Savings

     The rapid increases in the dollar prices of precious metals are alarming for more than one reason.

     Yes, I’m alarmed. Even though I hold large quantities of the money metals, what’s happening has me frightened. The dollar prices of the money metals don’t say that gold and silver are getting more valuable. Rather, they say that a large number of people are worried about the future of the U.S. dollar and the American economy generally.

     You can’t pay for your groceries with gold or silver, just yet; you still need dollars for that. The metals are hedges against further declines in the purchasing power of the dollar. They’re something else, as well.

     Among the reasons gold and silver served as Mankind’s currencies for so long is that they’re easy to recognize. Yes, it’s possible to make fake gold coins by plating tungsten slugs with a thin covering of gold, but such fakes are detectable by simple tests. It’s harder to fake silver coins at a profit, though should silver continue to rise in dollar price, that might not remain true. So gold and silver make trustworthy currencies as well as reliable stores of purchasing power.

     Gold and silver in private hands represent purchasing power no government can control. They make possible both completely private transactions and completely private savings.

     States don’t like for private persons to have private savings. That’s one of the motivations behind the worldwide drive for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The State wants to know everything: who has what, in what forms, and what he’s doing with it. Over time, a CBDC decreed to be legal tender would allow the State to eliminate its physical cash – those Federal Reserve Notes in your wallet – and make all “above-ground” transactions vulnerable to State monitoring and control.

     Gold and silver are the State’s enemies. As long as there are reserves of those metals in private hands, there will remain an underground economy that’s proof against State intrusion. Worse – from the State’s point of view – those reserves could power a revolution. Their very existence would force a degree of moderation upon the State. Even the idea of that makes the masters of the State uneasy and sullen.

     You and I, Gentle Reader, aren’t the only ones watching the prices of the metals. The masters of the State are watching them too. And they’re as alarmed as I am. Their best hope for total and irreversible control over all human enterprise is being threatened by the rising consciousness of private persons that the State’s “money” is merely wastepaper.

     When the masters of the State feel threatened, they tend to do alarming things. They pass insane laws. They stifle private communications. Sometimes they go to war, to create a pretext for “emergency measures.”

     The Year of Our Lord 2025 was an interesting year. One thing many hoped for was an immediate, sharp decrease in the cost of living. That hasn’t arrived, though some commodities have dropped in dollar price. The new tariffs intended to rebalance America’s international trade, bring expatriated industries home, and garner new federal revenue have pushed the prices of imported goods upward. A lot of people who supported President Trump have begun to wonder if he can deliver… or intends to.

     Americans need reasons to believe in America’s future. Failing that, they’ll use whatever private measures promise protection for their resources. That’s clearly expressed by the prices of silver and gold and the expanding interest in the cryptocurrencies… and the State could shut down all traffic in the cryptos by throwing a switch.

     Verbum sat sapienti. For those interested in a fuller exploration of methods for financial self-protection, please read John Pugsley’s classic The Alpha Strategy.

Description And The Telling Detail

     Happy Feast Day of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Gentle Reader! It’s a day for deep but pleasant thoughts. I suggest the love and mercy of God, the lightness of the New Covenant, the generosity of the Paraclete, and the glory of the Beatific Vision. Saint Thomas dwelt on these things until they filled him to the top of his tonsure. Then he wrote more than 3,000 pages about them. The volume of his writings alone would make him the Supreme Doctor of the Church. But alongside that, he really liked to eat: just one more reason to venerate him.

     But I digress. Regard the following tweet, especially if you’re a writer… or a reader:

Nothing is more humbling than spending 4 hours researching the specific architectural layout of a 14th century tavern just to write the sentence: "They went inside."

— Anamika Pandey (@ianamikagautam) January 27, 2026

     I laughed long and hard at that. I’ve been there, you see: specifically, with my romance Doors. That novel has one of my favorite Laura Shinn covers. Yet when I saw it, I felt compelled to rewrite a half page of description. Same old sixes and sevens.

     But as I’m thoroughly sick of current events, Anamika’s tweet serves as my justification for posting a snatch of my nonfiction guide for developing writers, The Storyteller’s Art. (No, it’s not for sale just now. I’m working on a second edition.) Here it is:

* * * Description And The Telling Detail

     Many a novice fictioneer labors over description -- when to do it; how much of it to do; what to leave in and what to leave out -- as he does over no other aspect of the narrative craft. Strangely, the preponderance of the anxieties felt in this regard are unnecessary. Description is actually a much easier, and more easily comprehended, matter than most writers think.

     Granted that first-class description can produce a unique effect:

     Day was opening in the sky, and they saw that the mountains were now much further off, receding eastward in a long curve that was lost in the distance. Before them, as they turned west, gentle slopes ran down into dim hazes far below. All about them were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. The long journey from Rivendell had brought them far south of their own land, but not until now in this more sheltered region had the hobbits felt the change of clime. Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness. [J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings, "The Two Towers"]

     ...one cannot over-indulge in such effects without losing the reader.

     Why? Because of Brunner's First Law of Fiction: The raw material of fiction is people. More specifically, what your characters are saying, doing, and doing to one another.

     Elmore Leonard, famed for his humor-laced thrillers, was once asked by a fan why he wrote so few descriptive passages, and kept them so short. Leonard smiled and replied, "I try not to write the parts that people skip."

     Ponder that. The typical reader skips descriptive passages. Why? Not because they're badly written, though some surely are; they're skipped because most description contributes nothing to the forward movement of the story!

     Remember how a typical reader chooses the books he'll read:

• He heads for the section(s) of the bookstore where he can find his favorite genre(s).
• He looks first for authors whose works have pleased him in the past. he doesn't find any unread works by familiar, approved writers, he scans spines and covers for clever titles and provocative art.
• When a title or cover painting catches his fancy, he picks it up and reads the back-cover or dust-jacket blurb. If it fails to intrigue him, he puts the book back on the rack and resumes his search.
• If the blurb has, at the least, not dimmed his tentative interest, he opens the book to the first chapter and reads one or two pages. If these don't impress him, he passes on.
• If the first page or two engage his interest, he might riffle the pages of the book, scanning it for "density." That is, he looks to see how tightly the words are packed on a typical page. If it's too high -- that is, if descriptive and pure-narrative passages overwhelm dialogue and character interaction -- he passes on.
• Finally, if all the above tests have been satisfied and his funds will allow, he buys the book.

     To be agreeable to the overwhelming majority of readers, fiction must concentrate on dialogue and active events in the lives of his characters. A writer who forgets or disdains this pattern and concentrates on description might get invited to a lot of faculty teas, but he won't sell many books.

     For all of that, some description is necessary if you want the reader to see your fictional world vividly. But there are guidelines to make it plain when it's necessary, how much of it there should be, and what specifically one should describe. These guidelines are nicely synopsized in the imperative: Cultivate an eye for the telling detail.

     Let's unpack that command a bit.

     1. What is an "eye for the telling detail"? Where does one find it?

     Probably the best approach to acquiring this "eye" -- that is, the sense for what ought to be described and when -- is to concentrate on the consciousness of one's viewpoint character. That is: the sensorium, sensitivities, and priorities of the viewpoint character, through whose "eyes" the story is currently being told, should dictate what one describes.

     For example, let's imagine that your viewpoint character is a doctor who labors, as so many do, in a hospital. The hospital is his typical frame of reference. While the precise details of the hospital do matter to him, on a typical work day he doesn't take active notice of ninety-five percent of them. He would not fix his attention on a respirator that he passes twenty times per shift. He would not muse upon the height, shape, or color of a reception desk. He would not remark to himself that Joe Smith is wearing a stethoscope, unless that were in itself an unusual thing that should trigger heightened attention (e.g., if Joe were a janitor, or a serial killer whom your character had thought confined to a jail ward).

     Since the goal of good fiction is to involve your reader in the emotional lives of your characters, your descriptive prose should be guided by a cognizance of the sort of things your characters would care about, and the sort they would glide past, whether from their regularity or from their irrelevance.

     2. What is a "telling detail?"

     In keeping with the guideline above, a telling detail is a detail that tells the viewpoint character something that ought to arouse his active interest. Note the phrase "ought to." It might, or it might not; after all, he might be having a sub-par day. But either way, it should, because the detail itself is important to the course of the story:

• It indicates a difference in his environment -- either in the physical setting or the people that inhabit it -- that will factor into the plot.
• It characterizes a figure with whom he'll be involved in the subsequent action.
• It impels him toward his deeds in the subsequent action;
• It enables him to do something he'll need to do, or constrains him from doing something he'll want to do, in the subsequent action.

     The way to describe a telling detail is through the viewpoint character's perception of it, including those aspects of its setting that make it significant. Note how, in the Tolkien passage above, the author makes note of the "change of clime" and that "spring was busy" around the hobbits from whose perspective the details of Ithilien were described. These features of the physical environment are why Frodo and Sam noticed their surroundings; they constituted a noticeable change -- and a most unusual one, given that their course was taking them toward a land of limitless foulness.

     Here's another illustrative passage:

     Lori took in the situation with a glance, glared at Aaron, and immediately slapped the code call button. Andrew went to Berglund's bedside and sank to his knees. Incredibly, he groped for the patient's flailing hand and folded it between his own. The volunteer's eyes closed and his lips moved rapidly.
     The etheric sense Aaron had cultivated over his years of exploration of the dark forces quivered like an alerted hunting dog. A miasma of power was forming in the room, hovering over Andrew's head. It was not a familiar one. Aaron's inner eye watched it wax in potency. It grew blindingly bright, then descended and wrapped itself around the thrashing, dying man.
     Berglund's eyes closed. His spasms slowed, became progressively gentler. By the time the team with the crash cart had arrived, the old man was still and his breathing had ceased.
     The glowing cloud of power was gone.
     Andrew rose from his knees and deposited the limp hand onto its owner's motionless chest. He turned to the crash cart team, who had frozen in place upon first confronting the strange tableau.
     "He's gone." The technicians started forward, but the volunteer held up a hand. There was an ineffable authority in him that halted them where they stood. "Let him be."
     Lori was trying to jam her fist into her mouth.
     Andrew slipped past the emergency team, wrapped an arm around Lori's shoulders and coaxed her from the room.

     [From "Virgin's Prayer," in The Sledgehammer Concerto]

     The viewpoint character, Aaron, doesn't dwell upon the mundane features of the scene before him. Indeed, he hardly notices them. He's fixed upon the things that matter most to him: the immanence of a great cloud of supernatural power, apparently invoked by Andrew; Andrew's own assumption of authority, before which everyone else at the scene automatically gives way; and Lori's reaction to it all. These aspects of the scene are critical to the action that remains; nothing else about the scene matters at all.

     3. How much description is enough? Is there a way to know?

     In a word, yes.

     Enough description is description that follows the guidelines above. It tells the reader what the viewpoint character is thinking and feeling about his surroundings. It also tells the reader what the viewpoint character ought to notice, whether he does so or not; this is particularly important in stories with an element of mystery. Finally, it's married to what's happening to and around the viewpoint character at the moment, rather than being a superfluous lump that sits in the way of the action.

     This gives us a third guideline that proves most useful in practice: The best description is married to what the characters are doing.

     Consider the following passage:

     The tall, ungainly woman walked haltingly up the winding, tree-lined path that led to the large, green-shuttered sprawling old white mansion. Her old, arthritic vein-corded hands gripped her silver-topped cane, and its worn brass ferrule stabbed feebly at the unyielding earth with every faltering step she took.

     To the best of your Curmudgeon's knowledge, that passage is not from a published story. Lawrence Block uses it as an example of overwriting in his book Telling Lies For Fun And Profit. But it's also an example of pointless description. It's unmated to any significant action of the viewpoint character -- not clearly revealed here, though one might assume from this snippet that it's the old woman being described -- and advances nothing in which the reader might take more than a yawning interest.

     Here's another passage, from a masterwork by one of the funniest and most creative writers ever to scatter words upon a page:

     "Well, then," Sir Gules said, leading his guest down the carpeted floor past the silent manservants to a high wainscotted room in which a cheery fire snapped and crackled in the great onyx fireplace.
     Marvin did not answer. His eye was taking in the details of the room. The carven armoire was surely tenth century, and the portrait on the west wall, half-hidden by its gilt frame, was a genuine Moussault.
     "Come, sit, I pray thee," said Sir Gules, sinking gracefully to a David Ogilvy half-couch decorated in the Afghan brocade so popular that year.
     "Thank you," Marvin said, sitting upon an eight-legged John IV with rosewood handles and a backing of heart-o'-palm.
     "A little wine?" Sir Gules said, handling with casual reverence the bronze decanter with gold chasings engraved by Dagobert of Hoyys.
     "Not just at the moment, give thee thanks," Marvin replied, brushing a fleck of dust from his stuff-colored outercoat of green baptiste with lisle froggings, made to his measure by Geoffrey of Palping Lane.
     "Then mayhap a touch of snuff?" Sir Gules inquired, proffering his small platinum snuffbox made by Durr of Snedum, upon which was portrayed in steel-point a hunting scene from the Orange Forest of Lesh.
     "Perhaps later," Marvin said, squinting down at the double-furled silver thread laces on his dancing pumps.

     [From Robert Sheckley's Mindswap.]

     If you're not rolling on the floor, just barely keeping your sides from splitting, it's not your Curmudgeon's fault. Sheckley has brilliantly pinned the very worst failings of innumerable writers of historical and Gothic fiction, so funnily and perfectly that comment is unnecessary -- as was every one of the interminable details of that passage. A novice writer can learn better what not to do by studying that passage than from any dozen books on the writer's art.

     Bad description is almost always over-description. It's "the parts that people skip." Your reader's principal reward for consuming your work is the emotional journey he takes alongside your characters. That's the prize. Everything else is, well, just details.

War News

     I could write about any of many things today, but the envelope into which the most recent events fit is the Second American Civil War.

     Minnesota and California have practically declared themselves to be in insurrection. Excuse me, what did you say? President Trump cut a deal with Tim Walz? That’s nice. What’s been happening since then?

     The insurrectionists are largely organized, though some are responding spontaneously. Some are native to the districts they trouble; others are bused in. They’re young and old, armed and unarmed.

     They’re unified in one thing only: their opposition to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s attempt to locate, detain, and expel illegal aliens. President Trump has given ICE carte blanche to fulfill its duties. Some of what’s happened has struck even conservative observers as excessive. The insurrectionists have capitalized on the two deaths to date by shouting “Nazis!” at peak volume… mostly at ordinary private citizens.

     There’s little point in trying to change the label. The American Left has gone to war against the Administration, the immigration laws, and the electoral system. What more is required to deem the Left in a state of insurrection?

     The Left has gone “all in.” It has fully mobilized its financial and personal resources for the conflict. The Democrat Party, while giving lip service to “the rule of law,” is aligned with the insurrectionists. Indeed, its hope of political survival rests on their success.

     There are only two ways to quell a rebellion: by surrendering to it, or by defeating it. Don’t expect President Trump to surrender to it. But defeating it will require more dramatic action than merely having ICE agents detain suspected illegal aliens and deport the ones who can’t establish that they’re here legally.

     Blood has already been spilled. There will be more.

     I hope the National Guard need not be dispatched to the loci of insurrection with free-to-fire rules of engagement. But it’s a real possibility. Were President Trump to federalize them and send them forth, would they be willing to obey his orders as Commander-in-Chief? It might require them to act against people they know, their neighbors.

     This isn’t Armageddon yet. But things are not looking good. Stay tuned.

     (For my views on the illegal-alien crisis, see this Baseline Essay.)

Hippee Skippee!

My laptop died last week. It was a quick death, no lingering.

Since then, I've been using my Fire tablet. Its not all that powerful, but for the money, was a good bargain last Amazon Day.

I tried using an old Chromebook my brother had passed on to me. It's really slow, running Windows 10, and without the hardware to be updated. And, it's a small complaint, but no touchscreen. Until you have to go backwards, you don't understand what an annoyance that is.

I just checked the status of my new laptop order and it will be arriving today. Likely not until late in the day.

It's not a new machine, but a refurbished HP. But, for $200, it doesn't have to be great.

Snow Day

Forgive me, Gentle Reader. I'm pooped.

See you tomorrow, I hope.

The Betrayal Of The Meliorists

     It’s exciting and gratifying to see so many people on X talking about C. S. Lewis’s masterpiece That Hideous Strength. There’s a general sense that the Satanic dystopian England Lewis depicts in his novel is “where we are now” – a sense that is largely correct. But the understanding of why and how we got here / there remains to jell.

     Which of course calls your Curmudgeon into the fray.

* * *

     Time was, there was a movement called “Progressivism.” (Don’t laugh.) It was largely propelled by Christian religious sentiments that had been twisted into political activism – and for that perversion, twisted is exactly the right word. Another word for that movement, one that isn’t heard much today, is meliorism.

     Meliorism is a largely emotional position: the meliorist “wants to make things better.” For whom? Why, for everyone! He loves a particular vision of progress: a vision in which all desires have been satisfied, and all fears have been dispelled.

     Yes, Gentle Reader: meliorism implies a total detachment from reality. But the meliorist doesn’t allow that to trouble him. The vision is all!

     If meliorists weren’t gullible, they might be tolerable. But they are gullible. They’re easily swayed by the promises of politicians. And politicians are willing to promise them anything. (No, they don’t give them Arpege. )

     The politician, by definition, is one who seeks power over others. That and nothing else is what politics is about. What he promises you is not truly his objective. His objective is power. What brings him power, he will promote; what diminishes his power, he will oppose.

     The politician, therefore, must not be assumed a sincere meliorist. But he relies on the support of meliorists to put and keep him in power.

* * *

     Lewis’s nightmare vision of England in That Hideous Strength is premised on popular acceptance based on the unwillingness of ordinary Englishmen to object to melioristic initiatives. The N.I.C.E., a government program, is facially melioristic. In reality, it’s a grab for total power over everyone and everything on Earth.

     Contemporary Britain has some features in common with Lewis’s tale, and some that depart from it. Lewis didn’t imagine a huge influx of culturally immiscible immigrants, for example. But the central commonality, which makes all the other horrors – fictional and real – possible, is meliorism as a premise and political exploitation of that premise to extend and deepen the power of the State.

     Every State that lasts for a significant period must be founded on superior force. But to acquire that force, the masters of the State must persuade their subjects to allow it to them. The chief tools of persuasion are deceit and fear.

     It doesn’t matter whether the initial set of politicians sincerely want to “help” some subset of the people, or to ameliorate some nagging condition that affects all. Once the State has accumulated unopposable power, men willing to do anything for power will displace the original, supposedly sincere ones. For the sincere ones would balk at methods their challengers willingly adopt – including lethal violence. So nominally decent and trustworthy politicians are steadily replaced by men who observe no moral limits.

     Britain’s national government fell into the meliorist premise many decades ago. Each generation of power-wielders was succeeded by a harder-nosed, less scrupled set. But even as the quality of its politicians declined, the verbal emphasis on meliorism never waned; indeed, it seems to have increased. The power-wielders promise, hands on their hearts, that We’re here to help – to serve! If any of them really mean it, I’m unable to name them.

     Americans should not look at Britain with scorn. The same progression is in effect here. Leaving aside the Great Maverick, President Donald Trump, I’m hard pressed to name a high-ranking politician whom I would trust.

* * *

     In 1962, Joseph Clark, one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators, was asked to define liberalism as he understood it. Senator Clark replied:

     “A liberal,” he writes, “[is] one who believes in utilizing the full force of government for the advancement of social, political and economic justice at the municipal, state, national and international levels.”

     That’s political meliorism straight up, with no chaser. Whether or not Clark was sincere about his aims, he was consistent. One of his enthusiasms was for the establishment of a world government to which national governments would be subordinate. He pursued that aim as a member and president of World Federalists U.S.A.

     Clark was very popular. His successors in the United States Senate have varied in that regard, but they’ve all given copious lip service to meliorism. And they’ve worked diligently to expand and deepen the power of the federal government. Republicans, unable to oppose political meliorism effectively, have largely endorsed it. Which is why I joke that the GOP’s true platform is “We Can Do It Cheaper!”

* * *

     Power over others always ends up in the hands of those who want it most. As Friedrich Hayek told us in The Road To Serfdom, over time the progression brings men to power who recognize no moral limits, regardless of the platitudes they mouth. Their sole aim is power: getting it, keeping it, and increasing it.

     George Orwell told us what follows:

     ‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
     Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
     ‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see then what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world that will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotion except fear, rage, and self-abasement. Everything else will be destroyed--everything!...If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.’

     O’Brien was free to say that to Winston Smith because he had Winston totally in his power. But outside the Ministry of Love, the Party pretended that its governance was in the best interests of the people of Oceania. It had to lie and demand doublethink to do so, but the meliorist pretense was always there.

* * *

     I could go on, but I think the point stands. He who wants power over you will always tell you he intends to use it in your interests. Sometimes he’ll be sincere… but his successors will be less so, and on it will go until the nation is under a Stalin. Clive Staples Lewis has shown us the face behind the meliorist mask in a work of compelling power. Yes, his heroes invoked supernatural aid to cleanse Britain of the N.I.C.E. and its works. Perhaps that makes That Hideous Strength too fanciful for some. But Lewis’s depiction of the N.I.C.E. and its Satanic evil remains one of speculative fiction’s highest achievements.

     To the political meliorists who look upon the N.I.C.E. as a template for their own advancement in power, I offer no apologies.

The Last Of The Really Fluffy Towels

     [This story first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V2.0, on September 29, 2021. – FWP]

* * * The Last Of The Really Fluffy Towels

     Alex Smith dried himself as best he could, scowled at the sandpaper texture of the burlap towel, wrapped it around his waist and cinched it, and headed to the bedroom to garb himself for the day. Maura looked up from her book. Her expression was curious, as if he’d done something not to be expected, possibly even unprecedented.
     Well, she doesn’t really know me yet.
     He smiled. “What’s the matter?”
     She shook her head minutely. “Oh, nothing.”
     “You’ve already seen me in all my Neanderthal glory, haven’t you?”
     She grimaced. “Of course. I was just wondering...no, forget it.”
     “Oh no!” he said. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity. What was the look about?”
     “When I looked at you?”
     “Yeah, that look.”
     She hesitated. Her expression suggested that she’d taken a mouthful of something nasty.
     “Come on,” he said. “I know we’ve only been together for a night and a morning, but still...!”
     Her eyebrows rose. “Still what?”
     “Well, still you can trust that I won’t explode if you have something critical to say, can’t you?”
     “Yeah.” She looked a little away. “It was the towel.”
     “Hm?”
     “It was just...”
     “Yesssss...?”
     “You don’t have to, you know, conceal yourself from me,” she said. “As you’ve already observed, I have seen you naked.”
     “Oh.” He looked down at himself. “Habit, I suppose.”
     “You said you’d been alone here for years,” she said.
     “I have. So?”
     “So who’ve you been concealing yourself from?”
     He winced.
     Good point.
     “Well, yes,” he said after a moment. “But I wasn’t born here. I had parents and sisters. I got it drilled into me pretty early that it was unacceptable to parade around the house naked.”
     “Yeah,” she said. “I get it. But it’s not necessary now. And those towels...how can you stand to have one wrapped tight around you like that?”
     “Oh. Yeah, it is kinda scratchy.”
     Doesn’t dry very well, either.
     “So feel free to, ah, relieve yourself of it,” she said. She set her book aside, pulled back the bedcovers, rose and ambled toward him. “I like looking at you.”
     He admired her petite, trim form afresh as she put her fingers to where he’d cinched the towel at his waist, gently pulled it away, and let it fall to the floor. “And I don’t like the idea of Oscar and his side boys—” She glanced pointedly at his genitals “—of whom I’ve already grown fond, getting all scratched up for no good reason.”
     He grinned and took her hands. “You win.” He kissed her gently. “Would it have been an issue if the towel were nice and soft?”
     She made a who-knows gesture. “Less of one, I guess. I mean, I’d still like to look at you.”
     “Thank you.” He kissed her again. “May I offer you breakfast? I have a couple of soy cakes that aren’t too old, and an ounce or so of corn syrup for them.”
     “Okay. But,” she said with a mock-severe look, “I forbid you to eat your breakfast naked.”
     “Oh? Why is that?”
     “Because the splendor of you would impede my ability to savor so luxurious a repast.”
     He laughed and went to the closet for his robe.

#

     They sat at his tiny dinette table lingering over the meager meal, doing their best to prolong it into something worthy of the name. The thought irritated Alex briefly. He had nothing else to eat in the apartment. The emptiness of his cupboard griped him more than it would have had Maura not chosen to stay the night. If it weren’t that his new ration card was scheduled to arrive that morning, the little soy cake would be the last thing he would eat that day.
     “Alex?”
     He looked up from his plate. “Yes, dear?”
     “I know someone.”
     Her deliberate, gently emphasized full stop immediately piqued his interest.
     “Always good to know...people,” he said. “What brings whoever it is to mind?”
     She locked eyes with him. “Towels.”
     “Oh.” He carefully returned his gaze to his plate. “Who runs it?”
     She shook her head. “Not like that,” she said. “It’s just someone I know. His name is Phil Marsden.” She looked away. “He’s pretty old.”
     The unspoken word trader seemed to hang around her like a cloak of mist.
     Old people are getting to be few and a long way between.
     “Do you think he might need something?” he said.
     She shrugged. “Who doesn’t, these days?” But her eyes and voice said of course.
     And the regime has just cut rations for anyone over sixty to half of the standard allotment.
     “Well,” he said as casually as he could manage, “if there’s some way we can help him, I certainly wouldn’t be averse to it.”
     The entrance monitor chimed the tone that indicates that a delivery had just come through the slot. Alex stabbed the last fragment of his soy cake, mopped up the drops of syrup that remained, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed laboriously, and rose. “Two seconds.”
     A small brown envelope that lay on the floor behind the door. He stooped to pick it up. The return address announced the arrival of his coming week’s ration card.
     Thank God.
     He returned to the kitchenette and made to reseat himself.
     Maura said “Alex...”
     He froze, half seated. “Yes?”
     “I often don’t go all the way through my ration allotment in the course of the week.”
     “Really?” he said.
     But they hardly keep. The soy cakes were less than four days old and they were already almost too tough to eat.
     She didn’t need to say what she was doing with the uneaten portion, and he didn’t need to guess.
     She’s been giving whatever she doesn’t eat to Marsden.
     He glanced at the envelope that contained his new ration card, still clutched in his hand.
     “I think...” he said, and faltered.
     “Yes?”
     “I think we can help Mr. Marsden,” he said. “Do you think he might be able to help, ah, someone else?”
     She smiled. “Why don’t we pay him a visit and find out?”

#

     Phil Marsden was very tall, and very old. Alex estimated him to be about six feet four and in his early eighties, if not older still. He was emaciated, no longer able to fill out his clothes. His tunic hung from his shoulders like a tent. His trousers were held up by an elastic belt drawn frighteningly tight. But even if the spareness of his figure could be ignored or explained, his skeletal hands and arms and his skull-like face could not.
     He’s starving to death. Whatever Maura has denied herself to give him, it hasn’t been nearly enough.
     He was acutely aware of the fresh ration card in his pocket. A radical thought came unbidden and unwelcome.
     If he were careful, he could stretch my card and what Maura can spare into two weeks’ nutrition.
     Wait a minute: what would I eat?
     Yet the thought would not leave him alone.
     “I haven’t got much left,” the old man was saying. “Just my clothes, that love seat in the corner, and what my wife left behind when she passed. But it’s all on the table.”
     “Mr. Marsden,” Maura murmured, “did Mrs. Marsden maintain two sets of bath towels, by any chance?”
     Marsden’s eyes lit with a knowing light. “As a matter of fact, she did. I always wondered why. We didn’t need two sets. Just to wash one regularly every Saturday, which she did.” He rose from his battered leather armchair. “Get it for you if you’re interested.”
     “We are,” Maura said.”
     Ninety seconds later Marsden had trotted out a pair of large, fluffy bath sheets in a delicate pink. Alex fought back the urge to grab them and flee.
     Maura flashed an inquiring look at Alex.
     He hesitated, then nodded.
     “I can see that even with what I’ve been saving for you, you’re not getting enough to eat,” Maura said. “Would you consider a ration card—a standard allotment ration card—to be worth one of those towel sets?”
     Marsden tried to hem and haw and dicker, but he couldn’t keep the naked lust for calories out of his eyes.
     “Mr. Marsden,” Maura said, “it’s our one and only offer.”
     Marsden’s resistance crumbled. He held out the bath sheets like an offering of alms. Alex took them and handed the old man his new ration card.
     “Thank you,” Marsden whispered.
     Alex nodded. He and Maura made their exit.

#

     “I can’t go without eating for a whole week,” Alex said.
     “You won’t have to,” Maura said. She fondled the bath sheet in her lap and hummed with pleasure. “I can get by on half rations. You’ll get the rest.”
     Alex started to reply, checked himself.
     I guess we’re an item.
     The towel in his hands was the softest, fluffiest piece of fabric he’d ever encountered. The loops of terry stood out at least a half inch from the base weave. He could imagine having it wrapped around him after a shower, thirstily soaking up the moisture that lingered on his skin, and shivered with anticipation.
     Probably the last of its kind anywhere in the city.
     I’ll be pretty damned hungry after seven days on half rations, but I’ll live. Then it’ll be back to the previous regimen.
     It’ll be worth it.
     “All right,” he said. “I suppose you’ll want to keep one of these at your place.”
     “I would,” Maura said, “but it was your ration card we traded for them. So only if it’s all right with you. Or,” she said with a sudden lilt, “I could do my showering here.”
     He summoned his gallantry.
     “You could,” he said. “You’d be very welcome, always assuming the city doesn’t clamp restrictions on water usage. But even so, go ahead and take one home. I only need one, and we’ll get by well enough on one if you ever decide to stay the night again.”
     She smiled brightly. “Thank you, Alex.”
     He was in the process of framing a courtly demurrer when the apartment door burst open.
     The shattered doorframe revealed Alex’s worst nightmare: two large Community Monitors in full armor, including the blast-hardened full-face shields that guarded their identities while allowing them a hundred eighty degrees of outward vision. The two strode in, stun batons at the ready, to confront Alex and Maura.
     “Citizen,” the one poised before Alex droned, “a local informant has reported observing you entering this dwelling in possession of luxury textile goods unavailable from the government’s dispensaries.” He indicated the towel in Alex’s lap. “That was not acquired recently. Was it an inheritance?”
     Alex fought to control his shaking. “It was.”
     The Enforcer snatched the towel from him and tossed it well behind him. “Then if, without looking at it, you can describe it accurately in all particulars, you will be permitted to keep it.”
     Alex darted a glance at Maura. The Enforcer that stood before her had done the same.
     The end of a stun baton rose to prod the underside of his jaw. “Well, citizen?”
     Alex could only manage a quavering croak.
     “We’ll be confiscating them, then.” The Enforcer turned and picked up the bath sheets. He and his partner marched out of the apartment, leaving it open and utterly violable.
     Alex turned eyes of woe to Maura. She appeared perfectly composed, far better in command of herself than was he.
     “I couldn’t—”
     She held up a hand.
     “I know. It’s all right.”
     He nodded, face crimson with humiliation and shame.
     They won’t turn them in for destruction. They’ll keep one each.
     “Alex?” she said. “Come stay with me tonight.”
     “You would have me, after this?”
     “Of course.” Her eyes were sad but understanding. “Everyone knows how unwise it is to resist them.”
     He rose. “Give me a minute.”
     He went to his bedroom, pulled a fresh shirt and a change of underwear out of his tiny bureau, stuffed them into a brown paper bag, and returned to the little living room. She rose as he approached.
     “Let’s go,” she said.
     He nodded, and they left.

==<O>==

     Copyright © 2021 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

I Didn’t Expect This

     The nation is agog over the rocketing price of silver. Despite my interest in the money metals and my frequent advice to my Gentle Readers to put some of their savings into gold and silver, I must admit that the recent sharp increases trouble me. I’m caught between possible explanations.

     Silver was the money metal of the United States for the nation’s first century. It satisfies the chief requirements of a money:

• It’s durable;
• It’s easily recognized;
• It’s divisible without loss;
• It possesses intrinsic value.

     So possessing a store of silver, in a time of inflation, is a good thing. Should the current inflationary practices of the federal government “run wild,” as happened in Weimar Germany and contemporary Zimbabwe, silver will be negotiable. Indeed, given current valuations, silver is a more practical store of value than gold.

     But let’s look at that phrase current valuations a bit more closely. There’s no central authority decreeing “This shall be the dollar price of an ounce of silver.” What Kitco and other sources tell us about the price of silver – or anything else, really – is the price paid for it at the most recent trades. How much silver was purchased at that price? That’s not reported. Are there still buyers offering that many dollars for an ounce of silver? That too can be hard to discern.

     It’s the same with stocks, in case you were wondering.

     The question uppermost in my mind, and probably in many others, is whether silver’s explosive price increase is telling us about something that’s coming, or about something that’s already happened.

     It’s possible that up to now, the dollar price of silver has been well below its “real” exchange value. After all, recent Administrations have created a lot of new currency and credit to support their spending, while the dollar price of silver stayed relatively stable. So silver’s price could be “catching up” to that spell of high inflation.

     The alternative is that those driving silver’s price are aware that something on the horizon would greatly depress the dollar’s purchasing power. Perhaps it’s fear of the U.S. purchase of Greenland. Or it could be that the Administration is pondering the repudiation of the national debt. The dollar would be badly shaken by either of those events, and they’re not the only possibilities.

     I intend to investigate “institutional” purchases. If the large creditors and debtors in our economy are buying silver, we must infer that their analysts see either an opportunity or a looming fiscal disaster. The former is for currency speculators alone, and therefore not for us small fry. The latter would justify a “flight to safety” of the sort that silver represents.

     But let’s imagine that the dollar price of silver is being set by the purchases not of institutions but of individual Americans. That would tell quite a different story, one summarized by economist Gary North and quoted in Robert Ringer’s How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization:

     When a majority of depositors become convinced that a majority of depositors have become convinced that a majority of depositors are going to try to get their money out simultaneously, a majority of depositors start trying to get their money out simultaneously.

     “Getting your money out” really means doing whatever you can to preserve your purchasing power. If the dollar is losing purchasing power as we watch, then the sensible thing to do is to “get out of dollars:” to extract whatever purchasing power your dollar-denominated assets still possess and put it into a more stable store of value. In short, it would signal that ordinary Americans have lost confidence in the dollar and have started “a run on the bank.”

     I’ll be looking further into this. Stay tuned.

The Plausibility Chestnut

     We who write speculative fiction are regularly besieged by critics over plausibility. “Is that really possible?” they ask. “Could it happen in the ‘real world?’” Sometimes, the answer is “No.” At others, the answer is “No, but that’s irrelevant.” And at others, the answer is “What’s this ‘real world’ you’re talking about?”

     Speculative fiction is fiction that speculates! I should have thought that was obvious on its face. But then, obvious really means overlooked, doesn’t it?

     Critics and their hangers-on do a lot of overlooking.

     I got lambasted for Christine D’Alessandro. I got it again for Althea Morelon. The exceptional nature of those characters seemed irrelevant to my critics’ determination to pick nits. I can’t help wondering what kind of crap Malorie Cooper has had to put up with.

     Now, there is a downside to depicting super-competent female warriors. Most women simply aren’t equipped for combat, whether melee-style or ranged. They have disadvantages in strength, speed, endurance, and the ability to tolerate serious injury and keep fighting. But there are exceptions, whose exceptional nature ought to be obvious… oh, there I go again. A full-scale, lifelong dedication to physical conditioning and the acquisition of combat skills might conceivably result in a warrior as capable as Charlize Theron’s Lorraine Broughton, though we wouldn’t expect it of Taylor Swift or Sydney Sweeney.

     We certainly shouldn’t expect it of the Girl Next Door. Nor should we expect the Girl Next Door to be ready and able to protect herself against real-world male predators.

     The Girl Next Door should carry some defensive equipment, to be sure – a pepper spray, a Ken Onion assisted folding knife and a KelTec P11 with two extra mags strike me as about right for ladies in the beleaguered Northeast – but she should also expect the assistance of masculine help and call out for it at once. She should not carry a broadsword. (Do you know how hard it is to accessorize those things?)

     But we were discussing fiction.

* * *

     Genuinely entertaining, uplifting fiction cannot be about dead flies in the bottom of cracked teacups. It also cannot be about someone’s angst or his unfulfilled yearnings. Things must happen. Characters worth paying attention to must be challenged, must rise to the occasion, and must prevail, albeit at a price. Anything else is too dreary for me, and – I suspect – for most other readers of fiction.

     My sort of fiction requires heroes: characters of great stature, or at least great potential. Such people, male or female, are exceptions. You won’t find them on streetcorners. And if they cluster in a wholly fictional county, what of it? Birds of a feather and all that, remember?

     So plausibility, in the strict, real-world sense, must sidle over to make room for fictional heroes. There are some in the real world, to be sure, but they’re few. They don’t get a lot of air time or column-inches. Which, semi-ironically, is why there’s a stronger demand for fictional heroes than in many years.

     Of course, for those who disagree, there’s always “literary” fiction.