The Cold Cares Not (For the Crown on Your Head) [Closed]

[MacSalterson]

A Prelude

"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy"
- Franz Kafka

19.03.2023

A fluorescent tube overhead crackled and hummed quietly, just on the edge of hearing, as it washed the meeting room in that familiar sickly light. The room itself was nice enough, but signs of wear and age showed if you looked close enough at the edges - some damage to the carpet at the door and along the walls, a subtle water stain in one portion of the ceiling from some leak in the plumbing overhead, repaired years ago. It was exactly what one might describe when one thought of the archetypal conference room, and nothing more. At the moment, the room was practically filled to the brim as government representatives from the Offices of General Labor and Union Advisory Councils and representatives for the Chief Council of the National Revolutionary Laborer’s Union droned on to each other in regards to minutiae of something or other- probably the details of federal labor contracts and wages for union members, saturating the air with dense and intensely soporific legalese, only barely fought off with the nicotine of cigarettes and the caffeine of the particular tar-like brew of dark roasted coffee so popular among the Yeran. More people filled the room besides the officials seated at the meeting table itself - stenographers, assistants, junior officials and minor bureaucrats, and a small handful of security personnel, stationed near the door and utterly checked out from the proceedings.

A regular union member who had inexplicably ended up in the meeting had closed their eyes and let their head droop forward as they leaned back in one of the hard plastic seats at the edge of the room. They had made an attempt at wearing a button up shirt and tie, though the shirt was wrinkled and the tie was cheap - likely dragged out of storage in a hurried panic or possibly purchased off the rack at some store the day before the meeting, and the man as a whole looked like the type of person much more at home in a set of diesel and grease stained coveralls. Sfan, Federal Premier of the Stan Yera and the most powerful and dangerous man in the country, envied him. He was parked at the table itself, for some reason just as inexplicably required to attend this dull meeting as the poor laborer who had just dozed off from sheer boredom, except Sfan was, to his chagrin, not allowed to follow in his steps and nod off. He was 80 years old, for gods' sakes, even the most pitch-like coffee that was capable of dissolving metal spoons only barely staved off the narcolepsy of advanced age some days. He fiddled with a pack of cigarettes in his lap, his usual choice of the cheapest unfiltered rolls of off-white paper and the respiratory equivalent of coarse sandpaper - the kind favored by old soldiers and the self-loathing. His hands rested on the patterned blanket covering his lap as he flipped the pack over and back again. His input wasn't necessary, and the other people at the table blessedly ignored his presence for the most part, aside from the constant slight unease of being in the same room as someone who could, on a whim, have them dragged out of the room by one of the guards and summarily shot.

In the 30-odd years of relative peace that Sfan had run the country, he had never quite managed to comfortably settle into the role of an administrator or bureaucrat of a nation. His mind was still wired as that of a soldier, and he regularly found himself reminiscing on the days he spent fighting with rifles and artillery rather than with politics and diplomacy. Still, he grimly acknowledged the necessity of civil bureaucracy and all the torturous minutes and hours of meetings like this and the hand-cramping endless pages of policy to sign off on. A country would not run on the spirit of the glorious people's revolt, could not be controlled solely by a sweeping iron fist and the crushing of the fascist and the bourgeois. It ran on taxes, and public works, and a myriad by-laws and bills from the national to the municipal. Things would be so much easier if all it took was truly just bread and circuses, Sfan mused.

He felt a coughing fit coming on, and reached for his handkerchief. Covering his mouth with it, he gave a few coughs while waving off the sudden silence and stares of the others around the table, indicating he was not attempting to interrupt or object to something they had said. They resumed talking, and Sfan coughed a few more times before a familiar metallic tang coated his mouth. He slowly withdrew the handkerchief from his face and stared at it. A small, but starkly apparent splatter of arterial red stained the white cloth. His expression carefully neutral, he folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket, trying not to let his shock become apparent. The last thing he needed was to cause a scene. The time for worry would come later.

An hour or so later, the meeting was adjourned with all parties apparently satisfied. Sfan made his excuses and left, trying to hide the urgency in doing so. His chauffeur was already waiting at the entrance to the building. The drive back to Sfan’s home was short, only about 25 minutes. Exiting the car, Sfan neatly maneuvered himself into his wheelchair with the assistance of the chauffeur, thanked him, and headed inside as the man drove off. Finally alone, he moved to the dining table and took the handkerchief from his pocket, unfolding it and laying it on the table. The crimson stain, now mostly dried, seemed to stare back at him, inscrutable and utterly terrifying.

He reached into another pocket, removing his cellphone. He dialed his physician, not once taking his eyes off the bloody cloth. The phone rang twice before the other end picked up. Sfan spoke, his voice betraying nothing,

“Doctor K’etan”

“Premier. Do you need to see me?”

“Apologies for the short notice, Doctor, but yes. Sooner, rather than later.”

“I’d be able to see you in two days, first thing in the morning, if you’ll allow. Can I ask why?”

Sfan paused. He thought to himself, Even I'm not free from the risk of prying ears and eavesdroppers, best if I was vague.

“We'll discuss the reasons when we meet, Doctor. I'm sure you understand. That'll be all.”

Sfan hung up. K’etan was smart enough to gather the subtext there, certainly. The man had been his personal physician for the best part of thirteen years, and his unwavering commitment to confidentiality was greatly appreciated. The ever so subtle threat hanging over his head was largely unnecessary in maintaining the doctor's loyalty, but both understood the nature of things when it came to working for a person such as Sfan.

He set his phone down, and noticed that his hand was trembling, ever so slightly. Sfan, for an octogenarian, was remarkably physically sharp, and the tremors of age or some degenerative neuropathy had never plagued him. This trembling, then, was nothing more than pure and honest fear, he realized. Sfan, iron handed autocrat of the Stan Yera; Sfan, seasoned soldier and veteran of a long and bitter civil war; Sfan, who had seen monsters in the flesh and not so much as blinked, was scared of a few drops of blood.

That night, Sfan slept fitfully and dreamt of nothing.

 

[MacSalterson]

A Realization

“Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all.”
- William Shakespeare, King Lear Act 5 Scene 2

20.03.2023

Sfan spent the next day at his home. He had no pressing duties to attend to that day, in the first place, and what did need to be done could be attended to from the comfort of his own home. Kyarâ was over again, having taken over his kitchen and was now setting about preparing lunch with all the seriousness of an actual military campaign. He hadn't told her the news. To be quite honest, he didn't know what to tell her. Sfan wondered sometimes if he had let their relationship grow too casual, too attached. Regardless of her status as the leader of the Stan Yera's military, many days he could not help but think of her as a daughter of sorts, and he knew that Kyarâ regarded him as a father figure in return. Despite this, her position within his regime was not one of nepotism. She was a brilliant commander, strategist, and logistician, and became the architect in transforming the revolutionary army Sfan had gathered under him from a fervent but ultimately ragtag group of mismatched and underequipped militants into one of Eras’ foremost militaries.

And yet he kept what had happened a secret from her. The handkerchief sat in his pocket, and felt far heavier than it should be - an omen of a future Sfan wasn't quite sure he was ready to accept. He reasoned to himself that he did not yet know what the bloody cough heralded, and shouldn't necessarily be this worried. Perhaps it was just an irritated throat, or a minor infection. Pneumonia or Bronchitis, maybe. Even tuberculosis would be survivable, probably. He was in otherwise excellent health for his age, missing leg aside of course. He sighed, slightly. Was he actually being rational, or was it simply denial masking itself in probabilities and hypotheticals? He'd know soon, one way or the other.

Kyarâ, finished in the kitchen, brought over today's lunch to the table. Sandwiches, it appeared. Sfan's consisted of leftover braised venison on a good helping of shredded red cabbage, spring onions, and mayonnaise between two slices of hearty dark bread. It was, of course, delicious. He devoured it quickly, not having realized how hungry he was. Intent on keeping his mind off the matter, he turned to Kyarâ and prodded her on the day's business. The standard pile of paperwork awaiting his signature, as always - a handful of appointments for judges in Dâmâbayar and Yet’uhwarñan, union council charters needing approval, a request for increased funding to the Dançawâ Technical University and deployment of troops to pacify some riots in Uninç’aw. A couple of updates from the Bureau of Anomalies on various projects, monthly readiness reports from various military bases (a few even exceeded expected readiness rates, Sfan was pleasantly surprised to note), a ribbon cutting ceremony in a couple months’ time for a new Dumacan Motors factory on the outskirts of Kulyan, and movement data on Ânk’aynâ populations along the western coast.

So the day’s work continued, filled with the standard affairs of administration. All the while, Sfan felt the subtlest voice at the back of his head, whispering to him that there was more important business to attend to - the mundane affairs of the present and the state were a distraction from some task he should set himself to before it was too late. He attempted to shake the thought from his head, the day’s necessary work had yet to be done, and the necessary trumped his own whims and desires. But it still ate at him, that thought, that idea that he was wasting however many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years he had left before…

Before his death. At that moment, Sfan realized his mind had subtly shifted. The knowledge, no, the certainty of mortality was not an idea people were given to hold in their heads - it didn’t do a lot of good to dwell on the inevitability of one’s eventual death, such an activity tended to hasten one’s approach towards it. However, at some point in everyone’s lives, they become burdened with the certainty that they too were mortal; that they too would die. Sure, many think that they know their end will come some day, that they will be shuffled off to some afterlife, or be reborn in another body, or simply return to dust, but that is not the same as the utter comprehension of your own mortality, of your own approaching epilogue. Your subconscious, the primitive parts of your brain still given to self preservation over introspection, subtly abstracts the idea of your death, so that it’s something that is, for the time being, a hypothetical, a far-away vague destination, rather than something that is inevitable from the moment your cells first split in your mother’s body. But it can’t do this forever, of course. That annoyingly conscious part of the brain, where all the things people have deemed important about their existence resides, eventually wins over the subconscious in its endless philosophizing and self-aggrandizing, and in its folly realizes its own end is fast approaching. And so Sfan, for the first time in his 80 years of life, truly and fully realized that he would die. It didn’t come while crouched in some foxhole sheltering against mortar fire, or when hovering in shock around the fringes of consciousness after stepping on the mine that took his leg, or when a particularly determined gunman had drawn a pistol not five meters away from the stage where Sfan was giving a speech at the time, nor any of the other times the old soldier brushed shoulders with death. It came now, seated at his dining room table while poring over the documents necessary to run a state he had dragged out of chaos.

 

[MacSalterson]

An Omen

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night


20.03.2023

That night, Sfan dreamt.

It was a story familiar to him, of course. It was told to all the youth of the country - the founding myth of the Stan Yera. The story of the Unifier, the Ru-Yeśam of the Yeran, starting from the moment of his first death.

A boy laid in a field of white, a small clearing surrounded by dark black trunks, trees reaching up towards the distant sky like grasping claws. He lay broken and bleeding, stomach rent open to the cold night’s air, shield broken in half, sword only loosely held in his outstretched hand. A ring of bodies surrounded the boy, the corpses of his murderers. Not human, no. Monsters, Forest Demons, fiends birthed from the time before the first of the boy’s people walked these isles, who still plagued the shadows that encroached on the fires of Man. Nightmares who stalked the wilds, the tundra and the forest, and preyed on those who strayed too far from the light of civilization. The boy was a hunter of these monsters, among others that would harm humanity, part of an itinerant warrior class that had formed in the Stan Yera dedicated to pursuing such unnatural prey.

Tonight the boy had done his duty. The demons had been preying on a small village for some weeks, getting bolder and bolder in their attacks. A request for aid was sent out, and he had answered their call. The demons lay slain around him, no longer a threat to anyone, but in doing so, the boy had paid the inevitable price that most hunters of these creatures eventually did. He would die alone, surrounded by his enemies, his body left to nature for it alone to mourn and lay to rest. As the black crept in from the edges of his vision, his thoughts turned to those of the comforts of life – of a warm fire, with hearty fare and stories and songs traded amongst friends and comrades long into the night. He sighed, the broken rattling sound of a final breath, smiled, and embraced his death.

A figure came into the clearing. It saw the death that had been wrought, and saw the boy at the center of it all. It strode over to the boy, staff punching holes into the snow, now stained with mortal and immortal blood alike. It stood above his body, watching impassively, and spoke. The words were a prayer, an incantation, a blessing, a curse, uttered in a language long since forgotten to humanity. The air shifted, unseen eldritch threads knitting themselves throughout the clearing as the words, powerful words, bent reality to their will. The figure spoke, and it bade the boy to live – there was still work to be done, he was not permitted to slip into eternal rest. The boy’s wounds stitched back together, blood flowed from around him back into his body, both his and that of the monsters he slew.

But the boy did not rise. This was not right. This was not how the story went. The figure was supposed to bring the boy back to life, and set the boy on the path to his fate – to become the Unifier, to drive back the darkness, to bind the people of these isles together and drive them forth. But the boy did not rise. The story had changed. Then the figure looked up. Its eyes were piercing green lights, as if two baleful stars had been set in the figure’s head. It looked up, and it stared straight into and through Sfan. It spoke, in Sfan’s tongue, in Sfan’s voice, but still that dead language thrummed underneath, laden with power. Sfan K’ter, leader of the people of the isles, inheritor of the dreams of the Ru-Yeśam, second unifier of the lands of the red shores, it said. Sfan K’ter, he who should have died a thousand deaths, and lived on in spite, it said. You are not done either. Your work is still set ahead of you. At the end of it, you will die, and pass into history. Two winters hence, this will happen, on the day of last snowfall. Plan for the future, guide your work, your country, your people, into the future. Do not let your story change, for it is already written. Go, you’ve spent too long here.

The figure turned its gaze back to the boy, spoke a final word, and the scene went black.

Sfan woke with a start. He was not a superstitious man, at least not moreso than any other self-respecting Yeran, given the country’s deep entanglement with the supernatural. And yet he had a dream which he could only describe as like that of a prophecy, and he could not shake the feeling that it had weight. Or, perhaps, he was finally going senile. Sfan thought to himself, however, that regardless of if the dream was truly a portent of the future or the first creeping tendrils of dementia, that the idea it presented him was sound. He needed to prepare his country for the future. Up until now he had been solely focused on the laborious project of dragging the country into the present, and had, he realized, not planned for his succession. Among his own more tinpot dictatorial attributes, he realized drily, the thought that he would no longer be leader of the Stan Yera hadn't previously crossed his mind with any sincerity. Who would succeed him? Would he let the roots of democracy take hold at the highest echelons of government? Would any who did eventually succeed him be at all able to maintain the peace and unity of the country? With no guiding hand, would the country fall to another few generations of fracture and civil war, until another leader like Sfan came along? How would he fight against fascism even after he was dead? Continuous questions like these ran through his mind, as he moved through his house. He made up his mind: he would not leave these questions to chance, as best he could. Entering his office, he found a sheaf of paper and a pen, and began to write.

“I, Sfan K’ter, Federal Premier and Grand Marshal of the Stan Yera, with the authority invested in me by the will of the People of the Stan Yera and the Spirit of the Revolution, and being of Sound Mind and Body, write this document to guide my people into the future in a manner true to the spirit of the Revolution, as well as in hopes to guide the peoples of the World, in time, to their own Revolutions and the establishment of a Global Socialism.

This document shall, in varying parts, describe the circumstances that led to the Revolution, the Revolution itself, including all its shortcomings and examples from outside the Stan Yera, the administration of a revolutionary state, and how a Revolution of the People should proceed into the future…”

 

[MacSalterson]

A Meeting

"Thou knowest, winter tames man, woman, and beast"
- William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew Act 4 Scene 1

21.03.2023

The sun had barely crept above the horizon by the time Sfan arrived at Doctor K’etan’s practice. Though the Yeran winter had begun to pass, the nights remained long and cold winds still keened as they blew in from the black seas surrounding the isles, carrying a unique and piercing chill. Though Sfan was of course used to the winters, and this was far from the worst he had experienced in his long life, he found the howls strangely portentous. Muttering a mild curse to the weather, Sfan pulled his jacket, an old and sturdy greatcoat from the civil war, tighter around him as he wheeled inside the doctor’s office. No one else was there yet, save K’etan and one or two of his staff, as the practice had yet to actually open for the day. The extra bit of discretion on the doctor’s behalf was rather appreciated.

Doctor K’etan came out to the waiting room, greeting Sfan in a warm but professional manner. He was middle aged, in his mid-fifties or so, with shoulder length shaggy black hair only barely tinted by some silvering strands, tied back tightly into a bun, and somewhat slight of frame. The two had become friends of a sort over the years, the kind that develops out of a unique confidentiality.

“Premier” K’etan smiled, “An honor as always. I trust you weren’t waiting too long.”

Sfan smiled back, as kindly as he could manage given the situation, “No, no, certainly wouldn’t be the longest I’ve waited for a doctor’s attention.”

K’etan gestured, and the two headed back to the doctor’s personal office. Two cups of coffee were waiting for them. Sfan’s was black and lightly sweetened by honey, a personal preference well known to anyone that had made his acquaintance. Taking a sip, he grunted approvingly as the doctor sat down across his desk from the premier. The silence stayed for a few moments as K’etan turned on his computer and the pair sipped from their mugs. The doctor broke the silence first, turning to Sfan.

“Premier, I take it from your call that something I suspect is quite serious has come up. If you’ll forgive me, I’ve noticed over the years that you practically have to be dragged to my office.”

Sfan chuckled lightly, “Can you blame me? More than a decade of being told I’m old, beat up, and full of unhealthy vices, it gets repetitive. I could practically quote, word for word, what you say to me at every appointment.”

He paused, stirring his coffee for a second, “But yes, I did call for a reason. At a meeting the day I called you, I had a coughing fit and…”

Sfan pulled out the handkerchief from his breast pocket, setting it down on the desk. The stain faced upwards, having started to fade from crimson to rust. Seeing it again faded the premier’s smile. The doctor looked at it, a flash of worry crossing his face before carefully returning to a neutral expression. He spoke, “I see. Glad you called, then, rather than ignore it. Before you ask, I don’t have an immediate answer for you. Hemoptysis- er, coughing up blood that is, could be attributed to any number of causes, at your age especially.”

He turned to his computer and began typing, continuing to speak as his eyes remained on the monitor, “I would offer some assurance that it’s probably nothing to worry about and that we’ll run some routine tests for ease of mind, but…”

Sfan glanced up from the handkerchief and finished the doctor’s trailing sentence “But you, we, know better. What tests?”

K’etan replied, “A standard blood panel to identify any infections - tuberculosis and pneumonia both cause bloody coughing. Certain blood thinners can cause this, but you’re not on any. A CT scan to find the source of the bleeding, too. An MRI may be in order after the CT, but shouldn’t be necessary right now. Was this incident isolated? Have you coughed up blood since? Were there any instances before now?”

Sfan nodded at the tests suggested, responding “I hadn’t noticed any blood before the day I called you. Once or twice yesterday I coughed and noticed a drop or two of blood, but less than what’s on that kerchief”

The doctor nodded “I’d call that a good sign, as much as you can call it good. I will be honest with you Premier, our main worry at this stage, given your age, health, and habits, is that you have a cancer of the lungs. We won’t know for certain before the tests, but the possibility is strong. Let’s not waste further time, though. You’re a busy man, and I’m only slightly less so.”

The blood panel and CT scan went mercifully quickly, though Sfan was no fan of the cramped confines of the CT machine, making his discontent known with a steady stream of grumbling going into and out of the machine. After the tests were completed, the doctor met him in the lobby. The two shook hands.

K’etan leaned in slightly, “We should have the results of the tests analyzed and ready for you in a couple days. I’ll call when they’re complete, and schedule a house visit to go over them with you and any potential diagnosis and prognosis.”

Sfan nodded in return, “Aye, doctor. I’ll see you then. Fortune willing whatever this is won’t be the death of me”. Internally, however, he grimaced. The figure from his dream, eyes piercing emerald, flashed in his mind and the words it spoke echoed - two winters hence, on the day of last snowfall. He would die then, on that auspicious day, and return to the Living Earth. As he wheeled out to his waiting car, he swore he caught the fleeting image of a cowled figure like the one from his dreams watching him from the mouth of a nearby alley. When he turned his head to get a proper look, there was no one there, just the winter wind stirring the snow into small flurries.

He returned to his house, and spent the day working at idle paperwork. That night, he slept, and dreamt in fragments. Cowled figures, falling snow, bombed out buildings, corpses of long dead friends and strangers, coiling emerald serpents snaking up his body as he lay paralyzed in the middle of a barren clearing as his chest and lungs burned with fire. Auspices and portents indeed.