winksandnods | 3rd Code

How in God's name do you all stand this?

[Too many long nights spent able to do nothing more than read the Journals, which provide no insight to the Malnosso. Too many cups of coffee and glasses of Scotch and soda. Too many questions he can't find answers to.

Anthony Blunt, to say the least, is on edge.

He's taken to drawing lately, more than he has in years. Though, unlike what he's told his fellows, he never really abandoned his art. His scenes are bleak, though-- Snowy buildings that loom and cast long shadows. Scabbed skin with numbers just visible under the wound. Complacent wraiths. All of the sketches are safely hidden in a journal kept under a floorboard in his bedroom.

He can think of no way in. The talk of "missions" he's heard have not seemed to endear individuals to the Malnosso, so volunteering for one would be only suicide, not helpful. Their captors have been silent themselves, there has been, so far as he has seen, no direct line to speak to them. Except, perhaps, just before Halloween, but he had not been in a proper state to ask questions then.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She likes to hear herself talk.

Or is afraid of silence.

Or both.]

Indeed.

It isn't conducive to having a useful population.

[ more like a funny combination of both. she pretends the first in order to hide the second. it works out well for her -- mostly. ]

Not much of this is. Then again -- their definition of useful is a little skewed. We're tin soldiers and lab rats to them. Nothing more.

...It's remarkable, really, that a population is content to sit idly by while others provide for them. Only a few here seem interested in doing anything productive with their time.

[Another mark, in his eyes, against the ideals of Communism Kim and Guy were both so fond of. Still, it was Communism or Fascism, so he was Communist. For now.]

Provide? Try bribe. I'm well aware that there's a price. Doesn't mean I'm not going to eat the apples while I'm here. But eating the apples doesn't also mean that I'm not...well.

[ a verbal shrug; hers is not to speak aloud of such matters on the monitorable journals. ]

Perhaps that is the fault of the community, not the Malnosso.

...People attribute way too much to them as it is. Build them up as too all-powerful in your mind and -- duh -- of course you'll get paralyzed into not-doing-a-damn-thing. It's...

[ and again, she hesitates to say it over the journal. ]

Do the people of this town not realise that they do, in fact, have the ability, most likely, to cut off all our supplies? If they were to do that, we are not, either as individuals or a community, self-sufficient enough for most of us to survive.

Have you seen the farm? Times, stranger. They are a-changin'. I'm not saying it'd be a walk in the park but there's...

[ more going on than meets the eye. ] There are initiatives.

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