FL060
"THE TIDES OF MARS"
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DATELINE: FACTORY ISLAND DETENTION FACILITY (May 9, 2022)
Fellow passengers, it’s another beautiful day in the Limoverse.
In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, at a time when traffic on I-95 is moving too quickly to enjoy and too slowly to comprehend, the Limo pulls over at a roadside farmstand to rest for a moment and pick up a few provisions.
Something among a pile of purple, torpedo-shaped onions catches our eye. A little card – parchment, maybe? – handwritten in an elegant scrawl:
Some Days are better than the rest
In some distinction lie
Like when Day of the Onion comes
And you’re obliged to cry
Weird poem, but okay. As we reach to tuck it back into the crate, cold steel meets our wrist. “Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco,” growls the uniformed man as he snaps the handcuffs shut and tosses the key in the river.
Our eyes dart to the farmer for help. “Calabrian mafia,” he shrugs. “They don’t like it when outsiders touch the onions.”
The show trial is swift. “Godetivi i meloni,” the bailiff snarls as the doors clink shut and he slides a tray of traditional southern Italian penitentiary fruit rations through the slot. Enjoy the melons. Through our cell’s tiny barred window neon lights blink in time with the tides of a distant planet.
Whatever will we do to pass the Time...