Upholstery And General

{ (set: $approvals to 0) (set: $slideno to 1) (set: $seen_both_slides to false) }

You are sat at a vast table made of an unfathomably highly polished hardwood. On top of it are two envelopes. They appear to float in the depthless infinite luster of the surface. [[Pick up the leftmost envelope->firstvelope]] [[Pick up the rightmost envelope->firstvelope]]

You unravel the artisanal string holding the envelope closed and slide out a thick square of card. [<img src="http://coffeeshop.riazmoola.com/img/ezjet.png" class=center>] [[Nod dismissively, as though you knew they'd show you this junk->Agree1]] [[Shake your head warmly, as though you can't believe they've created something this sublime->Disagree1]]

You absent-mindedly tear at the side of the envelope and tap it on the desk until a square of printed card falls out. [<img src="http://coffeeshop.riazmoola.com/img/xcountry.png" class=center>] [[Smile bitterly, as though you've seen this drivel a million times->Agree2]] [[Frown in joyful confusion, as though you can't understand how they came up with something this good->Disagree2]]

{(link: "Reach for the other envelope")[ (go-to: "secondvelope") ]}

"No." you say. (display: "verdict")

"It's brilliant." you say. "But let me check the other." (display: "verdict")(set: $approvals to ($approvals +1))

You drop the card to the table and push it away. {(if: $approvals > 0)["This can't even be considered an option. We must press forward with the first."] (if: $approvals < 1)["With regret I must say that neither moves me. However if there are truly no other options I suggest we move forward with the first."]} (display: "the board")

You gesture appreciatively at the card. {(if: $approvals > 0)["This is very good too, however between the two we must consider context above all. For that reason this is the only reasonable choice."] (if: $approvals < 1)["This is stunning compared to the last. There's no question."]} (display: "the board")

The energy of the four people across the table (three men and one woman) changes perceptively. One of the men takes the two cards, places them back into their respective envelopes, places the envelopes into a suitcase which he locks and leaves the room with. The woman, wearing a crop top and a grey double breasted suit addresses you. "Thank you so much. We'll take your appraisals under consideration." "I'll consider this matter closed." you say as you [[get up to leave]].

You're escorted to the front door of the building by a secretary who has been waiting for you outside the conference room. As you leave, a plane flies in front of the sun, casting a shadow over you for a second. You feel that moment, when the jetliner intersected the airspace between you and Earth's closest star is the moment spring started. [[Head towards your next appointment->Get going]]

In the streets around you bicycles and trams are still carrying morning commuters in from the huge conglomeration of suburbs that surround the central business district. [[Go to the train station]]

You don't have much time before your next meeting but when the train you intended to catch is cancelled you're sanguine. Because of your sensibilities you always build contingency into your scheduling when travelling by rail. However, when the replacement train arrives you're mortified to discover it's one of the last five PROTOS Fahrzeugtechnik Dessau units designed by Professor Vishnu Garibaldi. A dilemma arises. You do not want to catch this train. However, due to a quirk of metro connecting schedules, if you wait to catch the next train you will have essentially consumed your contingency time and will run the risk of being late to your next meeting. A warm, dusty wind blows in with the PROTOS unit as it comes to a stop. You have to decide. [[Catch the train, arrive promptly but risk your wellbeing->wellbeing]] [[Wait for the next train, risk being late->reputation]]

You can't believe you're going to willingly do this, but you cannot afford to let the fifteen years you've spent cultivating a reputation for integrity and professionalism go to waste. You put on a pair of dark sunglasses and get into the train carriage. With your eyes cast downwards you navigate, half blind, towards a spare seat and sit down. [[* * *->d r e a m OF g a r i b a l d i]]

You decide you would rather be late than sit on that train. You let the PROTOS unit doors close whilst you stand on the platform. The disembarking crowd surges past you and towards the exits. The train leaves the platform, then the crowd. You're alone. The next train won't be for another 45 minutes. You slump down on a metal bench, feeling the adrenaline flood out of your system. [[* * *->d r e a m OF t r a i n s]]

You dream you are at a train station many hours and hundreds of kilometres away from the conurbation. There are no automated ticket machines. You are talking through a glass screen to a woman. The glass has a pattern of holes drilled into it at mouth height to facilitate communication. The glass is extremely thick and you wonder who the woman would need protection from. You are trying to tell the woman you need to catch a train. She is asking for money. You reach into your pockets and draw out a single coin. It is huge, the size of your palm. You look on it and see the face of Vishnu Garibaldi in profile. The woman in the ticket office is screaming, but the glass has turned opaque and you can only see her diffuse form vaguely. You turn the coin over in your hand and find a picture of Garibaldi's masterwork, the PROTOS Fahrzeugtechnik Dessau. [[* * *->awaken]](set: $dreams to "train")

You dream you are at back at the academy, sat at the front of class as always. Professor Garibaldi has projected the 1936 Christian Barman moquette on the wall but he describes it as being from 1961, the year of the Douglas Scott Routemaster. You want to tell him that he is wrong, but when you look left and right you cannot see anyone sat next to you. You look behind you and see the lecture hall is empty, dark, there are no more seats apart from your own. An ungulate shape moves through the shadows behind the light of the projector. You turn back around to see Professor Garibaldi has moved to the next textile but it is one of your own designs. A doodle that you developed on an intercontinental train journey many years after your time at the academy. Garibaldi points at it and laughs. The empty lecture hall laughs back, like the studio audience in a sitcom. [[* * *->awaken]](set: $dreams to "garibaldi")

You come back to your senses as though recovering from tinnitus. You are sat at a white conference room table. The table top is a jigsaw of various smaller shapes, each one intended to appear irregular, smooth and amorphous. They are each mounted on rollers to make the table dynamically reconfigurable but it's clear they spend most of their time meshed together like this. The table top is lightly textured and pure white. It diffuses almost all light that strikes it but produces no glare. In front of you is a stainless steel presentation remote. There is just one man in the room with you. He is wearing an iridescent yellow silk suit and a white tshirt. You press a button on the presentation remote and the room lights dim as a projector behind you clicks on. [[The brilliant white of the table top fades away->slides]]

(display: "slide" + (text: $slideno)) {(if: $slideno < 2)[(link: "Advance one slide forwards")[ (set: $slideno to ($slideno +1)) (go-to: "slides") ]](if: $slideno > 1)[(link: "Return one slide previous")[ (set: $slideno to ($slideno -1)) (go-to: "slides")]]} [[Tell the man that you've chosen this design->decision]]

[<img src="http://coffeeshop.riazmoola.com/img/scorail.png" class=center>]

[<img src="http://coffeeshop.riazmoola.com/img/can30.png" class=center>](set: $seen_both_slides to true)

{(if: $seen_both_slides is not true)[(display: "notseen")]} The man looks contemplative as he touches the buttonhole in his suit lapel. It has been fully unstitched. You wonder what flowers were displayed inside of it, and why. He takes the presentation remote and presses a button. The projector turns off and the lights gently brighten. The textured white pangea of the conference table begins to hum with light once again. "I'll relay this information to my superiors." he says and gets up to escort you to the front desk. [[You follow his lead.->followlead]]

The man looks taken aback. "But you haven't seen both of the designs yet." he says. "I don't need to see anything else." you reply.

After shaking hands with the yellow suited man in the airy reception foyer you head to the bathrooms. They're decorated in a dark red tile that casts a claret hue over everything. Standing in front of the sink the high powered LED lights shine unflatteringly down on your face. You wash your hands with a bergamot scented soap, secured to the wall in a metal cage which allows inspection of the tastefully designed label on the bottle. Next to it is another bottle of moisturiser, similarly secured. The hand dryer is whisper quiet and feels hot enough to burn. You walk out of the bathrooms and head out of the foyer, back onto [[the street]].

In this subdistrict many of the lanes and parking spaces have been dug up and replaced with perennial wildflower verges or fast growing trees. Several blocks of buildings have also been reduced to rubble and left, or sunken to form wildlife sanctuaries. At this point, weeds consume much of the empty space although on the whole this area is still extremely densely populated. There are dark green leaves covering the flat surfaces of buildings old and new. Many have skeletal trees and bushes growing from them. A few of these look like they are ready to blossom, heavy with buds. You go to a nearby cafe that you've been to before, several years ago. You want something decaffeinated. [[Get a decaf coffee->drink]] [[Get a herbal tea->drink]]

The cafe is under the arch of an old elevated railway, the top deck almost entirely reclaimed by Buddleia Davidii. Inside, the cafe is only walled on three sides; The flat wall behind the bar and the two curved sides of the arch. It's busy, but the open front and high roof make the space seem empty. Steam pours off your drink into the damp air. [[Try to do some work->working]] [[Try to gather your thoughts->thoughts]]

You remember the dream you had earlier today, the lecture hall and the canned laughter.

You remember the dream you had earlier today, the provincial train station and the commemorative coin.

You can't remember when you started to exhibit such a profound reaction to Garibaldi's work. As far as you're aware, you're the only one who feels this way. To everyone else, Professor Vishnu Garibaldi was just a gifted designer and historian of interior textiles, specialising in locomotive mass transit. A specialisation which you now share. You check the time. You have a minute spare. You still have time to {(if: $work_or_think is "work")[[try to gather your thoughts->thoughts-pt-two]](if: $work_or_think is "think")[[do some work->working-pt-two]]}.

(display: "working_passage")(set: $work_or_think to "work") (if: $dreams is "train")[(display: "musegaribaldi")] (else-if: $dreams is "garibaldi")[(display: "musetrains")] (display: "relations")}

(display: "thoughts_passage")(set: $work_or_think to "think") {(if: $dreams is "train")[(display: "musetrains")] (if: $dreams is "garibaldi")[(display: "musegaribaldi")] (display: "relations")}

(display: "working_passage") You approve the final revision and stretch your wrists. It's time to head to your [[final appointment of the day->final-appointment]].

(display: "thoughts_passage") You finish the last of your drink and put it back down on the counter top. The cafe doesn't provide saucers. It's time to head to your [[final appointment of the day->final-appointment]].

You take your laptop out and boot it. You have some revisions to approve for a guideline document you delivered several years ago to a small bus company, before your current specialisation. The task is easy, mindless almost, but the software application is long winded. It feels like you strain your wrist completing the workflow for each individual revision, hunched at your laptop in the resonant arch.

You sit back with your hot drink in your hand. Although the cafe sees almost no natural light there are a few ferns growing from gaps in the brickwork, nurtured by the high power light fixtures hanging down from the central voussoir. You find yourself thinking about these small plants and their root systems, which must push through layers of brick that was probably laid around the early 1900s. It seems strange that a structure so old could still be standing, could still be considered fit for human use.

Your final appointment is forty miles across the other side of the municipality. You leave the cafe and head across the street to where the new station is. As you wait on the platform you look out at the tracks, the opposing platform, and beyond that, the old elevated railway above the cafe you just left. You pull your collar tight and put your hands in your pockets. The sun is going down already. The slight warmth that had begun to creep into the day is gone. You glance at the dot matrix display announcing new arrivals just as your train arrives. It's moderately busy and there are no single seats left. You sit next to a teenager wearing a brightly coloured jacket. [[Wait for your stop]]

The train screams across the city on its elevated track. The carriage design is one you're familiar with. You briefly worked at the design house responsible for it. This was in the time before you went freelance. Before your opinion had begun to carry the authority it does now. You remember yourself back then. Eager to please but ready to lie. You felt weightless, sharp, unpredictable. You faked deliverables and bullied colleagues. You cannot ever remember excelling at anything, but sometimes you worked so hard that when you stopped working you felt that the evening was yours, truly yours, in a way that you haven't felt in a long time. You sometimes feel like some of the recommendations you make to your clients must be wrong, must fail, but no one has challenged you about anything you do in years. [[Get off the train->walk]]

You follow the exit signs at the station, walking with the crowd through tunnels and underneath ceiling hung directional signs. Your final appointment of the day is a late stage consultation with a transport conglomerate that recently parted ways with their Head Of Textile. a near contemporary of yours from your days at the institute, they also studied under Garibaldi a few years before you. The project lead meets you in the atrium, a man with black shoes and a striped shirt. He takes you into a lift which descends to the basement of the building. [[Walk into the basement->basement]]

The basement houses several in-house manufacturing lines, engineering workshops and software labs. There are no windows, instead a light well in the center of the floor opens out into the atrium you just descended from. The project lead takes you through a workshop filled with various fibreglass chair moulds and into a side room. There's an upholstered two seat bench there, sitting amongst fabric offcuts and dried glue detritus. The project lead gestures towards the bench, inviting you to inspect it for final approval. You notice his cuff buttons are fastened on a skew. [[Examine the bench upholstered with a fabric designed by Professor Vishnu Garibaldi->garibaldi-bench]]

The Garibaldi fabric is similar to one you've seen before. A pattern from several decades ago which has had its colouring slightly modified to match the current conglomerate's branding. A proven design. Of its time without being pandering. The pattern is well designed enough that it seems completely natural with the new palette. You run your hand over the nylon pile, watching the way it catches the light differently when combed to one side. You sit on the bench. [[ * * *->final-dream]]

That night you dream you're on one of the new generation intercontinental Fuxing Hao. Looking through the window your proximate vision is blurred from speed but in the distance you can see the conurbation, so large that it appears that you are neither drawing closer or further away from it. There is no one sitting next to you. You realise the train is travelling across the ocean. The lights in the carriage flicker slightly and the train lightly rocks with the gentle motion of the waves rushing towards it across kilometres and kilometres of open ocean. [[* * *->the-end]]

The End