Everyday Life (日常生活) [Tiandi]

[Arumdaum]

OOC: Making a new slice of life thread. Please forgive the repost. This thread is for members of Tiandi only. Feel free to apply and join the region!

It's hot, isn't it?

Yes, Mother. It's been a bit hot lately.

Tae-yong pushed the wheelchair, taking his mother out into the park. The sun shone brightly but it was easy to avoid the heat within the shade of the many trees that lined the park's broad avenues. A warm gust of wind blew back the hair of both mother and son, strands of graying hair floating in the summer breeze.

Have you been doing well? I've missed you. How is Chae-rin? Your wife?

I've been doing well. I'm more worried about you, Mother. Have you been remembering to take all your medications? I heard that sometimes...

The elderly woman began to shake her head, uninterested.

Yes, yes, don't worry about me.

Well, my wife's been doing fine too, but Chae-rin's been studying way too hard! She never has time for anything else because she's always so busy studying for her exams. Studying, studying, studying - that is the only thing on her mind. All her teachers say that she will definitely be accepted into Hapcheon.

Clearly an exaggeration, but Tae-yong's mother seemed to enjoy hearing the news. A smile broke across her lightly winkled face, her eyes beaming with a silent pride.

Such a good child, I miss her so much. If only you'd been as diligent when you were young, maybe your daughter wouldn't have to study so hard.

They stopped near a bench. Tae-yong helped her out of her wheelchair so she could sit with him. As they sat, they could see people pass--children playing, young couples holding hands, groups of elderly men and women exercising together, going on about their lives, as if they were also simple, ordinary people with simple, everyday dreams and desires.

[Sabara]

It's a long train ride to this part of Jingdei province. You've already made two transfers since leaving Minghoi, the locomotives gradually becoming more outdated the farther you go from the city. A woman sitting across from you yawns and clutches her purse, gazing at the approaching station with weary eyes. The carriage is mostly empty- it's the middle of February, and tourist season on the coast has been over for a long time.

You can't help but appreciate the quiet sleepiness of this seaside village. The station itself is tiny; composed of a single brick platform with an adjacent passenger depot dusted with a light layer of snow. You can see the beach through the dunes. It's one of the longest beaches bordering the Sea of Fusen, a rare break in an impenetrable wall of cliffs that line the northeast Meisaani coast.

The wind picks up as you walk off the platform and make your way past the closed up teahouses and shops that line the street. A few people walk by, on their way to the supermarket, but most people don't want to be outside in these kind of temperatures. It's pretty rare for it to be this cold by the ocean, and snow is in the forecast today. You zip up your coat.

The dunes seem larger the closer you get to them. They're covered in 草, thin strands of green pushing themselves out of the sand. Tough little things. You start on the path that winds between two of the lower dunes. It's been awhile since your last trip to the seaside, and you've forgotten how loud the ocean is.

You take off your shoes and leave them by a piece of driftwood. The beach is completely empty, with the exception of what you think is a person walking in the opposite direction. They're far off anyway.

You marvel at the way the waves pile on top of each other when they break against the shore. This entire place is filled with an ethereal beauty, the hardy dunes behind you, the towering haystacks in front of you, the ocean stretching out as far as the eye can see. You shed your coat as you get closer to the waves. You're just in your pajamas now, but it doesn't really matter- no one is here to judge you.

The water is freezing. It's probably from deep in the Sea of Fusen, the southerly winter winds upwelling cold deep water. It seems to get colder as you walk further in.

It's wonderful how cold the water is, it's practically warm. You can barely feel the waves washing over you now, you can barely remember anything. The way your wife cried when you told her you were gay isn't burned into your eyes anymore, you've forgotten everything.

Just before you lose consciousness you feel a hand on your back, a sudden yank as you're pulled out of the water. Someone's yelling at you, asking you if you can hear them. You're suddenly so cold that you can't even talk. Everything seems to pass in a blur as more people come running out of the same path between those dunes, someone's carrying a blanket that feels amazing as they wrap it around you. You hear the buttons of a phone being pushed as someone dials the emergency services.

It's odd, but you feel a sense of relief.

[Tosanchi]

Hútlaw/Hutulau, Háatlag/Hātalaga Autonomous Prefecture
Empire of Tosānchi

As my train stops at this city, I feel as if I have walked on a foreign land. I can certainly read the signs, but the primary language is not Tosānchinese. It is not even written in any script I can read. Rather, it looks foreign. Tosānchinese is written in the bottom of these signs and in a smaller size.

I am still in the same country.

For the most part, I cannot understand the chatter I hear in the station. It is alien to me. Some Tosānchinese can be heard, but the many voices I hear are foreign.

I am still in the same country.

"Hey, Komiayo, nice to finally meet you!"

This is my grandfather.

My name is Nukowa Komiayo, a resident of Tankyo. I have come here to the east to meet my grandfather. My mother had hidden the fact that she was half-Hātalaga until a few months ago. She feared that she would be discriminated against in her time if her background was revealed, and since she looked Tosānchinese, she kept quiet when she moved to Tankyo. However, I was not going to tolerate that. We are all equal, after all.

I got in contact with her Hātalaga side of her family. Fortunately, my grandfather still lived. He appeared so excited to meet me.

I could tell his Tosānchinese was not...perfect. He had this distinct accent. It is to be expected. After all, he is not a native Tosānchinese speaker. This would normally not bother me, but I fear that communication may be a tad difficult.

"Greetings, grandfather"

"Well, let's go! I have a car waiting"

I got into the car with my grandfather. A chaffeur drove us to the hotel.

Hutulau looks like a nice city, albeit a bit foreign. Certainly smaller than Tankyo by kilometres, but still.

What in the...

"Well, here we are!"

Why am I in front of a luxury hotel?!

"Wait a moment, are you not in poverty, grandfather?"

"Ah, so your mother didn't tell you. When she left due to that...incident, I had founded a business. It went really well for me over these past years. Come in, my treat!"

"...Incredible"

The bellboy took my luggage. We went inside the hotel. A receptionist spoke.

"Reservation for Mr. Dapjuu Hyagen and...Mr. Komiayo Nukowa?"

"Nukowa Komiayo, yes"

Hmm...how weird. They referred to us by first name. It must be that custom I heard of these parts.

"Welcome to the Ģándlgyúuwula Hotel. Your rooms are 1202 and 1203 respectively. Please, enjoy your stay"

Gandulugyūwula? What does that long word mean?

"I can see your puzzled face, Komiayo. The name of the hotel is simply a compound of the words 'water' and 'clear' in our Háatlag language"

This place is alien to me, yet I am told I carry its blood. The customs, the language, the way they write, their appearance...all of it is foreign to me.

I am told I am still in the same country.

[Kechuajog]

The reporter, standing next to the President, deeply inhaled and exhaled, and then turned to face the camera. "Annyeonghaseyo, you are watching Kechuajog National TV, where correct information is our obligation. We are just outside the Parliament today, joined by venerable President Dang Hyo-yeon. Annyeonghasimnikka, venerable President Dang Hyo-yeon, your first term in office is almost over, and the public wants to know how your administration will tackle the seemingly unending problem of crime on our streets. What are your thoughts on that?"

"Annyeonghaseyo. Yes, the news of violence do reach the Parliament and saddens us affiliated with the Democratic Party. It is of utmost importance that every Kechuajumin feels safe in every part of our country. Men, for instance, often fall victim to sexual abuse and are now afraid to even walk home at night. There should really be no necessity for them to call a taxi, and even so driven explicitly by a male driver, so that they reach their homes safely."

The President pauses to fix her hair, then continues speaking, "We are trying to implement, with the Parliament's approval, tougher security laws. In airports, in train stations, in shopping malls and in parks, in other words, in public areas that matter. And not only against women-caused rape, but against another rising trend which, according to the Kechuajuan Intelligence Agency (KIA), is terrorism. That goes without saying that the only efficient method is by subsidizing our already competent privatized police force. I think people are losing their confiance in it. I say we only have forsaken our police, and it is now all the best time to revitalize it."

The reporter brings the microphone back to himself. "Aha! That does indeed make sense when you put it that way, venerable President Dang Hyo-yeon. May I also add, there is also this other notable issue, namely that the offenders are almost always of low-income background, coming from neighborhoods and slums with gun violence and domestic abuse, usually also of Quechuan descent. People are now worrying whether the issue isn't really the appeal of criminality, but rather financial hopelessness and in the case of our Quechuan sisters and brothers, the undealt with cultural schism. I'm sure stories like these are brought up on the regular by the opposition of the Quechuan Party. What is your response, venerable President Dang Hyo-yeon?"

"The facts speak for themselves. Crime can be a persistent hindrance to personal and communal development. Slums and indigenous villages are our priority when it comes to empowering and multiplying patrol units. If we are to take the consequences of crime seriously, we will have to obviously toughen the laws regarding violence against policepeople. Let us not forget that they are on the frontline of this conflict and that they put their lives at stake against criminals and all sorts of street gangs. As for the cultural differences, I assure you they are exaggerated and are frankly left-extremist propaga—"

A flying egg comes straight towards the President's neck and cracks open, the yolk smearing her black dress. The camera swiftly turns around to reveal the culprit, a male teenager, visibly of Quechuan descent. Three policemen rush to apprehend him with their batons out and their uniforms bearing the trademarks of numerous sponsors, mostly of Jeongmian banks and Kechuajuan rifle associations. "Disgrace!" he yells, before he is surrounded and beaten down to the floor. Still managing to catch his breath, he speaks, "You come to our villages and rape us and you call it sex tourism! It is all protected under your Constitution!"

A policeman recites the teenager's rights, "You have the right to remain silent. You are to be trialed for harassment against an official. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law." The teenager continues unfazed, "You are not women, you have no maternal spirit. You are monsters! And you cover it up and sugarcoat it! You—". He is slapped into submission.

The camera returns to the President. The reporter stands next to her, having already wiped the yolk away with his own handkerchief, but the stain on her clothes is still there. She looks to the camera again, sighs and maintains her composure, while also shaking mildly in disgust. "This is exactly what I mean." she adds. "We need a system that works on compassion. Violence and hatred is never the solution and should frankly not exist in our society. At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to eliminate by reinforcing the police. Admittedly, our relations with the indigenous could be better, but respect is mutual and oh-so hard to find. But to those that doubt our administration, let us not forget we were responsible for five new middle-schools in poverty-struck districts and the reception of CONICEF aid for the misfortunate Quechuan children. That is all."

"Daedanhi gamsahabnida, venerable President Dang Hyo-yeon, it was a pleasure talking with you. Now back to you at the studio, for the weather."

Live feedback is audible from one of the cameramen's computers, "Tomorrow in Seondeoksi it will be partly cloudy in the morning, with temperatures around twelve degrees Celsius, rising to eighteen degrees Celsius by afternoon. Strong winds are expected in the evening, with gusts up to thirty kilometers per hour, while the chance of precipitation stands at eighty percent..."

[Soled]

Somewhere in the desert
Popular Menneferian State

The sea of dust stretched across the path of Jaatun’s travels into the land’s abyss, His glaring radiance eliminating any chance of blockage above from concealing any observance of Him. Pieces of cloth on string flew near the dry flow in the gusts hailing across the barren plain from the south, their tattered appearance and strange designs hints of a community corrupted from the Light’s revelations in old feuds fought generations ago. Nothing of the grand leaps witnessed in the great cities had come to be in this vanishing wasteland, whose daughters and sons have abandoned their hideout in numbers to create new lives in the nation’s roaring furnaces of industry, leaving the old and weary rotting in their ancestors’ lonely but free abode.

An aging man in dusty but well-kept sleeves and an immaculate turban ascended from a puncture of the earth, his face crowned by wrinkles and his tone painted with a dye like a dried riverbed, a witness of a life spent in the soaring daylight. With cane in hand, he stepped into the white house to retrieve a ram’s horn and strolled through the tiny slit to blow wind. The other villagers knew him as Saleh.

The horn grasped a voice of its own in a simple yet elegant pitch covering the settlement in ancient tunes. A trickle of folks, all old and poor, took to the small plaza by the white house. Such they would do every day when the sun was at its zenith to testify their piety; on this day, the air was like an oven torching them as a divine discipline.

Across the plaza on a dusty street near a cracked and empty flower bed stood another man of Saleh’s family, clearly closely related but with a fashion style betraying his true origin - a bourgeois young student. He had a thick beard and a mustache well-trimmed with modern urban clothing; his head adorned a neat white cap, and he watched the ceremony with great discontent.

Saleh finished the prayers and shouted to the young man, “Abid, my son! How come you are here?”

The white-capped fellow’s square glasses reflected the intense sunlight and he replied sharply, “I am home from studies.” Abid’s expression revealed his academic misfortune clearly while his father made his way over to him.

“You have a phone. You could have told us you were coming!” His father said with a piercing introspection as he stood beside him, taking note of Abid’s lack of university baggage.

Abid stared at the heavens as Saleh continued, “I don’t have a place to sleep for you right now, keep watch of the temple for me while I talk to your aunt. The dog from Par-Suxou should be gone by now...”

Said dog from Par-Suxou was a “traveling businessman”, one of those that seem to plague every small town in Mennefer. They usually do nothing but make things more difficult for everyone there, being gluttonous para-bureaucratic agents with Party connections at best and outright mafia-like blackmailers at worst. This village’s current dog had a tendency to wander into random people’s homes late at night, demand expensive food and alcohol, and then occupy a whole bedroom or floor for himself before leaving the next morning.

They usually didn’t last long. Every Menneferian community is its own king; the local worker council holds all the powers the national or regional governments have not monopolized for themselves. Physical removal of troublemakers is one they have fought skin and teeth for their right to keep.

Abid reminisced on all of this as he stood in the doorway of the local temple, a rather shabby but warm construction kept barely standing by centuries of maintenance, easily the oldest building in the town. Sitting next to a block of eroding two-story mud houses, he could hear noises and chatter from the overfilled residences. None of them would ever wander here; the white house, lavish by local standards, was reserved for the priests and served as their property. They only had one priest, so his family, Abid included, would have to share the burdens of its operation.

Only one thought filled his mind: “I hate it here.” This place was not one of honor to him: its people called Allah their god, but their rituals and symbolism, based on centuries of largely oral tradition, were profoundly different from the strict theology he had learned in the urban madrasas. Many Menneferians consider said madrasas as foreign agents of Seogwan, or worse, Dembiya. Their existence was banned prior to the new communist constitution which granted some religious freedom at last, leading to a resurgence in Sabbatarian discourse and the rediscovery of towns like this isolated pocket in the desert, where the so-called southern heresies have been kept alive but strongly affected by centuries of Jaatunist rule from the great riverplains in the north.

The fashion-clashing young man knew what his goal was. He wanted to bring his religious education back to the place of his birth. He could succeed his father and begin disseminating what he saw as the raw and unchanged word of the one true god.

If he can navigate the town’s social network, its looming aging problem, the secular worker council, government inquiries into “foreign agents” and his constant lack of finances, his wish might become a reality. But it won’t be easy. Life among these sandy dunes is as harsh as the blinding sunlight, and the sun is only getting warmer.