Botchi

Boron Jetwell hogged the middle-lane of the corridor as she departed from Ford’s Eye. She enjoyed, without a trace of arrogance, the omniscience that the eye bequeathed her. She had watched with contentment as Cosatch had disrupted the play-off game of Douche by encroaching the douchetrack on a spacehopper. The riot which ensued prevented Kluzens from getting near Mar and now she was safely ensconced in her lab. Kluzens, having no stomach for the psychology of mass hysteria, had made haste out of the town and fled to his ‘secret’ monastery whilst Cosatch and The Chief had popped into Foe’s for some light refreshment. A job well done. Duffield had taken a small step towards safety again.

The Chief knew as well as anyone how influential Boron had been in suppressing the Duffield question. While this had provided a synchronic fix, it had generated an incremental increase of sympathy in certain quarters for the likes of Kluzens. Boron was sure that there would be a clash again soon, perhaps greater than the War of Five Centurions. Boron tensed up fiercely at the thought of the damage that had been done during the war. Boron, like many domineering women, believed most fiercely in a reductive, materialist notion of mind. The War of Five Centurions, she concluded, had knocked social thought back to the vacuous idealism of the Devorjak era. It had taken eons for The Formula to fully re-engage – now they were ready for anything.

It was time for Boron to pay a visit to her beloved Formula; she had to ensure full dispersal before call-in. As she strode along the sweeping corridors of the Ford, her mind wandered like a caped nomad into the land of the past. Boron, momentarily allowing disruption to her strict linear thought process, wondered how much of the multiverse the unravelled clutter of her mind would fill. A child, a child, she had once been a child. Moments came to her now, reconstructed in the present, sweet moments distilled ember-like in her mind. (The clarity of these memories truly repudiated Mogul’s notion of interpretance). Miles of nothing loomed either side of the time Boron had waited in anticipation of the big wheel ride at the biannual Marseille Carnival. The flurry of the people, the lights, the noise. Standing at the foot of the vast rotating structure, Boron waited to board the wheel with her sisters Seb and Verdes.
“Next please, three to a carriage. Thank you.”
“Next please, three to a carriage. Thank you.”

Well-dressed youngsters boarded the wheel and it set off again on its mindless orbit.

Seb pulled out a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed away the snot cascading from Boron’s nose. The almost subconscious tenderness of her eldest sister was abundantly apparent even to the young, undeveloped Boron. The mania of the carnival was temporarily subdued by the loving gesture, a fleeting synthesis of souls amongst chaos.
“Next please, three to a carriage. Thank you.” At last!
“Let me give you a hand there young lady,” said the big wheel handler with a huge, beautiful smile. His weather-beaten complexion was powerless to affect his sparkling, good looks. Seb, Verdes and Boron just had time to settle before the wheel set off on its steady, cyclic voyage.

Boron was snapped out of her mental sojourn by the sight of The Admiral staggering along corridor 8C. His steps echoed along the corridor and seemed to Boron to be beating out passionfizz garage with an ecumenical air. The Formula, it appeared, had spoken.
“What the vernacular’s bisden had happened? The Admiral? Here? He should be safely locked up in his quarters, jungling his personal flavours, circumnavigating wildest quadrants of the north. Instead, he has also been summoned, wanted? Tish no less!”

And with never a clearer thought ever to have been born in the recesses of Boron’s distinguished process, she joined the Admiral step-step-stepping along 8C, pulled by the want of the realigned Formula. ‘Twas not long before they arrived in the chambers, the central piece hovering slightly above the strawberry shack that would buffet their comeuppance. Hierarchy wafted through the air, the meekness of the once great Admiral literally laying foundation to the hand-hipped strength of the pencil line skirt of Jetwell. Creased to perfection, the Admiral could not help but gaze at the fresh strawberry walls, angles not permitting the softest of summer fruits. Jetwell took charge, offering Lozike the steamed glass gauntlet that hung on the southern precipice, motioning him to collect the ripest of airbricks. Rank ensued, and The Formula, cross-legged on his floating platform, looked on, emotionless.

“For too long I have sat back, reserved by the power of K, helpless in the revamps of the war. Now time has passed, and the era of judicial slavery is upon us. Boron Jetwell?”

“Y-yes?”

“It is thee who shall barrister for the methods of defence. Lozike?”

(A muffled whim of extreme pleasure passed by the Admirals fruit filled oral cavern)

“Court clerk.”

Next chapter…