"Yeah, sorta. Just better organized and bigger. And 'cause it was all one country, there was free travel between the states, and it was easier to transport food and stuff around." There were, of course, many differences between the Cities and her USA, but the Free Cities has been the most familiar place she's wound up in Abraxas -- that's why it makes her so nervous to live there. There's too much that's too similar. She keeps waiting for them to slip up and destroy all life with their ego.
She nods sympathetically, takes a drink. "My whole country was pretty much built on slaves. We didn't have 'em in my time, it was close to two hundred years since they outlawed it. But there was a war over it, and the country almost ended. I don't know. My world was real big and advanced, but people hatin' other people for the color of their skin, or their religion or who they like to fuck or whatever else... those were problems we'd had for thousands and thousands of years."
And Julie might be a terrible person, but she was never a racist. She knew plenty of people who were, and she probably has some fucked up perceptions from living in white Midwestern hell, but she had always thought it was disgusting to be a racist. There was a whole rainbow of dicks out there, and she was interested in all of them.
Her eyebrows raise as she listens to his story. How can there be tanks in his world but cars are still a mystery? It feels like inventing space travel before even conceiving of airplanes. It's still a good story, though. "Make me sound borin'," she says lightly. "I never had the chance to steal anythin' that good. Most I ever got was a joyride in a souped-up Caddy my cousin was supposed to drive to Tulsa."
For a moment, she's quiet. Thinks about her own parents. She can barely recall them past the enormity of her final memories; them lying dead, side by side in bed, swollen and pale and already beginning to rot in the summer heat. How, in the end, all she could do was walk away from the house because she wasn't strong enough to move them into the grave she dug.
"I think my parents wanted me to be... less like them. Or at least better. But I don't think they ever believed I was."
no subject
She nods sympathetically, takes a drink. "My whole country was pretty much built on slaves. We didn't have 'em in my time, it was close to two hundred years since they outlawed it. But there was a war over it, and the country almost ended. I don't know. My world was real big and advanced, but people hatin' other people for the color of their skin, or their religion or who they like to fuck or whatever else... those were problems we'd had for thousands and thousands of years."
And Julie might be a terrible person, but she was never a racist. She knew plenty of people who were, and she probably has some fucked up perceptions from living in white Midwestern hell, but she had always thought it was disgusting to be a racist. There was a whole rainbow of dicks out there, and she was interested in all of them.
Her eyebrows raise as she listens to his story. How can there be tanks in his world but cars are still a mystery? It feels like inventing space travel before even conceiving of airplanes. It's still a good story, though. "Make me sound borin'," she says lightly. "I never had the chance to steal anythin' that good. Most I ever got was a joyride in a souped-up Caddy my cousin was supposed to drive to Tulsa."
For a moment, she's quiet. Thinks about her own parents. She can barely recall them past the enormity of her final memories; them lying dead, side by side in bed, swollen and pale and already beginning to rot in the summer heat. How, in the end, all she could do was walk away from the house because she wasn't strong enough to move them into the grave she dug.
"I think my parents wanted me to be... less like them. Or at least better. But I don't think they ever believed I was."