by PriamNevhausten » Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:38 pm
"Very well. Then, let us set some ground rules. Riddles," he began, "should have a definite correct answer, and not an abundance of possible correct answers. Let us also set a limit for our answers; perhaps we should limit ourselves to the things at the moot. I am not so good with the human tongue, and I would guess you do not have the same skill level as myself with the tongue of the timber wolf, so let us not base our riddles on such unimportant things."
He continued. "And we should have a judge, as an observer to this event, and declare a winner to eliminate doubt. We do not want this to fall so low as to a pup's game of pretend combat." He turned to face the others, looking them over. "Alex, would you serve this role? And Hatsumi, do you accept these rules?"
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru