Story: Timothy's Trip to the Central Court
From my blog: http://libertatem.blogspot.com/2010/10/ ... .html#more
Timothy looked outside at the heavy rain beating on the windows of the cab. He hated the rain, but he loved riding in the cab. He didn't love it for its own sake, but because it was taking him somewhere amazing. Timothy was going to the Central Court.
In order to understand Timothy's fascination with the Central Court you have to understand two things first: Who Timothy is and what the Central Court is. Those things are intimately commingled, at least in Timothy's mind. He was born in a slum called Marketville, south of the Central Metropolis where the Central Court stands. The water was dirty, the homes were dirty, even the dirty was even dirty, and, needless to say, Timothy was dirty too.
However, Timothy's mind wasn't dirty. In school he was told stories about how the world was unified under the Central Court, how men were made equal by the Central Court, and how the Central Court houses the Book of Laws written by the first members of the Central Court. Timothy's school burned down when he was just six, but he always remembered the stories of the Central Court, and he always wanted to be able to go there. He wanted to know how the world worked, and why he seemed to have only a small role in it.
When Timothy was eighteen, after he had been working as a janitor at the new school for three years, he decided to use the money he had saved up for a couch to instead go to the Central Court and look at the Book of Laws. The book could not be reproduced in any form or fashion, not even quoted from, but any man who wanted to could go to the Central Court and look at the book.
So, when his monthly day off came, Timothy called for a cab. The man on the phone laughed at Timothy, said gasoline was so high that it would cost an arm and a leg to go to the Central Court, and made it plainly clear that "no bum in Marketplace is gonna have enough cash to even go a mile in a cab." Timothy begged and pleaded, and finally the man on the phone relented and told him to wait for the cab.
Three hours later, an old rusty car pulled up to Timothy's shack. Timothy jumped for joy and ran to it, he was wearing his best coat. It only had two holes in it. The man in the cab asked for Timothy for his money, so Timothy reluctantly handed him three years worth of savings. The cab driver was surprised, and his dark eyed widened when the wad of money was dumped in his lap.
"I ain't never seen so much money in from your kind, you must be half Metropolitan!" the cab driver said. Timothy just smiled, and told him to go to the Central Court.
Halfway to the Court, it started to rain heavily with large drops. The cab drove past the slums of Mayville, the factories of Clayton, and the suburbs of Leftwitch. The rain stopped as the cab entered the Central Metropolis. The city was shiny, new looking, and much less dirty then Marketville, and everyone had coats without holes in them. The cab drove up beside a tall stone tower, almost Babylonian in appearance, and stopped.
"Get out kid! I ain't got all day, get your business done in a half hour or I'm leaving your carcass here!" yelled the cab driver. Timothy just smiled, and got out.
With careful steps, Timothy walked to the door of the Central Court. It opened for him automatically, and suddenly Timothy noticed the crowded mass of people around him, all in business suits, but acting like ants. He walked inside and looked at the middle of the lobby. On a pedestal was a think, leather bound book. It was the Book of Laws. Timothy merrily walked up to it, anticipating the rush of words to blind him. He wanted to know the ideas of the first men on the Central Court. He wanted to read of equality, or brotherhood, or the proletariat. He opened up the book.
It was blank.
