Barnaby,
This is an underutilized muscle. I don’t much write, much less letters. Most I do is itemizing repairs. They appreciate me, you know, their mechanics were well outdated. They were still using cobalt batteries! Imagine that! But I digress.
They don’t want us to think we’re imprisoned, so they’ve got us writing to outsiders.
Could be spreading propa I figured I’d write you. They chose letters because it’s more personal, less clinical than an email. They eschew all sorts of modern tech here. Public data centers and the like are always available and censorship isn’t as bad as down south, but it’s pretty ‘going up to country’. No personal computers unless its work related, which is fine for my work, but Lily missed her online orders. My boys play outside, something they couldn’t do in Canton lest they get eaten by streetsweepers. I’m surprised it’s not on the poster, would’ve thought there’d be some appeal in dedigitizing.
I’ve got so much to talk about.
The poster didn’t lie, it didn’t even much overstate itself. The healthcare is good, they treated Owen’s bronchitis, and it is so different to live among trees and farmland. I ate actual beef just a week ago! None of that vat-grown
shit junk. I thought it was an ‘every man a king’ sorta thing, but that’s just not the case. Everything’s communal aside your personal affects, and that does go too far in my opinion. I had a long argument with Father da Costa about people borrowing my truck, ended up getting it personalized. Lily wasn’t happy with me, and I got some foul looks from the more ‘enthusiastic’ congregants, but just because I brought the
damn thing into the conclave doesn’t mean it’s a carousel! Trying to get off the swearing. It’s not a good look among Catholics.
I should order my thoughts better, this is a messy letter. Guess I’ll go over the differences between the two. It’s nice to feel the sun leering at you from a blue sky, rather than a cartoon rat projected against aerosol-smog. Food grown in the Earth, rather than synthesized in some lab. It’s good to be able to feel truly valued by the community, even if I’m not yet adjusted to this ‘yours is mine’ attitude, rather than a literal number in one of those automated chop shops. And the space! 500 square feet is big in Canton, but it’s like a car trunk compared to what we have in St. Benedict. Guess there’s more real estate when your numbers drop under 10 mil
I mentioned Owen’s bronchitis… Look Barnaby, takes a lot for me to cry, but I never knew he could sing until I saw him in the church choir post-treatment. I wasn’t keen on the mandatory Sunday service, but that voice unlocked something in me I didn’t know existed.
There are negatives. Food’s less varied even if it is healthier and more interesting food is all at community events. That’s how they get us new congregants involved, I suppose, dangling a hot dog on a string. Sport is all local stuff, I know Canada’s a weird place, but cricket? Rather put my head in a vise. There are no TVs. None. It’s all books or radio, though on the positive side it’s given me that much needed kick to actually read my
damn Bible. Damn next to Bible, that’s awful.
Literature’s weird, and you’ll find this interesting. They don’t like how media digitizes the dead right? They reacted hard against that, so all their new writing is abstract. Characters are tree-centaurs and eyed wheels, talky animals and grain ghouls. I’m currently reading an epic about a stellar migration of the faithful through a Bok globule, called
The Miracle of M
Father da Costa just visited. Knew he would, he does with all the new congregants. He’s only around my age, young for a priest and very young to be running a whole conclave. He’s a relaxed guy, had a beer. We talked about a lot. My boys, Lily, my work, the truck which we patched things up over, even you and this letter. You’re allowed to visit, you know. Da Costa suggested you go to their branch office in Canton, could arrange a flight up here.
Don’t worry, they’re not gonna keep you here with pitchfo I’d like you to visit, Barnaby. If not, I can come down, though to be honest I don’t really care to go back to that slum. Just give it some thought.
Anyway, I best bring this letter to a close. How are you? Did you get your lungs checked? What happened to that girl you were messing around with? What are you watching? Tell me everything, Barnaby.
With love, your brother,
Rob.
~
This is based on the Benedict Option, a peculiar proposal by Rod Dreher that Christian communities should form what essentially amount to self-segregating international communes away from an ‘increasingly hateful, post-Obergefell world’. I did debate for a long time whether this belongs in the map thread or the graphics thread, but it does depict a map with relevant visual information and frankly there have been less orthodox maps in here than this, so why not? I was quite careful to not make a utopia, though on the other hand it’s not difficult to beat Disney’s megacity dystopia. Hope you enjoy it!