SubOrdinary

I was bored in between projects at work, so I let James start writing. You'll have to forgive me (and, uh, him too) that this doesn't have any "point", and nor was it intended to. It's just some loose free-writing.

This would be written in year xx59, when James is 40 years old. He decided to write his memoirs, and this is how he started. Man, oh, man, but he can whine fit to beat all.

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I suppose, by some reasoning, my life might be thought of as "extraordinary", but in truth, I have had very little to do with that fact. I have been a close observer of things that are extraordinary, a first-hand witness and chronicler thereof, but as for myself...

To say that I am not an extraordinary person is not to suggest that I am an ordinary person; there is much about myself which I have little choice but to confess is frankly abnormal, and to my detriment, making me to be, rather, "subordinary". It may seem strange, but for this reason it was something of a blessing for me to be so surrounded, as I have been, by incredible persons. Those dearest to me have been each, in their respective ways, of such extreme and extremely unusual natures as to alienate themselves from the status quo by their heights above it, just as I have by my depths below. Thus, though my own abilities are so limited, I nonetheless found a sort of acceptance akin to peerage via a common link of belonging along some sort of fringe of human potential.

It strikes me that I might herein come across as being unmeritoriously harsh in my perception of myself. I assure you, however, that this estimation was derived from empirical and dispassionate study of what happens to merely be harsh factuality. I shall elaborate.

I was born to the highest elite by way of family. My father is the Princeps of the Plutoner province which is called identically with my surname. "Princeps"...the word is the same as "prince". My family has owned this land since the beginning, being part of the the First Fleet colonists who came to this ball of snow to scratch out a rude existence by willpower alone. My ancestral sire was Konstantin Makarios, who strove equally with his workers in erecting the first domes with their hands, struggling with only their thin armour protecting them from the crushing void and the all-encompassing cold. It was Andrew and Lucia Makarios who subdued the Great Madness brought to those early days by the eternal winter and night, who crushed the riotous crowds descending into delusions and panicked cannibalism. It was Louis Makarios who ensured the survival of the population through the Plague, and began the construction of the new city of Phoenix, allowing (or more accurately, forcing) our people to leave the past burning in Konstantinopolis. It was Michael Makarios who defended the land when Thomas Brogan's borders would have expanded, and in turn captured Brogan's territory by force. It was Paxon Makarios who joined Allison Bolanle in establishing the Pluto-Kuiper Parliament and in suing for recognition as a united nation.

My father is John Makarios III. At some point, he will finally die and my brother, John IV will assume the responsibility of the family business, presumably followed in turn by his son, John V, now twenty-seven as I write this. I will not pretend that my father has never dirtied his hands in the interests of the business, but as far as dictators go, he is not a cruel one, and as he (not unjustifiably) sees all the province as belonging to himself, it is his priority to see that his property is kept well-maintained. He provides for the interests of his people, and in return he asks that they be worthy of his respect.

For most of my life, I have been a failure. It was always the intention that my destiny be that of assisting the family operations by serving as my brother's...lieutenant, of sorts. I was to work with him, assume whatever responsibilities he chose to delegate to me. The various affairs of looking after the public, relations with other provinces, growing profits for the province, growing profits for the family, and all the other responsibilities of running our state, have always been kept very largely internal, as family affairs. It is a matter of pride that we lead by example in all those traits which we would cull in the population--a high work ethic, intelligence, efficiency, and a certain modest reserve and quietude that has become stereotypic of our culture. It is not that we have actual humility; it is rather that our pride is filtered through the same lens of pragmatism that defines everything on Pluto. Everyone remains perpetually active, perpetually alert and attentive. If you have done your job well, it will be noticed and you will be rewarded. Seeking glory by talk will accomplish nothing, and money is not enough to purchase power. Here, the sign of nobility is not merely a matter of wealth, surname, style, and manners, but it is a matter of proving one's worth through personal accountable action. It is an ancient idea, that the king be the first man on the battlefield, rather than controlling his army like a chess game from afar. This is the way it is on Pluto, and one follows this ideal in order to elevate the pride of one's self, and one's family. This is the motivation.

And this is why I was shameful. I will be so bold as to suggest (in, forgive me, what is a shockingly brazen manner) that I have improved over the years, but until the point whereat I left Phoenix (and for a good while afterwards) I was truly a failure. I have always been timid and clumsy, with each of those traits intensifying the other. One honest skill that I possessed was in being a rather avid and bright reader. This filled my head with many ideas, but my shyness left me unable to put them to use. I stuttered (I still do) and, impatient waiting for me to attempt to articulate myself, those around me would feel compelled to interrupt or ignore me. Additionally, when I did manage to get out a few words, they tended to be either (apparently) inappropriate or simply bizarre, and would create an awkward vacuum of silence in those around me, and so overall my speaking became less and less. I am not certain what caused me to become afraid in the first place, but once that was first initiated--for whatever reason--it caused a downward spiral that only progressed through time. The more my fear led to failure, the more afraid I became. Perhaps while I was still in my cradle, I looked up and saw the life set out before me, and that itself was enough to terrify me.

As a Makarios, it was expected of me to endeavour to positions of leadership when in groups. This was, however, simply unthinkable to me. I excelled scholastically, but never stood out in anyone's attention. I had some few friends that I was content to follow around, and my brother--seven years my senior--who kindly brought me along with his friends, where I mostly listened.

I became sullen with adolescence, feeling inadequate and ugly. Girls frightened me. I had no ambition for my future. I became, if it is possible, even more internalized. I was angry, but did not know how to express it, or even the source of such an emotion. I was rebellious, but too afraid to act on any impulses of recklessness. I felt generally...incorrect, as though I were a mistake that someone had made. My brother and my sister were amazing, exemplary, it seemed, in all that they did, and I was the pitiful runt of the litter, whose existence was defined by fear.

I could verily feel the eyes of my parents boring into me with shame when they looked on me, frustrated that they could not seem to make me behave correctly. They prompted me to assert myself in various little jobs I was given for the family, none of which I performed well. It was on one of these assignments whereby I became injured.

The fields of methane snow, and their promise of untapped wealth, called the first voyagers to Pluto. It was this wealth that allowed the survival of life on the place, despite the dangers, and the remote distance. The wealth of the land is literally just lying on the ground, tempting as though it were drifts of outright cash money. It would be so easy for Pluto's economy to go spiralling out of control, destroying us all on runaway inflation, and so the harvesting, processing, and distribution of the stuff is guarded closely and jealously. Violation of that trust is a capital offense, for which execution is delivered quickly and decisively.

(Strange how I speak as though I were there. It has been many years that my permanent address has been Mars.)

When I was fifteen years old--skinny, greasy, bug-eyed, and awkward--I was sent to oversee a routine night delivery to the commercial skyport East of the city. Agricultural imports, shrink-wrapped and frozen for the long travel from the Inner System. There seems to be something nauseatingly comedic about the fact that I was clinically dead for the sake of bananas. (I have not been able to abide them since.) I just had to get the routing numbers, travel information, and check the inventory lists...a low-level, no-brainer administrative task, one of the easiest it could have been thought to have given me. This route usually was overseen by a cousin of mine, but the ship had arrived earlier than usual, and I was easily spared to go and see that all went smoothly. My brother had been nearby, and found time to accompany me...emotional support, I suppose.

The ship was one of those long-haul freighters, the big kind, backed up to a loading/unloading platform of a sizable warehouse that was used for the sorting and redistribution of goods going in and out, and it was called the MPKS Harmonia. I remember what happened in fragments. There are time lapses where I was either unconscious or simply had the experience rattled out of me, and there are parts that I recall as happening very slowly that could not have actually taken more than a few seconds at most. The parts missing from my memory have been supplemented by what I suppose is the product of my own imagination, where memory, dreams, and delirium have all melded together. For example, I have a very clear recollection of a line of aqua-coloured elephants slowly exiting the ship's bay doors, and the second one sonorously reciting a Longfellow poem as the building caught on fire. My most distinct impression is that the ship was painted white with red pinstripes, but I have never had the courage to ask anyone informed if that were actuality or not.

What happened--as I was able to piece together afterward--was that my dear cousin and the captain of the Harmonia were conspirators together in an operation smuggling refined methane to New Stratford. There was a panic that ensued when it was found that I was present and my cousin was not. The captain and his associates presumed that they had been uncovered and my cousin was already dead (though that didn't happen for another week) and their only chance for survival was to fight their way out and run.

As I said, this is what I found out afterward; at the time, I had absolutely no idea what was going on, and less so after I was shot. It was the first shot that hurt the most--on my left, just below the ribcage--agonizing, and then everything became hazy, frighteningly disorienting, and very cold. The other bullets hurt--I was aware of them--but they seemed dull and distant. Unfortunately, not all of the shots found their target; some went wild and...methane is flammable, by the way. Everything was very loud, and people were screaming. I am sure that I was. I remember flying through the air, very slowly, and then the world was cut in half as I landed, dimly aware that half of me had remained behind. Everyone around me wore a halo, and there was red smoke drifting off me in all directions in intricate shapes that I was sure had a pattern and a message, but I was unable to discern it. Time alternately sped up and slowed down, and many things happened around me, or seemed to. The smoke grew, and I became lost in it, until I realised that everything was perfectly and completely silent, and that I was blind. The knowledge frightened me. I remembered that I was cold, and decided that I was very tired. After that, everything is blank.

Here...forgive me, I would like very much to change the subject. It has been a quarter of a century and I still cannot recount the events without finding myself shaking involuntarily. It still wakes me up at night (and thusly also my wife, whose patience cannot be overstated.) The subsequent events, while perhaps less jarring, are no less disturbing, and those years are ones I would like to forget. (I certainly spent a great deal of time in trying to achieve that goal.)

I had been clinically dead, and was somehow revived and, after a full week of ceaseless surgery, stabilised . My brother had stayed at the hospital for that entire duration, haggard and all but sleepless, until I was resting quietly in a steady coma and he was veritably forced from the building. By the time he had returned home and managed to have cleaned himself up to presentable standards, he had regained his composure. He informed our family of my latest condition, and then very calmly set out to deal with our traitorous cousin and whatever cohorts who had not already been disposed. He took care of everything very personally, and I have a fearful suspicion that his anger might have strayed him towards the path of cruelty, though I suppose that I should feel honoured by the attentions taken which married the prospect of vengeance along with perfunctory business. I heard hints that the nature of my cousin's death was rather indignant, and that he was further creatively humiliated post-mortem.

It was a very long time before I learned any of this. After I awoke I was in a fragile condition, and although I was grew physically stronger in time, I fear that my emotional distress at the situation only intensified. It is no exaggeration if I confess that I am frankly repulsive, with mismatched parts, blobs of scar tissue and skin stretched half opaque over synthetics that now make up much of my body. I have an unhealthy, ashen complexion, and my remaining eye is watery and reddened. One knows when one ought to be dead, but is kept animated despite this. I felt I was a monster--a ghoul, a vampire, or some other undead abomination--and the white lights and thin hospital drapings left me fully exposed to the eyes of anyone. I was ashamed of my appearance, ashamed of my obvious weakness, and ashamed that I was powerless to do anything about it. My fate was not my own; I was at the whims of every nurse, doctor, and orderly, and my family's instructions for my care and keeping. I felt entirely responsible for my predicament, through my own ineptitude and inadequacy for handling the situation that had befallen. I felt guilty for the incredible expense and inconvenience it caused my family to maintain me thus, when I had no past credit of usefulness, nor any hope of ever being so in the future, especially now.

Those years--years, I sigh inwardly--were torturous. There was no middle ground between terrible pain, and a chemical-induced stupor, and I always leaned decidedly towards the latter. I have already confessed to being a coward. By inches, I moved through a second infancy, relearning to eat solid food, to move my (now alien) limbs, to turn from a crawl to a slow, unsteady walk. None of this was by my own volition, but was rather endured because it was, somehow, the path of least resistance. Similarly, these humiliations were compounded with those brought by the constant examinations, utterly devoid of privacy. And all this was balanced on the other end with long stretches of sheer monotonous nothing, a pristine white boredom that man was never meant to endure.

I read avidly. Being bedridden, as I mostly was, it was an activity which I could still perform quickly and well. I became a theoretical expert on an array of subjects, with a sizable library. My mind was filled with ideas from throughout history. My natural scepticism turned (not surprisingly) to cynicism, and to despair. I was revolted by everything and everyone around me (with the exception of my younger sister) and more so with myself.

Well.

Some time of this passed, until I finally began to act somewhat like a proper Plutoner, in deciding to take the problem logically. As I saw life to be meaningless, I needed to methodically search for some meaning. Once the truth was found, its tenets needed to be adhered to. If it was discovered that no meaning truly existed, then I would comfort myself with chemical treatments for the remaining duration of what would surely be a relatively short life. Ironically, this Plutoner practicality was the factor which led to my ultimate real alienation from my family. The Makarios clan has, like the majority of the civilized world, long been ascribed to the faith of Enlightened Ecumenicalism--that catch-all religion promoting equal validity of all creeds, the unanimity of all gods, the correctness of all beliefs. Its popularity ensures, I am sure, that I make myself a few enemies among anyone reading this, when I confess that found myself unwilling and unable to support its principles. I sought comfort by finding the truth, worthy of belief...rather than seeking "truth" by a belief that would comfort me. I was accustomed to being incorrect in the small matters of day-to-day living; the idea that I would be automatically correct regarding the most fundamental orders of the universe, regardless of what I thought...this, to me, was ludicrous. That the act of belief was more important than the content OF that belief...this was ridiculous.

In any case, my family did not approve of, and certainly did not support, my decision when I announced alternate intentions. They assumed that this was all the result of some post-traumatic depression, a need to take to alternate forms of spirituality as a means of coping with my present state. I believe the truth was actually more akin to the opposite of that idea. For many years afterwards I was at odds with my decision. It was not that I did not believe it, but I did not necessarily want to believe it. My faith was not one like E.E.--it would not sit comfortably at the back of things, and only come out when it was wanted or summoned. This new creed challenged me; it would not bend to my wishes, but rather declared that I had to submit to it, instead...and not by following the right actions, or saying the right words, or anything else so easily accomplished by merely doing. Rather than requiring any of these things, it asked me instead to "only" be humble, to make myself vulnerable, to face and confront the bald truth about myself. This stark, naked honesty terrified me as much as it assured me of its validity, and I would have run if I had known the direction to go. Instead, I floundered for years in guarded sarcasm and hypocrisy, and the same drunken torpor which I used to attempt to escape the physical pain which remained to plague me constantly.

When the philosophical debates with my family became more than I felt I could endure, I resolved on a plan of action...secret, and uncharacteristically daring. I arranged an entirely false trip to the UER, to a health hospice. Fresh air, sunshine, et cetera. In actuality, my real intended course diverted at Chandrakant, Oberon, where a sizable bribe convinced my bodyguards to take up new employment right where they were. I had all the full legal paperwork for a false identity, as well as a bank account. At Chandrakant, I purchased my bike--the first love of my life, my wife will forgive me for saying so--and after that, my wardrobe, manners, and lifestyle in general took on the aspects of the slovenly Freespace culture that I ascribed to on my new journey, bussing nowhere in particular, across the world.

I became acquaintanced with the Syzo party on the muggy streets of Xiasport in Venus Minor. This had been at a particularly low point for me, and so the timing was as truly fortuitous as I have ever experienced of an event in my life. That day had begun badly, with an exquisite hangover after a hazy night spent mostly in the awkward company of a giggly young woman wearing phosphorescent makeup. My dear Kestrel--Miss Zero, as she was, then--chanced upon me as I was being rather rudely evicted from a coffee shop. I did not understand it at the time, but later observation proved to me that she is a rather tender-hearted woman, and so she invited my company out of...not exactly pity, but some more respectable cousin of that sentiment. Miss Zero, for a variety of reasons, was an extraordinary woman. Her friends, too, were extraordinary. Curiously enough, we all took one another very well in stride, and immediately fell into an easy rhythm over the course of a day, until it seemed only natural that I would be offered a position of employment with them by the end of the afternoon, and equally natural that I would accept.

As the firm's accountant and legal counsellor (and often enough, too, driver) I was the fourth employee of Syzo Freelance Aerospace Services. The company began on Mars and had been run as a partnership between Miss Zero--as captain and dealer with any public relations--and Mr. Simon--as mechanic and whatever business could be done in private, owing to the sensitive nature of his personal appearance. (Did I mention that Mr. Simon is a chimpanzee? He is a chimpanzee.) Only some few weeks before I met them, Syzo had hired a third person, to assist mostly with the more physical aspects of the job. This gentleman was Mr. Arrio--rest his soul--a Vestian man whose unhappy legal history caused him to necessarily steer into the path of expatriation. There were, additionally, three young persons from the UER, a Mr. Hinapouri and his sister, and a Miss Garnock, who had for the same past few weeks, been tagging along for the trip. This was not condoned by any of the company's members, but, again, circumstances of legalities dictated that the only course of action which would be at all honourable, and yet not result in anyone's immediate arrest, was to allow their company onboard. To somewhat make up for this inconvenience, these three were charged passenger rate for their stay, and it was one of my duties to keep a close tally of all their expenses and cost of upkeep, in the (confessedly far-flung) expectation of being reimbursed whenever their booked passage was ended.

I decidedly had my work cut out for me, in attempting to straighten out Syzo's financial affairs. Mathematics were never my strength, and if their books had already been in some sort of organizational system, I would not have had an easy time of it. However, the fact that I was struggling did not seem to be noticed by the others of the company, who rather seemed to meet my meagre talents with some degree of wonder, and I dare say even I began to feel a little proud of my accomplishments, in time. Miss Zero had only had a brief tenure of formal education in her life and Mr. Simon was largely self-taught. Mr. Arrio could only crudely print his own name, and a handful of other simple words, all of which were obscene. This left me remaining comparatively highly educated--credentials enough for my new companions, though I had never finished secondary school.

It was another two years, and after a great many things had taken place, when I returned again to Pluto, in order to introduce my new family to my old one, or vice verse. At that time...among many other things which were said, my mother accused me of having shamefully settled for less in life. Bless her, she still has no idea what kind of life I have led.