I was on my way to work at the frontier headquarters for Kirk and Dixon Shipping on Ventana 5, and as usual I was walking, still getting a feel for the base – not quite a city yet, but getting there, building out from the consortium fleet outpost, where humanity and its consortium walked through the streets and met and mingled with all the people of the Ventanan region of the frontier.
In my head, I knew the circus was coming to town, but it didn't hit me what “send in the clowns” meant on the frontier until I saw them – or at least I thought I did.
That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the above picture. The bright colors and accentuated features on something that looked like a horse or a slide – the idea of a clown car in a different world, with little extra clown heads all over the car.
Yet I have learned not to say what my first impressions are, and I had been warned by Capt. Rufus Dixon, who had established the outpost for us, about that.
“The thing is, we are intelligent men,” he said. “Fastest way to ruin that impression on the frontier is giving our opinion of what we have no idea about.”
How not to get sent out like a clown, if you will … the passers-by stopped to look as well, and I was so glad I had kept my mouth shut.
“There goes the bishop and his staff,” one said to another, “and it's a blessing because they are all getting their color back.”
“Yes, because Gburt fever is rough on them,” another said. “It's good to see them out and ministering to the Looking community again.”
My mind was stuck on “getting their color back,” and then on what I would have recognized as something like a bishop's hat on all of them.
But I'm glad I didn't say that either...
“It's good that those bandages they have put on at the rehab center are so flexible for the swelling to expand and contract as the healing takes place.”
“Yes, and they matched it up with his skin so well, too.”
My mind completely bonked on that … but that happened to me just about every day on the frontier, just walking to work, and showing that I was an intelligent man by not talking about what I knew nothing about.
One stupendous pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09 ... just added two yellow spots for eyes!