Chapter 20: WHEN THE IDOL ON COATED PAPER IS FLESH AND BLOOD (1)
To say those events delighted Moa would have been a lie.
In his head, the little voices were all silent, even Curiosity did not seem excited by this new experience. Only Doubt allowed himself a 'what-I-said-to-you', but even his normally cynical tone was now compassionate.
Moka and Bulde motioned to Moa that once his scarf was put on, he was free to set out. During the time he was at the third floor, his escort must have arrived. They would not bother to drive him down to the cultural center.
Moa was a big boy and he was able to fend for himself. Moreover his escort would not just wait for him downstairs at the entrance of the cultural center and would come to meet him. It was useless to play hide-and-seek with them because the members of the escort were professionals incidentally recruited from this milieu, and they would eventually find him. The cultural center was not a playground that intimidated them as their training took place in an old building with an even more complex architecture.
Moka knew Moa had little interest in the social life of the regiment and that he did not participate in activities organized by the other officers, so he was not there when the escort team had displayed their art. He couldn't but she could say it, she saw it with her own eyes, it was an elite team, they were truly impressive. Holding on for five minutes without being found verged on the miraculous. So trying to flee was just wasting a precious time he should rather spend carrying out his mission.
As for them, they had to report to the eighth floor before they could go to lunch.
A calendar year had approximately two hundred and fifty working days. The military year was after the calendar year, and so the military year had at least the same number of working days, the slight difference being played on a few specific military holidays. Two hundred and fifty, this was also the number of people who were appointed as emissaries each year. As the number of corporals that could be send as emissary in the third regiment was in this order of magnitude, a corporal could be designated once a year. Like that, there were no jealous, some would have the chance to escape and those who survived their mission were quiet for a while.
Of these two hundred and fifty emissaries, how many fulfilled their mission successfully? The rate was a secret kept by the army and it was necessary to have a good memory and to pay close attention to know how the exact number. In the human resources department, they knew that each year, two hundred new corporals were promoted. Since the promotion rate from the rank of corporal to that of sergeant was low, they could come to an estimate close to reality.
Being a corporal and going to negotiate a cease-fire was a mission of trust the ego of every human being should rejoice in. However, when considering that it was a suicide mission, the pride did not last long.
For these moments, the general staff had supplied a booklet with a whole bunch of hypocritical retorts. On one hand, it aimed to help the officer leading the emissary to believe that the mission could not be settled in another way that on success and on the other hand it helped the emissary make the officer believe that they would meet again soon, that it was only a goodbye and that it was without the slightest hint of resentment that he set off.
The booklet concluded with two remarks for the emissary. It was quite recommended to conclude with a well-felt formula or an anecdote before leaving. The well-felt formula would be engraved on the tombstone as an epitaph and the anecdote would be the piece of the legacy the emissary would leave to posterity.
Only there, to bring this kind of thing up without preparation, it required to be quick off the mark, a quality Moa did not have. At the moment, the only formula he remembered was that in a triangle, the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, provided of course that the triangle was rectangle because in the case on the contrary, the formula involved trigonometric data and without the adequate calculation table, defining a head distance was very complicated.
As for the anecdote, it dated back to when he was 6 years old, at this age when children's teeth turned into adult teeth, strengthened and firmly anchored in the gums. He had lost a tooth from these incisors, turning his smile into a funny nonsense.
Losing a tooth was a frightening phenomenon when it occurred without prior trauma. It was not the few droplets of blood that escaped on the occasion of the event that caused the terror of the children. It was their own image of them resembling their Grandma if the process did not stop; they would be confined to eat soups for the rest of his life.
A popular adage pointed out that many physical traits skipped a generation. This empirical observation was how people summarized the random distribution of recessive alleles during genetic mixing. This saying reinforced the fears of the youngest. Granny no longer had teeth and if this character effectively skipped a generation, the child was also very likely to lose his snags.
The story dated back to a few generations earlier, so that there was no one alive today who could remember it, but it had survived through the ages thanks to word of mouth from children in schoolyards.
At that time, psychiatrists had reported a sharp increase in psychotic behaviors when children hit the age of 6 and another follow-up around 12 years. The reasons were quickly found.
Approaching the age of 12, a young boy would see his organism develop its secondary sexual characteristics, in particular the growth of hairs everywhere around his body. This sudden metamorphosis could quite make think of that metamorphosis the lycanthropes underwent on the evenings of full moon. It did not take much more for children to question their own origins, at an age that was conducive to the emergence of the spirit of contradiction. Also, was the man he naively called dad really his father? Was the dog he called Woufwouf, statistically the most common name for pets, just the faithful companion who often had fun licking his face and not his real progenitor?
For the young girls, the reason was another natural phenomenon that happened at the same age: the sudden appearance of the period. It was particularly the case for those who were regularly qualified of big cow, or this was what the data showed. It was like they were transforming into pantry for vampire, this bat which came to cling to the legs of cattle to drink their blood until dead did not follow at all because it is an animal far too small and with negligible feed requirements compared to the size of an adult cow.
For these young people who were leaving childhood to discover adolescence, it was decided to introduce a course about puberty in the scholar curriculum. Those who would understand that their symptoms should lead to the good differential diagnosis were saved, the others would be directly directed towards educational sidings, intended later to perform the base tasks nobody wanted to do.
For a six-year-old child, the operation was more delicate. After all, the brain was not even developed enough for a six-year-old child to write without spelling errors. It was anyhow decided to tell them a tale.
A lie from time to time was sometimes better than a hard-to-hear truth. A major international competition had been launched to rationalize the phenomenon and to reassure the children. An environmental group promoting the cordial understanding between mankind and rodents had won this competition.
Moa knew the story as it was something that a slightly older classmate had already brought up to school: provided that the tooth was gently placed under the pillow, the Little Mouse would barter it with a coin.
The rodents' brains were not very developed and the gregarious organization of the species had not yet resulted in the advent of a civilization where money allowed everything. So coins were not useful for them. If a tooth was useful, then why not this trade?
Still the next morning he did find a coin, but it did not coincide with the story he had heard. It was a chocolate coin, outdated for some time now, with zero monetary value. Moa was very disappointed. He estimated that he had been cheated in this transaction and a few days of search after that event, he managed to get hold of the one he thought was the culprit. The trade was made without Moa properly signing a contract and he demanded to recover his tooth and in order to find a less stingy rodent.
Remembering a few days earlier a film where the hero managed to unravel a plot after torturing a villain, Moa decided to imitate him. He did not have all the equipment at his disposal and contented himself with basic techniques. The mouse died without saying anything and he would never find his tooth again.
Also, the formula was not in line with the situation and Moa did not especially want it to serve as his epitaph. The anecdote was a secret he had never told anyone, not even his parents who, for his mother thought that the poison she put in her husband's cereals was effective and for his father that finding a dead mouse in his house was not something unbelievable. Moa was never questioned but he was still ashamed not to have verified at the time that he had captured the right mouse. A few weeks later, when he lost a new baby-tooth, he found a coin under his pillow, proof that he had not questioned the good mouse to whom he had to pay homage, if only for its determination not to speak.
This anecdote was perhaps also the reason why he had adopted Little Hamster years later. He had guilt towards rodents; it was both a tribute and redemption towards this mouse he had unjustly accused.
Why then, when he might have only an hour left to live Moa thought of all this?
In any case, he had no reason to waste his saliva. He did not owe Moka or Bulde his last wishes.
Leaving the cinema, his escort was already waiting for him. They were twelve of them, a rather impressive formation. For example, this morning, the emissary was only escorted by a team of eight. He did not take too much time to change, neither did he spent too long time discussing with his superiors. It was just a matter of a few minutes.
In the meantime, the escort had arrived and it had time to reach the third floor. Such speed, they were truly impressive; Moa had to agree with Moka. When he was in the hearse, he did not see them on their way.
Now, even if he wanted to, hide-and-seek with these experts was no longer possible. Frankly, Curiosity had launched the idea that Moa, so proud of his performance in hide-and-seek when he was younger could challenge himself rubbed against a squad of professionals in the discipline, so that to know his real level.
…
In the street, the undertakers had already taken charge of Dekor and put his corpse in body bag before placing him in the hearse back. They were busy on Ferash's body. The rupture of the cervical joints made the operation delicate, at the risk of a too sudden movement tore off his head. They were great professionals and managed to clear the sidewalk, without leaving a single body part.
Seeing that Moa was arriving from the cultural center, the lieutenant handed him the removal form to get his signature, it was the normal procedure. Of course, the lieutenant noticed Moa's change of status, the white scarf was obvious and the escort was not discreet, but knowing himself the gravity of the situation, he said nothing.
The lieutenant's name was Tabh Lodbor and he had not always been a lieutenant. Like many, he had started out as a corporal, then a sergeant before being given his present attributes. When he joined the army, it was already at the time the front was fixed where it was still today and the misfortunes of the third regiment had already lasted for a long time. He had always and only known the way the third regiment treated its emissaries.
In an older past, the emissary did not have exactly the same functions. When the front was still moving, the battle could take place in particular topographical areas and the choices made by the emissary in the moment could be crucial. In addition, it was not uncommon to negotiate adjustments to the rules during tripartite initiatives. Also, only senior officers could be designated as emissaries. They could even stay for several days in a row until the function started to annoy him. There it was always easy find a volunteer to do the job.
Everything changed when finding a reason for the successive failures of the third regiment became a necessity. The rumble threatened the troops and Dekor came up with a theory. The results of the jousts were directly dependent of a critical moment of the day: the toss. If the coalesced lost the toss, it gave an entry advantage to the Grenati who did not really need it and the strategic choices of the coalesced became obsolete.
So if the toss was lost, the coalesced already had no chance from the beginning. As the person responsible for the death of so many soldiers could not go unpunished, very quickly, a colonel had been shot, as an example.
At that time, no one was volunteering to become an envoy anymore. The emissary would henceforth be drawn by lot. It was no longer the soldiers who threatened the mutiny, but the officers directly. Admittedly an order had to be respected but it was not necessary to push, nobody would agree to be the unfortunate drawn lot.
Also the senior officers were excluded from the drawing of lots, which from this point in time only concerned any member of the third regiment below the rank of lieutenant. However, this system did not last long because they soon realized, over time, that even if the lieutenants were certainly numerous, they were difficult to replace. So the lots did not concern the lieutenants anymore. The way system did not last too long either, they also realized over time that it was the same for the sergeants who were also excluded of the lots. Finally, it was also the same for some very particular functions in the army which could be occupied by corporals. This was the reason why normally, Moa should never have become an emissary.
At first, ordinary soldiers could also be drawn by lot so the probability that a corporal was sent as an emissary was low. It just happened from time to time. However, literacy problems among the soldiers had highlighted that not all of them understood their mission orders. The enemies were stupid: they believed that the coalesced were the enemies when in reality it was them. Even so, the enemy had to be respected, the rules of the FWJ were clear on that, and sending an illiterate in front of Sirhod, it was not what you could call a mark of respect and they were the ones who would pass as stupid.
It was decided that literacy in the ranks of soldiers had to be tested on a large scale. The test was designed by Dekor. The setting was fairly simple: an image, four descriptions as propositions namely A, B, C and D, tick the good answer.
There were ten questions in the test. Moa remembered, he had taken the test to find out his level: a lion, a bird, a moped, a pipe, a pencil, a slice of cheese, a pair of socks, a table, a cloud and a polished K6 crossbow, six-bolt magazine, regulatory equipment in the army. It was as if it was yesterday for Moa. He even clearly remembered the order of the questions in the test. It was the first ever time he scored full-mark for a test.
The correct answer was highlighted by a bold font and was systematically placed in position B. Dekor had decided of it to facilitate the corrections. The other choices were randomly typed propositions, sometimes with a sequence of consonants such that it was impossible to read the answer aloud. On the day of the exam, Dekor had even given the instructions orally to be sure that everyone understood, adding that they could copy to their neighbor and that if they did not know, they had to answer B.
Knowing that a multiple-choice questionnaire with four propositions should lead to a base score of 2 or 3 out of 10, it was decided that anyone with a score higher than 4 was considered literate and able to become an emissary.
Unfortunately, the situation was much more dramatic than what Dekor, the father of the questionnaire, imagined with a literacy rate of 0% among soldiers. Dekor even pulled his hair out when he noticed how unlucky those soldiers were. Choices A, C and D had a homogeneous distribution in the various questionnaires, with a proportion of 33% each when answer B had not even been ticked once.
Illiterate and unlucky fellows could not be sent as emissaries. The simple soldiers were also excluded of the lots and finally, only corporals could be sent for these missions.
It was under this state of affairs that Tabh joined the third regiment and, was it chance, was it something else, today Tabh still asked himself this question the omniscient narrator I am can easily answer. It was by chance, there was no point in looking any further. When an event had a one chance on two-hundred-and-fifty, this chance had to befall onto someone and that day, it was Tabh. The army remained a mini-society made up of men and women and if the morals of some of them could be called into question, rigging a draw was not the type of hazing in order.
Like all good pushers who did not yet know all the cogs and the fate of an emissary, he was particularly proud that two days after taking office, Corporal Lodbor won the lottery.
Some clues quickly plant the idea in his head that maybe, he should not have rejoiced this quickly. Already, the officer mandated to convey the information and the white scarf to him was accompanied by an escort. So, okay, this officer's mission was important and the military had to take all measures available to protect the white scarf, in case a smart aleck tried to steal it. But was not such an excessive escort a bit heavy? For men covering each side would have been enough, and was there really a need for them to be as armed as they were? Were their weapons really needed to be loaded?
Besides, his chief at the time had bided his farewell and did not only say goodbye to him, adding these two days had been pleasant, it was a pity. He was just designed for the draw; he would come back in a few tens of minutes.
Finally Tabh participated to the toss, heavily escorted and he won his draw. All those measures of security were clearly excessive in his mind. The coalesced lost the jousts afterwards but that could not be put on the back of the emissary.
Happy with the success of his mission, he was even ready to volunteer for the next day but it was a possibility that had not been considered by the senior officers when they fixed the rules, and it was not allowed. Finally Tabh never had a chance to be an emissary again, just a few months later, he was already a sergeant.
It was only a few weeks later that he understood what he escaped from. Another corporal on his team was drawn. The latter did not wear the same smile Tabh had when he heard about it. He burst into tears. It was the last image he had of this man when the escort forcibly dragged him away. He would never come back. He had lost the draw, the coalesced had lost the following jousts; the envoy was sacrificed.
So rather than sympathizing with the fate of Moa, he waited for his team to recover the scattered teeth everywhere before putting his men in the hearse and resuming the road to the morgue where the bodies could begin to rest in peace, at the shelter from the throes of the weather that always threatened with a downpour.
The road team had already been warned and had to be on its way. In a few tens of minutes at most, the street would regain its former old face, even if "old" was a notion that referred to the morning itself. It would be as if no one had died here. The road team was very professional; it was something Tabh could attest to.
Moa walked casually down the street. He hadn't really listened to Tabh. He had signed the paper out of habit.
Mechanically he looked up. There were no snipers, which was rare when an emissary departed. Maybe they were too well hidden for him to spot them.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ludo2776
ludo2776 ... to be continued in the next chapter
Two little notes...
In the most of French-speaking world, baby-teeth are not collected by the Tooth Fairy but by a little mouse, which swaps the tooth for a coin. The legend exists with a rodent in many other cultures, the principle is always the same. The origin of this mouse is said to be an old tale from the Baroness of Aulnay in the 17th century: "The Good Little Mouse" ("la Bonne Petite Souris"). In the story, a fairy assumed the appearance of a mouse and hid under the pillow of an evil king to make his teeth fall out at night. If I kept the little mouse and not transposed to English-speaking culture, it is because the biodiversity of the world where Moa lives is very comparable to what we know and that the probability that a child would catch and torture a fairy was too low to make a believable scene. If you think that it’s not very more credible with a mouse, just remember that I did the world-building and if I say it’s credible then it’s credible.
"The enemy is stupid, he believes that it is us the enemy when in fact it is him" is a quote from Pierre Desproges, a French humorist of the end of the 20th century I am a fan of. I wanted to share this quote.
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