Abomination

In June 2015, just in time for the Southern Baptist Convention, Cetaire-Maris Designs released a very chic, retro-1920s line of linsey-woolsey fashions under the label "Abomination." At a Paris press conference, Madame Rose Cetaire explained that the new line had been inspired by Deuteronomy 22:11: "You shall not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together." The Southern Baptists obliged her by noisily denouncing her company's "mockery of Scripture," and overnight Abomination became the hottest-selling line in fashion history.

A celebration, Miranda Maris decided, was quite definitely in order.

Accordingly, Cetaire-Maris Designs rented a large hotel for the Bastille Day weekend, and threw the door open to friends, relatives, business associates, and assorted well-wishers of all types.

Like all creative souls, Miranda and Rose had always been at home with artists, musicians, actors, talented people of all stripes. Sensing free food and great parties, they flocked to the hotel -- taking advantage of universal bohemian brotherhood, each brought his or her own entourage.

Drawn by the bohemians, journalists and reporters swarmed like moths to the flame. Journalists of course brought politicians and gray eminences; these in turn draw those who worshipped power. In the end, more than two thousand people eventually passed through, and Miranda did her best to spend time with all of them.

The party passed into legend, so that eventually tens of thousands would claim to have been there. When all was said and done, the Abomination Party was credited with the creation of twenty-five books, twenty new bands, fifteen billion-dollar mergers, a dozen marriages, ten gold records, eight blockbuster virties, six corporations, four Broadway musicals, three masterpiece paintings, two religions, and a proof of Goldbach's Conjecture.

---

copyright (c) 2009, Don Sakers

Find out more in The Scattered Worlds site

Like the blog? Send the author a donation.

 Subscribe in a reader

Filtan of thakar Lyph chaio

born on Kree c. 28,470 (Kreen calendar) (c. 750,000 BCE)

Filtan was the greatest of the Kreen poets. He lived in the days of Nova Barentikater, and although he was of Kree, he belonged to a chaio which symapthized with Barentikater. thakar Lyph chaio, in fact, had strong ties with ban Tau chaio on Barentikater IV. thakar Lyph chaio kept no Sebhra slaves (unlike other powerful chaios on Kree), and Filtan spoke out against Sebhra slavery at all times.

In the days directly before Nova Barentikater, Filtan was sent to Barentikater IV by the Miethara as a putative peace envoy (in fact the Miethara was trying to get rid of him), with two chaio-mates named Hylie and Aeth. Upon return to Kree, he found thakar Lyph chaio slain, and the Miethara in command of their ancestral lands.

Filtan's poetry was largely what we today would call science fiction, but his best-known work was his lament, "The Deathsong of Filtan."

---

copyright (c) 2009, Don Sakers

Find out more in The Scattered Worlds site

Like the blog? Send the author a donation.

 Subscribe in a reader

Jackie Paper

Miranda watches one boy, late teens or early twenties, easily the oldest she's seen. He struts across the floor like a swaggering tomcat, no doubt exuding pheromones with every step. She wonders what he will make of himself, when the muscles start to fade to flab, and the chestnut hair starts thinning. Will he become a respectable career man with a wife and a house and two children of his own? Will he go to church every week and pray for the souls of other lost kids? Will he be content with such an ordinary, uneventful life -- or will he strike out for the outside world that he has only seen reflected in the eyes of his erstwhile customers?

---

Born in the Christian Confederacy of American States, Jackie Paper was raised by Omi, an operative in the covert international organization known as The Nexus. But Jackie is gay, and if he stays in the Christian States much longer, he risks the death penalty. Now, in the company of Miranda Maris, the legendary Ivory Madonna, he has one last chance to escape....

---

copyright (c) 2009, Don Sakers
Find out more in The Scattered Worlds site

Like the blog? Send the author a donation.

 Subscribe in a reader