NationStates Jolt Archive

.SUNN

". . .Nys Media in cooperation with the Ministry of Education released the CAT exam today, to be issued in each Federal District. The CAT exam will vary from District to District, as to apply to topics which matter in the local District. Following immediately after the CAT exam the EDIT exam will be issued, also a cooperative effort between Nys media and the Ministry of Education, which will test students on a Federal standard. The Parent Teacher Council, however, is objecting to the new CAT and EDIT, citing the topics included are not appropriate for children. The PTC, a widely known Christian organization, is being suppressed by Administration-Corporation and key members are being detained. . ."

.Teacher

Rows of composite school desks were set in an orderly grid, in a room which could hold more than a hundred people. The ceiling arched in a cathedralesque way, the floor rising up towards the back in broad steppes which allowed anyone in the back of the room to have a decent view of the front. The walls of the room were black, all them being giant chalkboards. Officers dressed an apathetic manner were milling about the room, handing out large packets of papers to countless students frocked in equally unfeeling dress. Black, on white on black. At attention in front of the room there was a single teacher watching over them all. Black domes along the ceiling housed cameras that swept the room rhythmically, recording everything.

Teacher stood in front of the class adjusting a headset.

"When finished handing out the exam, please report to the preparation room. Students, please begin the exam as soon as it is handed to you, and bring it to the front of the class when completed. Anyone caught cheating will be dealt a flogging, and will be detained by DPUO District Authorities. No speaking. Sit up straight."

Teacher looked critically across the room, and gave a small nod of satisfaction. Nice and orderly.

.Student

"Fucking evaluation test."

"I heard Vanuatu District issued these with a sex section. . . You have to do things with the teacher."

"That can't be half as bad as ours. I'd trade alchemy for sex any day, doesn't have to be on a CAT." he muttered.

"Divine or Archaic?" she snickered.

He settled and propped an elbow on the top on his desk, planting his chin in hand. A thick packet of papers fell in front of him, and an Officer continued up the column without a glanced back. He scoffed, and looked to the CAT cover. The usual string of numbers was printed across the cover, a barcode centered beneath it. No one had names, they had numbers.

"Least it's thinner than the last one."

An Officer cleared their throat, glaring at the boy. He sat upright and silenced himself, neatly folding hands. Didn't want another flogging. He plucked a pencil from his pocket, and pulled the test towards him. A deep breath, and with a slow exhale the boy started the DPUO District CAT.

1] Machiavellian philosophies are either too extreme, or not extreme enough. Debate and reason in a 4,200 word essay.

And the stars in the sky conspire.

"You can't really kill it off."

"You can pick out the ones that aren't capable, though. As long as there's less of it, and as long as I don't have to wait ten minutes at the counter of Starbucks waiting for an incompetent idiot to slosh together a simple coffee."

"This method has been looked down upon since Elegy retracted the Decimation of the Handicapped. Took months to recover from the political backlash."

"Yeah well. . . The lynches weren't precisely the goal we were aiming for, but it pumped up efficiency."

Nicola resorted the papers and folders, giving them no particular order, just moving them around once more. Alex drummed fingers on the desk, waiting for Nicola to finish with his fit of OCD.

"So anyhow. . . The point."

Alex raised a hand to stop Nicola from going any further.

"I'm the Minster of Truth. You think I don't know already?"

"I'm telling you anyway. I like to hear myself speak." Nicola glanced up from the papers. "An International Standardized Examination. Ludvik will have to tap dance, but it can work. Everyone is striving for a greater intelligence. . . And a way in which to measure it. My ISE holds incentive for commerce, too. And who wouldn't be happy to hear about less government spending? It's going to rain chocolate milk, too."

"Ludvik said he agrees."

Nicola sneered.

"Minister of Truth. Privy to everything, everywhere, anytime."

"I'm not? I just don't go around showing off."

"Ludvik will have a message sent out by tonight, Nicola."

Official Statement of Fodmodmadtol

Behalf of the Ministry of Peace, Truth, and Plenty

The implementation of an exam has started in Fod. This exam will put our academic citizens through their paces, tearing apart their understanding of certified fields of study. We hope that the new CAT will asses our intellect accurately and be able to weed out those citizens in need of re-education.

Though, even if people from our corner of the world were to be deemed fit mentally, who's to judge the mental capacity of the rest?

What I propose to you today is an Administration of International Information. A pledge by Nations to uphold the decency and value of knowledge, knowledge appropriate for the survival of our State, and to keep the citizens of the world up to par in their intellectual aspects. An International Standardized Evaluation Exam, devised by Nations which pledge only to knowledge for the sake of their State. A gate into society everyone must pass through, and if they can't step through, then we can aid them in re-education in the proper train of thought.

A situation in which we all win. Fod will continue with the CAT, evaluating our own citizens. What we're asking of everyone else is if you're willing to see who's thinking what, and who needs to be taught to think otherwise.

Ludvik, Alex, Nicola

Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Cyro, Dyelli Beybi

Political broadcasts arrived in Dyelli Beybi every day, and obviously they couldn't ignore any of them, although there were obviously far too many for the Minister to look over himself. Instead a team of Beaurocrats trawled through the broadcasts for the Minister, forwarding the few they found to be relevant or worthy of respect. At this particular point in time the broadcast from Fodmodmadtol was being folded into a paper aeroplane.

"Hey!" there was one Commisaar in the office, a dry little man called 'Smith'. If he'd told anybody, his first name, they'd never commited it to memory, "What's that you're folding up?"

The man responsible grinned sheepishly, he wasn't a Commisaar, just a suit clad public servant. Even if he did have about as much respect for Smith as for a stone stuck in the sole of his shoe, Smith was still a Commisaar and could make trouble if he ever got transfered out of the Ministry, it payed to not make an enemy of him, "Just the usual rubbish."

"That's a Klatchian letterhead." Smith pointed out, he obviously had good eyesight, "Give it to me."

The man handed the note over, "It's rubbish." he repeated.

Smith ignored him, adjusting his spectacles as he read te broadcast. The other man studied him, out of curiosity as to why the Commisaar hadn't thrown the paper away immediately, "File it."

"What?" the public servant sounded outraged.

"It's Klatchian, file it. If it starts to spread, we may need to tell the Minister." as if on queue there was a mighty crash from above them.

"Hairy Benjian Bastards!" came an accompanying roar.

"Yes anyway." Smith continued, acting for all the world like the Minister wasn't well on the road to insanity, the medication he was being given for schizophrenia wasn't working, "File it. We won't bother the Minister unless this escalates. It could damage Revolutionary Ideals if it takes a foothold in the rest of Klatch."

The Minister of Education looked at the public message from the The Marxist Corporation and frowned. First he frowned because 'marxist corporation' was obviously an oxymoron, he had to question right off the bat, the knowledge of the people behind all of this. The body of the message was troubling as well. The Free Republic had decades ago abolished standardized testing. The very thought was anathema to Minister Danielsson. He decided to send a quick response.

To:Ministry of Peace, Truth, and Plenty
From: Minister of Education, Ilek-Vaad

The Free Republic has years ago banned the use of standardized testing and instead focused on nuturing the minds of the Republic's youth to be independant, creative and critical. Learning by rote to pass uniform or standardized tests has been proven many hundreds of times over to stunt the development of young minds and hamper all important critical thinking skills.

The Marxist Corporation, may teach it's youngsters however is seen fit within your own nation, but the Free Republic will administer no backwards tests to our young and brilliant minds and we will not accept the results of such mental torture.

The Free Republic is second only to Tanah Burung in the Klatchia for the highest performing education system and quite rightly so. We will not be altering the structure of our standards at anyones behest, anytime soon.

Lars Danielsson,
Minister of Education, Ilek-Vaad

Ryolmoth, Dukratus
Dukratus Ministry of Civilian Education

The balding dukratian in a rather ill fitting suit fanned himself with a thin printout of the latest education budget. A throaty growl eminated from the gray skinned beast, "whyyyy don't they fix the air conditioning for us -snarl-... it's the least they could do with the pissant funds we get...or at least they could have us in the government building!"

A clatter and crash below as a crate of fish from Vrak was dropped in the fish cannary below the office. Of course the government didn't care so little as to put them ontop of a fish cannary... the offices where built atop the refigeration equipment that kept the fist canary below cold...

Clawed fingers readjusted the small, tent folded piece of golden paper that read "Ministry Head Tarui Gebash-an" on his desk as an attendent pushed into the office. A grumble "Why don't you idjits knock first!"

The attendent was a rather well dressed human who surprisingly landed a job in the Dukratian government... well, sort of at least. "Gebash-an, we've recieved a fax from some land... -reads the header- Fodmodmadtol concerning education standards and the likes."

A weary look was shot at the attendent, "And... this is of importance becase..."

"Because we are the Ministry of Civilian Education sir" was chimed in with a little too much enthusiasm,

The tiredness grew on Gebash-an's features. "And the education the government cares about is how to make better soldiers, toss it into the usual wishlist file if we had funding."

A frown touched the eager mans face, "the shredder?"

"Yes... unless you want to type a letter out to Fod-mod-whatertheycalled asking if they'd like to pay for the reformation of Dukratus' civilian school system." A dismissive wave of clawed digits sent on the attendent on his way. Another look at the school budget before it was picked up and used to begin fanning himself once more, tone a low grumble ", yesss, air conditioning sure would be nice."

Tests are a necissary part of a child's education. NS (Northern Sushi) belives that children who do bad at these are ruining the learning expereance for more advanced children needing to be challenged. NSDOE has set up special schools to help for poorer test result students. We congratulate you on your efforts to educate a nation.

-------
NSDOE

As with most of the world's state-paid bureaucrats, the bureaucrat manning the "Incoming Post" desk in the rear area of DPUO's Foreign Ministry was bored. He could afford to be bored, being in no danger at all of losing his job, and intended to take full advantage of this priceless opportunity. So busy was he being bored (both with his work and with mentally bemoaning his boredom) that the arrival of Monday's diplomatic post came as something of a shock, though this was also due to the fact that the large plastic sack containing the post flew out of the delivery hatch with the speed of a startled rabbit and landed neatly between his legs.

Among the many hundreds of reports from its many distant outposts considered far too unimportant by the Foreign Ministry to be delivered by electronic communications was an unassuming and rather dull-looking letter from the Ministry's man in Fodmodmadtol, a nation with whom DPUO had had "somewhat tenuous relations" (meaning no relations at all, save for routine spying) since the collapse of the old International alliance. Another bored bureaucrat sliced the report's envelope open with an ingenious letter-opening contraption, the exact workings of which were known only unto a select few, and read its contents. Fortunately, bored as this bureaucrat was, she at least had the sense to realise that Foreign Ministry personnel did not send messages like this for the sake of an intellectual discussion on the merits of exam systems.

"I think you should see this," she said boldly, having walked into her superior's hot and shambolic office without even so much as a tap, much less a knock. The man she was addressing emerged from behind a tottering tower of paper and glared at her. "Why?"

"Because we don't get messages like these unless our man on the spot thinks it's important," she replied reasonably.

He kept glaring. "Our man on the spot in...?"

"Fodmodmadtol."

"...Fod... happens to be a sixty-year-old who's been working for the Ministry since he was eighteen."

"Which means he probably knows what he's doing," she rejoined brightly.

"Or that he's angling for a promotion." The man glared at her once more for good measure, but took the letter. Having arranged a small space among his various mounds of pulped wood products, he began to read. When he had finished, he turned to his expectant junior, a puzzled look on his face.

"This is the same Fod that was in the International, am I correct?"

"Yes." She paused. "Sir."

He raised an eyebrow. "Since when was I 'sir'?" The puzzled look remained as he re-read the report. "Fodmodmadtol? Instituting compulsory examination to determine need for 're-education'?" Shaking his head, he picked his way out from his paperwork fortress. "This is something worth telling the Supervisor."

As the shadows of the earth convulse.

"Who's next."

"A bright eyed boy who can't differentiate between squared and cubed variables, received a failing grade to the CAT and barely passed the EDIT. His achievement in written and spoken language failed to compensate properly for irrational thinking. Section Eight determined he's Libertarian."

The starry professor looked into the adjacent room through the one way mirror, an irate adolescent staring directly into the glass, if not at him. It was an interrogation room similar to those found in Military Police Precincts, except it was located under DPUO District High School 248. The gruff Officer stood at attention next to the starry profesor, eyes set on the bright eyed boy.

"Libertarianism is contradictory to Fodianism. Have him eliminated. . . Reason will be stated that his lack of understanding in the fields of language and reasoning would otherwise lead to a life of debauchery. Deport his family, have them expunged."

"Next case. . ."

The bright eyed boy continued to stare, oblivious.

Louis Newton was his name. A short, balding, yet still wiry civil servant, he was the Republic's Fodian representative, and in normal conditions his job had around the same excitement level as working in a fish cannery in Tenerife - fine if you were into that sort of thing, but tear-jerkingly dull if you weren't, and unfortunately, Louis wasn't. Quite why he had become a civil servant would have made a diverting tale, and at times he had thought of putting it into written form; but the idea, like so many others had time and again drowned beneath a sea of memoranda, random observations, notes and other assorted paper. Still, the job paid well enough, and was occasionally interesting enough, to be worthwhile. Thus, unlike the Post Office worker who had sent it on its way, he greeted the arrival of the FO letter with curiosity and even cheerfulness.

It was a pretty strange instruction, he thought, re-reading the short and altogether curt note for the sixth time to make sure no details had eluded him. Go out and get looking around the Fodian schools, the letter told him, keeping an eye on the students and noting how they talked, moved, acted. The FO had, to make the task somewhat easier, supplied him with a long and superbly flowery letter to present before any pugnacious Fodian officials, claiming that he was "acting on behalf of both the Ministry of Education and the Foreign Office of the Republic to contribute to the improvement of the same's education system, this to be done by observing and recording the methods and results of the new and fascinating Fodian model". Which was nice, but wasn't exactly likely to be useful if it didn't cut the mustard with the sort of people who talked of "re-education" as though a throwaway matter.

He left a note for his secretary, who was taking her usual lunch break, and donned the long, Soviet-style overcoat he had bought many years ago from a bearded street dealer who reeked of sweat, spirits and samovar-brewed tea. Pausing before a small mirror to straighted his trilby, he strolled past the inattentive doorman and out into the brisk wind and cloud of a typical Fodian autumn day, ears straining for the happy noises of playing children.

A simple rectangle, as if an arithmatic excercise for a toddler, dusted completely by gray soot, that coat interrupted systematically by a black reflection of tempered glass. And up at the top, battlements.

Vanuatu District School.

And a rag doll of tobacco as reception.

"Hallo Roach, pleasuretomettyou I'm sure. . ."

Stonecraft's pungent odour assaulted Louis' nostrils in the manner of a wolf coming down on a packet of kebabs. Christ, how many does he smoke a day? But he was a trained and experienced professional, which meant that he kept from his face his innate urge to don a gas mask, though he did make a note to have his clothing fumigated, or possibly burnt, at the earliest opportunity. For the present, he thrust his somewhat wizened right hand towards Stonecraft, wondering whether he was to be the subject of a "power handshake", and smiled as though his life depended on it.

"Good morning, Mr. Stonecraft - a pleasure to meet you." Be polite, be polite. And keep smiling, no matter what they show you.

"I'm terrbilybusytodaywithothersuchthings, so I'm goingtorushthroughthisabitifyoudon'tmind."

He pushed him along.

An endless rank of faded walnut-veneered doors faced Newton as he followed Stonecraft and his incredible fog of blue-grey smoke down the corridor. No sound that he could discern emanated from behind the plastic-covered plywood, not even the normal sounds of typing or murmured, slightly dulled discussion. Working in Fod must be like living in a soundproof cubicle. Reflecting upon what might lie behind the numbered doors, he realised that Stonecraft's thick voice was directing itself at him once more; having given his brain chance to decipher the jumble of missing consonants and rearrange them in a fashion that resembled English, he trotted out his carefully-rehearsed reply.

"Well, he said, suppressing the urge to sigh, "we've been having a re-think on education at home, y'know? New government, new direction, and all that. So I've been sent to see what's going on "behind the scenes", having seen what the papers say about your new policies. After all, how can we improve our education system without learning from others?" Newton finished the reply off with a soft chuckle intended to convey convivial admiration for the Fodian model, and contemplated the beauty of his reply as he entered the lift. Cynical, admiring, innocent, it was near-enough the opposite of his own nature.

The elevator opened.

"Wallstonecraft!"

Newton was yanked from the elevator, the doors closing quickly behind him. A small bell chimed and the soft hum of the motor resonated through the steel doors as Wallstonecraft was pulled upward.

"I'm sorry for subjecting you to that, Nat. Newton, Wallstonecraft is a morbidly bloated creature who's interests circulate around himself. He shouldn't even be allowed up this far in the building. . . He might be Consul but I'm still the Principal. . ."

She hurried to dust off the heavy smell of cigar from Newton's jacket.

"You may call me Kerr, the Minister called me to snatch you away from Wallstonecraft as soon as I saw you. Guards will escort him away when they find him. . . Either way, I'm sorry for that horrid welcome to Vanuatu District. Allow me to start over."

She backed away, straightening herself up. Taller than the usual tall man and insanely thin looming like a great gangly marionette, almost avian in structure and form. Pretty face. Starched black gown of any Fodist official of old, conforming graciously to the bust and hips, yet billowing out over the legs.

"Come, follow me quickly please, come come. There's a Test in progress"

Before them lay a hallowed classical corridor, lined with fluted columns and vaulted above, lined with gleaming marble. Clean light poured in from open rooms on either side, some of which emanated music, some of which emanated aromatics.

Kerr waved Newton forward, her hands thin.

"Excuse the dust, we've been undergoing a restoration of infrastructure as well as administration. Everything is still structured around the Nyxian Era building in Vanuatu, and it will not do any longer. We need electricity, and what have you. Anywho, just along the corridor is where we shall start our tour."

Can't these people just have one bloody name? Newton silently enquired of nobody in particular as he was dragged from the lift by what he initially thought to be an incarnated harpy, but in fact seemed, upon further inspection, to be a woman. Kerr loomed over his relatively diminutive frame, batting at his clothing with the evident intent of purging it of the overpowering aroma of tobacco, though without much effect. He had little time to wonder at the genetic quirks that could produce a woman who was simultaneously somewhat curvaceous and very spider-like, however, as she sqiftly made to usher him forward. Following languidly, Newton had plenty of time to take in the widespread dust and other signs of industrious alterations to the premises as he sauntered on, admiring the columns and the airiness of the space, but nonetheless astonished at Kerr's admission. How could a modern society operate effectively without electricity in its schools?

He marked it down in his mental notebook, specifically in the chapter marked "Noteworthy aspects, Fodian school", and kept following with a fixed expression of polite admiration.

Kanami Paliment Meeting on Education

A pannle of four teachers, along side the reprenatives of Kanami converse quitley. The Ministers of Education, State, Treasurey, patientally wait.

Mrs. Miyu Yammamoto: "Please understand, with all due respect we are very happy with the giant boosts in the schools budget, but we still need more. We hate to sound like leaches, but just a few million Kanamians More will make all the diffrence.

Minister of Education Dennis Nozaki: Mrs. Yammato, there is only so much we can take out of the public taxes for education. We have provided a good surplus of computers, text books, fresh markers for the boards, pens pencils, recreational books, and opend up to several classes. Yet the graduation has dropped 38% A poll shows that at least 5/10 students aren't prepared for life after graduation, and that at least 50 schools have exceeded their budgets. Which is why we are proposing this "No Kid Left Behind Act, and the inacting of Exit Exams."

Rep. James Mooris: Most schools and parents are opposed to exit exams and your so called no one gets left behind act, even the Prime Minister himself.

Nozaki: We can overturn any decision by the PM with a simple vote. If that is how he want's democracy.

Teacher Kevin Hansen: It's what the founder of this nation wanted. i'm a history teacher.

Treasurey Minister Carolanne Zarwick: We have to balance out the budget of defense, social welfare, construction, and other things. Just because we left road conditions to the Private Business to fund, doesn't mean we are infinatley rich. The Economy while doing well, just isn't a strong as it was. be gald most natios would just go right for the schools with budget cuts. We already granted a tax cut, and what you are asking is for us to raise them again.

Teacher, Sakura Himi: Ms. Zarwick we understand the Economy and we do appreciate the fact you didn't aim at schools with budget cuts. But don't forget, it will be the nurses from my classes that will be taking care of you when you are 90. I can't train my future nurses with out proper equipment, books and other suplies. Don't forget who taught you how to first count money. I'm sure your parent's helped but don't forget it was your teachers who taught you long division, multplication, addition, subtraction, fractions, and economics. We beg not only for a little more money, but also to NOT iniate exit exams. I know some wonderful guys and girls who sturggle in just one field, but are asspiring and excelling in others. Mostly in fields that would be irrlevant to their line of study. Please, just think about that.

Kerr halted Neuton and stepped aside. She waved Neuton over, pressing her ear against the door she stopped at. A decadent, decrepit thing rotting on the hinges which held it together.

"The test in progress in this class is he Vanuatu District CAT, as you may have guessed. Hopefully there's a copy in here for you."

The door crackled as she pushed it open, the rusted hinges spewing dust as they struggled to hold together. A wash of warm, lavender scented air came pouring from within along with the soft serenade of a concerto. It was a room larger than most homes of the wealthy; circular, vaulted ceilings decorated in elaborate murals, delicate fluted columns rising against smooth marble walls. In the center of the room was an orchestral quartet composed of a single cello and violins.

Students, just into their teens, were all engrossed in the exam.

Kerr flattened her hand against Newton's shoulder and led him inside.

"Please, Neuton, ask anything. Anything at all. . . I'm here to answer."

Wishing that Kerr would keep her near-fleshless hands to herself, Newton allowed himself to be led into the room. Some classroom, he breathed in a voice audible only to himself as he took in the lavish, sumptuous contrusction invested within it. The Fodians liked to keep their children surrounded by the finest standards, or so it seemed; so why the door? He paused, despite Kerr's insistent claws, and peered at it quizzically. Such a contrast with the rest of the room. What he had to work out was what was the exception: the room, or the door. Inwardly scribbling his notes, Newton waited patiently for a paper to be proffered, smiling vacantly in the direction of the rows of students, who seemed not to have noticed his presence.

"That went well, methinks. . ."

"It better have. . . If we're left with no support, the Minister will be displeased."

"Ever the obvious, Wallstonecraft. I know well what it means if the Minister is displeased. Now go along and shuffle through your paperwork and files and forms and such, I've to proctor in a while."

"Yes, well. . ." Wallstonecraft flushed, face collapsing in a twisted grimace with lips scowling and eyes cursing. He huffed a bit, then turned and walked off down the corridor.

Kerr around to Wallstonecraft, then back out the window. Down below in the front court Neuton was being led to a carriage, the winter snow swirling from the battlements above and frosting the small window.

"Yes yes. . ."

Newton glanced up to the frosty windows of the school building, only to be dterred markedly from looking any longer by Kerr's presence. The woman was unnerving in the extreme; to sit next to her was to sit next to a tarantula in a dress, albeit one rather less hirsute than your average arachnid. But I'll bet she still bites. He curled his lip into a semi-sneering smile and took his seat in the carriage, a novel experience for him since the Imperium was mainly served by railways and seaborne transport.

As it swayed rythmically away, Newton was left wondering what his superiors would make of a school with no electricity, where the children were, it seemed, universally bright and attentive, and where the selection process was... demanding, to say the least.

So many people.

Newton's carriage rocked gently along The unbelievably-named Nypanjskgolwoodstockskgol's cobbled roads, the rhythmic clatter of the horses' hooves and the tyres' hard metal rims forming a melody that conspired to lull him into a fitful sleep. He stared from the open window, watching the streets roll slowly by, watching the faces of the people outside his black, velveteen coccoon.

So many people, and none of them smiling.

Children looked up at him, clad in threadbare, ill-fitting clothes, their expressions empty, eyes dull and staring, as though they had lost their very souls. Women peered at the carriage, but quickly turned away and strode off if he returned their frowning looks.

So many people. None of them smiling. No laughing, no sound of joy anywhere, just the endless, weary patter of shoes along worn, hard, unyielding pavements.

The carriage pulled to a halt outside the Imperium's Embassy building, and Newton gladly entered its light, lively interior. Gazing back at the world outside, he struggled to comprehend the unreality of it, and numbly went to compose his report and wait for new orders.

*****

Evening came and went. Newton sat in his office, next to the window, the door locked, looking out over Nypanjskgolwoodstockskgol - or, as he was now calling it, Woodstock. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how long he stared and grappled with his mind, he couldn't understand it. The entire place seemed faintly ethereal; as though it was merely a great shimmering curtain, beneath which lay an altogether different world.

He stared up at the stars. He had seldom seen them before coming to Fod; the constellations had been taught to him by schoolbooks, whose dusty pages let him penetrate the near-constant clouds of industrial smoke that hung over his home town. Their beauty was endless, illusory and born of man's imagination though it might be. And Nypanjskgolwoodstockskgol was the same, in a way. Twinkling away before him, yet somehow utterly removed from the world he was familiar with, and somehow concealing something, something his instincts said was terrible. And no matter how much he sruggled against the instinct, it would not leave his rational mind alone.

*****

The message was waiting for him the next morning. "We were most interested to receive your communique", it read warmly, "and have, after consultation with the Imperial Ministry of Education, concluded that you should return to see this Kerr, with the aim of discussing further observations with her superior." Newton snorted. Only someone who hadn't seen Kerr would imagine anyone would want to see her twice.

Newton again donned his overcoat and gloves, and ventured out into Nypanjskgolwoodstockskgol's frozen, nose-chilling air once again, his head tucked into his collars, making for the school he had left yesterday. The city glistened underneath a blanket of snow, his shoes breaking it up with muffled crunches. As though he was breaking the world on which he stood.

Chains hung from the ceiling. Chains of steely ice, swaying faintly to a breeze laden with snow. Every step forward and one brushed against an obscene coldness. At times these chains would twitch, and while one is standing in the center of the room these chains would breathe. They run along shoulders like icy sunlight, twisting themselves around arms and legs without one knowing of it until their blood turns black.

And set before one would be the granite altar to God, charred blood flaking away into dust. And behind the altar would be the eye of God, locked in rusted iron and frosted glass, the eye of God and the eye of an enormous serpent. And one would try not to stare too long into the eye of God. And that painfully pleasurable luminescence flooding from within God's eye would be blinding.

Always upon the altar is a hawk, or vulture, always a bird but never the same bird, some blackened demon from God's eye and upon his altar acting as sentinel to something unknown. Putrid, near featherless, a winged rodent with crooked bones and dull eyes.

"Glad you've returned. Please, sit."

Kerr.

Dawn fired the sky above Woodstock. The tired clatter of hard-shod feet echoing on the cobbles acted as an alarm call to many more aching, pained and empty bodies, to begin once against the drudging shuffle to their labour.

In the midst of them came Newton.

He walked in the same direction, but not in the same way. His form unhunched, his head traversing easily above those around him to take in the view of unbroken ranks of dull, similar houses with dully identical bodies lurching from their knocked-about doors, he made his way back to that curious school. An oversized child in his greatcoat, he marched through the forbidding doors and entered the soaring entrance hall, tracing his now familiar path past the ranks of faded plastic-covered doors to the office of the most unnatural beast that had ever been given domain over youth in any corner of this god-forsaken planet: Kerr.

"Good morning!" he intoned the greeting with as much good humour as he could wring from his spirit and raised his hat, hooking it thereafter upon a chipped peg on a canted hatstand. "It is most gratifying to be able to see you again." Another lie, though not quite so titanic as that enveloping him.