1st November 2005

Chapter 1

"Ah, you gotta be shitting me." What had just been said stuck in my head for several seconds.
"You narcissistic, stuck up, pig loving..." I couldn't find the words to express the frustration. I continued to stare at the bureaucrat, wondering what could possibly possess someone to act as he was. "Look sir, I am only doing my job." The standard mantra of the bureaucrat. When did a job become an excuse to suspend reality anyway?

"All I want to do is make a living, pay my taxes and live peacefully. How can I do this if my house is surrounded by a mine field?" I was still determined to get a straight answer.

"Well sir proper forms have been filled out in triplicate and as you know government function are exempt from the normal approval process. If you had a problem with this you should have filed an SS-whack-ff01-splat-stroke-9r22a six months ago." The bureaucrat was in his element. Without the wacks and splats in the world he would simply poof out of existence.

"But you only started the process three weeks ago! There was no way to know this was going to happen six months ago!" A fool proof argument, no doubt.

"As I said, sir, I am only doing my job. I am not authorized to do anything more. If you would like to speak to anyone else fill out this form and show up to build 20005432 three weeks from tomorrow..."

"No no! Forget it. You can have the house. You've officially drained the life from me."

Finally I left the Hall of Bureaucracy. The only thing left in the world with an spot-on name. I decided it was about time I went outside for some air. The "conversation" with the bureaucrat had several hours preceding it and went about as well as I could have expected. Still, a house would have been a good thing to have.

It was a sunny afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. After the experience with the bureaucrat I wondered if the day had some how been "requisitioned". I started to walk down the stairs when I noticed a group of people. I wondered what would motivate a group of people to stand in front of a building on such nice day.

The city Towz, flawed as it flawed though it may be, was still quite beautiful. It had existed so long the records of how it was formed had been lost to the ages. The Hall of Bureaucracy was only one hundred years old. The records of how it had been formed were very well known. Originally it was very efficient provided a few need services for citizens of Towz. The name had been created as kind of a running joke among the citizens. After all how could something so efficient and staffed with so few be a bureaucracy?

The government at the time even passed strict measures to ensure the bureaucracy didn't get out of control. But such things often grow in different directions, as does the ability to interpret laws about bureaucracies.

I sat down on the steps of The Hall to further contemplate my future. Now essentially homeless what was I to do?

Suddenly someone was falling down around me. "Hey watch it!" Is all I heard through the flying feet. The man stood up and glared at me. Suddenly his face turned from anger to sympathy. "The bureaucracy managed to relieve you of your life and livelihood, right?" That was possibly the best I had anybody state the situation. I asked how he could tell.

He explained how something similar had happened to him ironically six months earlier. Since then he had wandered from one strange group of outcasts to another and learned much of how Towz really worked. His name was Cogil, and I could tell we were going to get a long. He told me his current group of misfits was a group of protesters outside the Hall of Happiness. We decided to make that our next stop.

The Hall of Happiness was created sometime after the Hall of Bureaucracy and before people's houses were surrounded by a minefield retroactively. Any attempt to further research the subject usually results in a rather unpleasant experience at either or both Halls. Officially, of course, the Hall of Happiness is the place where the "People of Happiness" happily relieve you of your income and livelihood in the most pleasant and polite way possible. Or so the story the goes.

As I walked along with Cogil toward the Hall of Happiness I started to try and look at the city in a different light. The streets seemed remarkably clean. The railway always ran on time. Those who chose to find work seemed to be content with going to work. But was this really the way it was, or simply the way it seemed to me?

Finally Cogil broke the silence by giving me his view on the Hall of Happiness and state of the city. Almost like he could tell what I was thinking.

Cogil explained: "Most of what you see or think you see on the street like this may as well be an illusion. Free will is an illusion, someone always has something to gain by making you believe you have it." I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about.

"But isn't this free will? Are we not walking towards our beloved Hall of Happiness because we so choose?" I really wanted an answer.

"Well in a way. Although you're homeless so you don't have much choice, now do you?"


"Yes, that's a good point I suppose. So who is this group of protesters anyway? Bunch of phorp addicts?"


"Well not all of them. Some are simply phorp enthusiasts. Actually this is a much different group then you think."

We had walked a distance of several blocks through Towz now. Something about this city always made walking just feel right.

The streets of Towz were exhausting. I hated walking almost as much as I hated Towz. But we were going to meet my protester friends to introduce them to the guy I had literally just run into. I never did ask him what he was trying to get done in the Hall of Bureaucracy. Nor had he asked me. I have a feeling I shouldn't tell him about the land I had just purchased for the weird hobby of mine: planting large mine fields in random locations. Except the one I purchased a month back: that one had a house in the middle of it. Luckily I know how to work the Hall of Bureaucracy so I got it through. Hopefully I'll never meet the guy who owns the house in the middle of my current minefield.

Finally, we arrived at my group of protestors. "Hello everyone." Everyone greeted me and asked about the new guy. "Yes, this is Vincent".

Chapter 2

Cogil introduced me to all of his friends.

  ¶ 11:17 AM