FearfulStills

Into the unknown

It’s Diesel fumes not Saharan dust, she thinks.

Right now really is a bad time to be writing “near future sci -fi”,  he thinks.

She thinks, Saharan dust sounds so picturesque, Lawrence of Arabia, Rudolph Valentino, bright heat, white light like being under a welding torch. Not like this grey haze,  how can they expect us to believe that this is just caused by desert sand.

Charlie Stross, he thinks, tweeted about how he can’t write his “near future” Edinburgh stories, not until after the referendum, and yes he’s stuck there isn’t he. It would be a tosspot of a story if he wrote about a future independent Scotland and then in September the vote went for staying in the UK… he’s buggered.

No not sand, this is smog. Like the Victorians had from their coal fires and the industrial revolution. It would have been picturesque here back then too, without all these cars. It would have stunk of horse-shit though, and of worse than that. 

What if it’s a draw eh? What if there’s exactly the same numbers vote yes as vote no? Then nothing gets decided in the referendum and Charlie Stross will have to write sci-fi set in the distant future when Edinburgh is part of the sprawling United Euroland, and is ruled by alien cats, no not cats, cats is too obvious, ruled by alien ferrets.

It’s strange how still the city feels, like everyone is whispering. We should go for a drink, that’s what a Victorian would have done.

I wonder if there’ll still be pubs in Ferret Euroland.

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