Work Text:
Mardox once wrote that analysis is a kind of symmetry to the act of writing: that antecedent and aftermath to a publication are as much explored by critics as the work itself, and by so doing they capture the work's worldly reflection. He had a habit of painting the industry with flowery prose, and though many in the industry have found fault with such comparisons, his few essays which avoided censure speak deeply to me. I note the concluding section of On Symmetry; 'As critics, we draw as deeply from the author's beliefs as from the absences in their work. The act of censure casts shadows on the society behind the pen; any restriction to creative freedom, though tragic, is profoundly illustrative.'
The man without a dog knew nothing of this, and continued his pensive search of the streets of Charterhall. The flow of crowds was sluggish this late on a summer evening, but with a discerning eye one could map the more impatient strands of traffic to the side most shaded by the guard wall. Electroplasmic torches cut through the fog from the top of the battlements, casting most folk's faces in a sicklier light than they would prefer to pretend. In this, the man was among peers.
It is customary when along Polteney Street to sample the meagre gruel its market vendors offer, the better to distinguish oneself from tourists with more money and taste. Though the search for his wayward friend was at the forefront of Man's mind, he was not without a sense of custom nor fairness, and thus found himself Customer at a stall peddling gristle from (charitably guessing) rats. This was a rare stroke of luck. In the sodden earth behind the stall, a fresh set of pawprints glistened under lamplight.
"Did a dog run by?" the man asked casually, placing down a coin and gesturing past the vendor.
"Yeah, I found a little scamp nicking my blooming merchandise from the grill. He's lucky he skeddadled off before I found my knife," said the vendor with different words. "Why, was that thing yours?"
This was said with a commercial gleam the man found unsettling, and so he left his excuses and a handful of coins on the table before more earnest compensation could be bartered.
As the man continued his journey into Six Towers, he glimpsed through shattered glass, beyond a window in the Arms of the Weeping Lady - something or someone
[This passage holds some value to criminal anthropologists due to its unexplained inclusion to an Inkrake-controlled newspaper. This appears to be the first and only attempted submission by this author.]