quick fic

[wytchcroft]

A  Translator Speaks:

This interview transcript is reprinted here c/o Syswatch Productions and with only minor editorial adjustment is almost entirely verbatim.

Is this – are we recording? So strange a device, you must forgive me, I am used by now of course to a human, that is a living, amanuensis. Indeed I am rather inexperienced with words in this manner, I mean words alone.

Oh yes, introductions, forgive me I thought you had already… certainly;

My name is Rotteiger, Horence Rotteiger, and I am part of the translation body here at the Martian reliquary. My particular field, my specialism, is the deduction, simulation and/or reproduction of those scents key to the library of what we somewhat simplistically hail as the Martian texts.

What? Oh by all means, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the wonderful discoveries here I shall briefly explain the nature of the work. The Bernard Foundation was set up and takes its name to honour Bernard Chelsis that marvellous young lad responsible for, well, for everything here really. If not for Bernard all about us would be considered merely a somewhat enigmatic collection of bones, shells and smashed crockery of a naïf form somewhat primitive to our eyes. Ah but the eyes, as we have been so often told (and yet how rarely the truth is acknowledged!) are easily deceived. Bernard it was that demonstrated the tactile and multi-sensory nature of Martian writing, a writing that bares almost no relation to what we Earthers might label thus. Bernard it was that when confronted by an object shaped like an inverted sea shell, or ice cream cone*, proceeded to place it to his ear, listening as he did so (I am reliably informed) with an angelic smile. This done he wasted no time in licking the cone before blowing through it like a trumpet and triumphantly sticking it up his nose with an enthusiastic and victorious snort.

The reaction (which is to say the discovery) was immediate; one moment there stood in the hall a sweet if somewhat willful child, a child with a dead lump of Mars in his dimpling fists, when upon the next instant all was transformed as the object sang and shone and tasted and smelled in a glowing miasma around the curling hair of this natural genius of a boy.

Thus the library and the foundation were formed, for it was apparent that these Martian texts were composed equally of fragmentary letters, numbers and musical notation, sights, sounds and smells, all in combination like the elements of a symphony or a well prepared meal. I suppose an analogy could be drawn to our own hologramic entertainments but the comparison is of only limited use since the Martian texts are in no way electronic and are indeed (as we have learned through study) primarily ‘works’ in the classic sense of communication, language, that is; writing.

My job then is to translate, document or speculate upon the necessary odours of a given piece. Sometimes I attempt to recreate the lost effluvium where that important information is clearly missing, just as one might trace the necessary wordings of an old and pieced together papyrus. It is a long and difficult task but one I find to be richly rewarding. Over the years this has lead, if you can see behind me, to the development of my own collection here, an humble archive containing examples of all those perfumes I have created or renovated for the process of reading.

Oh mellifluous carbons, sweet tangs of mineral, oh fragrant spices and alien herbs, such harmonies of silica and basalt, pungent polymers and ancient cottons, all the myriad mysterious secretions of skin and gland, all the treasured essences arising from a lost and enigmatic people!

Oh dear, I’m afraid you must excuse me the tendency to run on. We translators are wont to wax poetic at times – Dr Arscenie for example will extol the power of a “wanton azure” or a “touching yet philosophic cyan”. We are of course slaves to our vocational passions.

Hmm? Why surely, I would be delighted to show you some of them – though they must be handled delicately, yes, just so, the gloves, yes. Ah, a fine choice that one; ‘Courtyard awnings of unknown fabric weathered and worn, dance with unexpected delight in the glow of a piquant Martian dawn’, the accompanying word for which would be Frut.

And this? Oh, another favourite; ‘They came from the city bearing its traces upon them as they did so, a blend of minute metropolitan odours, across the great plains they came singing in the light of the blue green world above them’, rendered in the native tongue as; Spog.

Aha! That ‘blue green world’? The Earth? Quite so. How they must have pondered such a planet, such a jewel in the firmament. Would they have made anything of it and of us? Yes, with all their culture and with all the sensitivity of their finely tuned and generously developed, um, senses; to the Martian perhaps would be granted a solution to the riddle of Man and his all too brief existence. Such a question as has gnawed at us down the centuries, what is this quintessence of dust? For the literate beings of Mars the answer might simply be; a good read.

Yes, I am proud of my endeavours but then I am equally proud of all the work done by the foundation and my colleagues, that great team, some of whom you may know rather better as a consequence of this production, and many of whom are more eloquent and concise than me when it comes to public speaking! I must here again thank you for the opportunity this interview has afforded me to shed light on an aspect of our reliquary’s work. I do hope your audience back home will find my presentation of some interest and that they may be spurred to more directly support the Foundation and its invaluable researches.

…..

*Yes, I did say ice cream cone and naturally we can offer a genuine interactive opportunity for all our visitors by sharing our original, commemorative and most assuredly edible Bernard Foundation Ices available from the kiosk in the main reception foyer. We all need our pleasures and I can promise that children will not be disappointed whilst parents will discover that the price alone is a treat! 

 © this printed version is copyright the Bernard Foundation reprinted by permission of System Watch Productions a division of 22^nd Century Dog Inc.

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thanks to everyone whoo has commented/messaged me recently - and 3 cheers for the public library!
i'll be back when i can,
wytch :))

Comments

[reginaclarejane.livejournal.com]

three cheers and a huzzah for the library!
so happy to see you if only for a little while!
and what exquisite writing- i was taken in immediately. somehow, even though science fiction is beyond me, you always seem to be on the touchstone of what exactly is going on here at the moment.

and i loved this particularly: "Oh dear, I’m afraid you must excuse me the tendency to run on. We translators are wont to wax poetic at times – Dr Arscenie for example will extol the power of a “wanton azure” or a “touching yet philosophic cyan”. We are of course slaves to our vocational passions."

slaves indeed.
:)
x

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

heeee :)) and i do love to poke a little fun at myself now and again :))