Mightier than the sword? Well, it goes better with beer and a snuggle blanket
18 May 2020Lowbee
I'm NOT a combat pilot. Anyone who's seen me trying to do something simple like lining up a beacon to scan will readily agree that I would last only a few seconds in an actual situation, so yeah, I try to avoid fighting at all costs. Call it what you want, I'm basically a "turn tail and run" kind of girl.Why am I logging about this? I guess it sorta dovetails into this story. Having no taste for blood I find myself wandering through this life doing other things and sticking my nose outside the bubble here and there. As you all know, in those long moments between the adrenaline sweats there can be an immense amount of nothing. And after all the repairs, cleaning, coffee and astrometrics it's time for me to...read!
It's funny how we still call books, well, books seeing as they're mostly all just bits now. I'd never seen a real book until I started working at old Dorin's stall on Tuan. His wife Gerry had been a planetary historian in a past life and she kept a few choice finds when she cleared out her office in Procyon. They were old dusty things, and I turned the pages with wonder as she would patiently explain the histories, fables, diaries, and religious texts she had uncovered in her career. She told me that on homeworlds and such books were much easier to come by than on outposts, and that there was a big difference between what the Imperials printed for public consumption and the hand bound tomes that she collected. I immediately fell in love with those old books and their ancient tales. Over the light years I've amassed digital versions of books from Sol, Procyon, Achenar - the older the better; those stories have been my best companions in the Dark.
Anyway imagine my surprise when, after all this time with my trusty datapad, I find myself at Carpenter Station visiting Morgan Tanaka, a ratmate who worked with me at Dorin's and now runs (good on her) the station's Search and Rescue office. We were doing the usual catching up shit over beers when she brought up the fact that one of the guys in her office insisted on using paper and pen (gasp!) for certain things.
"Can you believe it?" said Morgan. "It's like watching someone rubbing two sticks together to make fire when you have a coil lighter in your pocket. It's weird."
"Well, maybe he's just really old fashioned," I said. "Does he have any other habits that are odd? Dress weird? Analog watch?"
"Nope, just his notebook. I guess it's just amusing to me," said Morgan.
"Well, part of me kind of understands how he feels. The book-lover part, anyway. To just want to see something on paper, you know?" I told Morgan about Gerry's collection back at the outpost. She replied that she'd no idea that had been happening in the back of the shop while she was busy out front selling.
"No wonder you always liked going back there to 'stock'," she said, not slacking on the air quotes. We laughed and Morgan's husband walked into the bar just then and sat down in our booth, asking what was so funny.
"Hmm, I know a few people like him, it's not that weird," he said, after hearing our quick recap. "Druun, I didn't know you liked books so much." I said I was obsessed with really old ones like Gerry's, but all I had were the soulless datapad versions, which weren't even close to the real thing.
Then these actual goddamn words came out of his mouth.
"Did you know there's a bookbinder down on A4?"
I blinked. "What?"
"There's a bookbinder shop in the capital on A4."
"Here in Dyaushibi?" I thought I was going to cry.
"Yeah. He comes up here to pick up shipments of supplies he can't get locally. I've seen his stuff. Some of the really high end stores and hotels planetside seem to think it's stylish to have real books for their displays and in their suites, which is a lot of his business. Anyway, he makes them by hand apparently, and repairs books too for the university I'd guess. Why don't you go down there and ask him to make you some from those digital files of yours?"
To make a long story short, Morgan didn't pay for any booze that night, her husband's cheek ended up being the color of my lipstick, and Mr. Sumner the bookbinder ended up with a lot of my credits. And I now have a little collection of bespoke, honest to god handbound versions of some of the greatest literary works of our species on the shelf near my bunk. And I still suck at combat.
That's me taking a planetary break on a recent jaunt above the galactic plane, at least as far as I can go at the moment. You can't see me, but I'm reading Tolkien.
