Chapter 10: Reaper

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Reaper

Slicking like thin oil from an upturned pale on a polished wooden floor. Sticky and slippy. The greatest city on the Planet. Reaper.

No margins here. No end, no edge. Alternately established and alternative. Neighbourhood, crushed by neighbourhood. Force, cheek by jowl with frailty. Warrant with weakness. The supreme and the supine. Sprawling, endlessly spreading.

Reaper. Well named.

The inhabitants of the city live well, harvesting the best the Planet can provide. An accumulation of such power requires sustenance. Pillaging the produce of the Planet, laying waste the waters and reaping the resources. Planetary rape.

Reaper, the home of the Guilds.

Do the Guilds ape the city or does the city copy the Guilds? Lost in time past, the doings of the Guild, together tandemmed the city. Fat and hungry, contentedly carnivorous with a voracious appetite for voices, each Guild saw validation by the Reaper mores. Whores of Reaper, taking riches for services. Many clients for solicitors and prostitutes and Guilds.

Reaper, where Voteds live.

There are more voices in Reaper than anywhere else on the Planet. Sluices abound yet Voteds know how to reach over, listen and make promises. Promises to extend their brief being. For despite the riches, the harvesting and raping, Voteds are a being that ebbs away. Like the Guilds, Voteds too feed voraciously on voices. But for Voteds their need is profound, their appetite absolute. They must draw succour from over the sluices else they disappear into the margins. Beyond Reaper. Beyond the slickly spreading slew of thin oil. Beyond the hearing of voices. Beyond the light. A fate of fear for all Voteds. To live among the voices. Beyond the upturned pale.

Reaper, where voices lay.

The voices of Reaper are numerous and diverse. Difference driven by the fear of isolation. Reaper welcomes all. In a corner of Reaper somewhere voices can find their like, like what they find and fit lightly into a leavened life. Poverty of existence lightened by likeness. Voices tribalised in an endless mosaic of individual meaning. There is comfort in Reaper somewhere, no matter the tone or tenor of the voice. And so the voices come in their choral multitudes. Gathering together in colourful collections beyond the sluices. The Guilds know they are there, gorge upon the fattest, the wordful ones.

Reaper, where words are harvested.

All voices have words but Guild words are selective. Words for paper, always the trade. Reaper affords choice. But only choice if affordable. For Guilds not only harvest words and turn them into paper but also seek payment for doing so. Words provide riches but only the rich can be allowed to provide them. And the rich in Reaper are many. No need for Guilds to dredge around in the diversity pool. In the centre of Reaper, Guilds gather, engage in the third paradox whilst harvesting the juiciest and plumpest voices, voices so grateful for their pass through the sluices that they pay large sums of money in gratitude for their deliverance into the mouths of the Guilds. Who devour them.

Reaper
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