Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, China Miéville’s award winning Weird/urban fantasy novel, Perdido Street Station (2000, Macmillan), is the opening salvo of his fictional world of Bas-Lag, a strange slurry of magic, steampunk, and post-modern enigmas. The second novel in the trilogy, The Scar, was published in 2002, and the final book, Iron Council (2004), completes the New Crobuzon trilogy.

Ice crystals began to form along the pine trees that surround the gated kingdom. The one with the walls so high, you can’t see in or out. With the towers made of stain glass. They tell a story of the past. A harsh, painful one that brought the kingdom to its glory. One of respect and dignity. In that kingdom lies a prince. Young, full of grace and loyal to his people. He wears a coat of blues and reds. A crown of silver, with rows of ruby’s lining the prestige that resides upon his black locks. It was said for century’s he would be the one to bring the two kingdoms together. Either by force or marriage.

Allie sat at the table with her parents after telling them about her day giving them all of the information she could, they sat patiently listening but she could see the wheels turning in their minds steadily processing what she was telling them. There was a beat of silence before her father sat back and said,

The Lonely Seeker

Yes, this is political. I offer you trigger warnings for language and sexual and racist slurs and comments. Future episodes may also contain rape, abuse, and other unpleasant things.

Just by happenstance, I recently picked up a copy of Trevayne, written by Robert Ludlum. In his introduction, he mentioned that he wrote the book after the Nixon Watergate scandal. In part he says of Watergate: "Here was the government, the highest of our elected and appointed officials entrusted with the guardianship of our system, not only lying to the people but collecting millions upon millions of dollars to perpetuate their lies and thus the controls they believed were theirs alone to exercise." He goes on to point out that their meaning was to keep the country theirs. Not yours or mine, or even the neighbors across the street or across town. Only theirs. "The rest of us were somehow neither relevant nor competent. They knew better, therefore the lies had to continue and the coffers of ideological purity kept full so that the impure could be blitzkrieged by money and buried at the starting gates of political contests."

Legends. Myths. Stories passed down from generation from generation. For as long as time can remember, people have often told epic tales of dashing heroes and evil villains as a way of coping with the dark and troubled times. Nevertheless, even in fiction, there can oftentimes be a small grain of truth found within these long exploits, and even the smallest soul can give the world a sense of hope.

I’m exploring possibilities based on things I am seeing on the news and comments made by some people in the government. Yes, this is political. I offer you trigger warnings for language and sexual and racist comments. Future episodes may also contain rape, abuse, and other unpleasant things. First posted on June 21, 2019 on https://www.conniesrandomthoughts.com.

Catch up by reading the previous chapters:

Ami means "Saturday's child" in Ghanese, and my mother, a teacher, thinks that it's the perfect name for me for a dozen reasons, not even including the fact that I was born and conceived on a Saturday. She says that I hold the spirit of Saturday, that I'm both wild and relaxed, that I'll do anything the majority wants as long as it doesn't push my loose morals. She says that she loves that about me, she loves that I don't stress over everything like most people do and that I can find peace in the middle of a life or death situation. My father, a taxi driver, hates that about me. He says that I'm too easily distracted and that'll keep me from reaching the bright future that everyone sees for me. I agree with them both. I love the way I am, but I know for a fact that I won't achieve the future that everyone else wants and sees for me, and I really couldn't care less. I'm not doctor material; it isn't even the blood that bothers me, I just couldn't be bothered with dropping everything I'm doing to go help some stranger. I'd rather go to a Forest Fest and stay there until my vision becomes dim and my memories vague; that's exactly what I was doing when it happened.

Trader Joe's and Aldi have a certain sentimentality to them. So do Journey and Bryan Adams. Certain landmarks in Central Park: that bridge we walked on during the wedding, that gazebo he proposed in when it was raining, that archway hung with vines we walked through. I remember that.