him is nothing more than one of ten examples of the cure for insomnia.
"Actually," the being says meditatively and slowly, "I am called 'Ac,' though, with the prefix it makes a little more sense. My colleague has the map showing the Stones' placement; I am merely here to record the inventory and the cost of service."
The man with the clipboard blinks at this for a moment. Right. Moving Day By Committee.
He makes a note of this. The colleague in question is easily located, though. It's the being over there in similar clothing--though sporting two limbs made of wood and an eyepatch--stumping about and muttering, carrying a parchment on which was drawn some diagramme of almost noneuclidean complexity and marking circles on the ground with a piece of chalk. Way ahead of us, then, at least as much as a being like these can be, moving as slowly as they do. Large men with moving implements are carting massive stones to the circles, then waiting about for the being to finish getting there, muttering whatever he's muttering, drawing the alignment markings, and moving on.
All about the space that's being moved into, similar things happen. Movers with large, heavy objects are directed in esoteric patterns with infinite patience and unspeakable slowness.
That is, when they aren't fumbling retorts full of unidentifiable substances, getting tangled in miles of seemingly random strings and cords, or getting caught up in interminable sessions of "a little to the left, no, your other left." The beings are unnaturally patient, the movers less so. The fellow with the clipboard looks on as two men shift an enormous and hypercomplex loom for the nth time, but everyone freezes at the sound of an enormous THOOM!
"Oh, dear," the being to whom the loom belongs says unflappably, shaking his head. "That will be taken as a bad sign."
A look outside into the quasi-courtyard reveals that one of the enormous stones had been dropped. Their owner has facepalmed. One of the other beings, however, is sketching this and swinging and dangling stones about with his other three hands. Clearly this is an event of massive geomantic significance. The entire operation grinds to a halt until he finishes drawing this and noting what the stones tell him, not to mention the spirals made by their movement, the pattern of the movers' footprints, the time of day, the wind direction, the temperature, the humidity, where everyone was standing at the moment, who dropped what, and the pitch of the sound made when the Standing Stone ceased to, erm, Stand.
F sharp, in case anyone's wondering.
This will probably make all kinds of sense to these beings, these--check the clipboard--urRu. But the day's waning and no matter how many people you have on a job, it takes ages to set up enormous stones and great big implements of all sorts of trades and pursuits until the place looks like some kind of Bronze Age artisan colony and hey, did you know all of this is in a big spiral?
As dusk falls, the oldest and most heavily decorated of the lot approaches from whatever he was doing with the move-in (none of them had simply stood by--once placement of large objects was settled upon, they'd set to unpacking smaller ones), having collected the inventory and invoice of payment.
"I do hope," the being says in a sonorous, ancient voice, "that this is acceptable payment." With that, he--slowly, of course--produces from within a pocket in his clothing a ... Nexus Express Platinum Card. The juxtaposition is, to say the least, a little jarring, and it's a few moments before Mister Clipboard stops blinking and says, "Uh... yeah. This'll work." Card is swiped, found valid, and receipt is printed, which is then handed off to the previously encountered being who'd taken charge of recording things.
"A Nexus Express card?" he asks, handing it back to its owner.
"Yes," the urRu answers gravely. "We find a great many things of interest on eBay."
Best not to ponder that. You don't want to see the collections of everything from out-of-print books to Muppet plushies. Lesser beings have experienced aneurysms at the idea.
The beings return to their tasks and the movers pile into the truck and drive off. They aren't done, after all; the neighbours are moving in in the next couple of days.
Subdivisions. Oy.
