Monday, June 2, 2008

Red Hair for Blue Eyes

This is a short character sketch for one of the main characters in a sort of science fiction novel that I'm writing called Wayland:

Prior Dibble’s mysteriousness was nothing unusual. He always smiled whether or not he was happy, and his eyes never failed to have that relaxed, smug, and cool blue look. He spoke with gestures, and the movements were too well-thought-out and too methodical to be natural habits. He trained himself to be pretentious. But in more relaxed moods, he could also just be a nice guy with a good sense of humor. By being able to make people laugh and by being able to intimidate people into sharp mental corners using pseudo-intellectual lectures, Prior Dibble embodied the perfect negotiator.

Five years ago, Wayland Priory faced a particularly difficult crisis when its hydrogen matrix – a critical component of Wayland’s automated water generator – broke beyond repair. While skates rushed to Wayland Priory’s neighbor, Basil Priory, to construct a replacement with the water engineers there, the entire community faced dehydration. By chance, however, a freelancer seeking a bounty arrived in Wayland on a freighter which, among other cargoes, had an old railroad tank car filled with brackish, but drinkable, water. The freelancer had no interest in trading it for anything Wayland Priory had to offer when Prior Dibble first explained the water situation, but the Prior nonetheless showed courtesy and hospitality towards the man. After sharing food, what little drink there was, and news with the traveler, Dibble still failed to reach any kind of reasonable agreement. But then at some point in the night, the freelancer noticed a limping, red-haired slave, and commented (only jokingly)to Prior Dibble that the slave looked similar to a wanted criminal, and that he might even fool his employers into paying the real guy’s bounty if someone were to bring him to them. Prior Dibble humored the freelancer’s far-fetched scam at first by sharing a laugh and jokingly proposing a trade for the water, but as the night wore on, Dibble’s sly, intelligent voice filled the freelancer’s head with assurances that easy money was at his finger tips, and that it would only cost him a bit of foul-tasting water to get the bounty without having to risk his neck going after the real guy.

When the freelancer departed the following morning, a giddy grin brightened his gaunt face. His freighter unmoored from Wayland Priory without the water. The red-haired slave that Prior Dibble had traded away looked back to his home in absolute horror. The people of Wayland Priory were not concerned, though, as they happily lined in front of the water tank car with jugs and containers to collect their much-needed rations. Prior Dibble was thirsty himself, but he did not line up. He watched his people with his calm, cool blue eyes, and smiled broadly at his own cleverness.

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