At the beginning there was no attempt
whatsoever to regulate public use of
the gadgetry, neither as to who could use it
nor for what uses it should be employed.
As long as one had LA membership, one could
rummage through the gadgets at will, remove them from
their bins (in those cases, that is, in which
bins for them had been arranged, although there were more
gadgets than bins, which created great disorder),
and even retain them on one’s person
for an indefinite length of time, though there seemed
to be a tacit agreement that they should not
be removed from the Venue premises.
The difficulty began when people started
getting hurt, which frequently happened in scuffles
among the most youthful of the LA
that resulted during arguments as to who
had first laid eyes on a gadget of especial
appeal – for the (mostly unspoken) rule
of distribution was that informal custom
of Finders Keepers that seems to prevail among
men, women and their gadgets in advance
of the civilizing example posed by law.
One would suppose that there were plenty of gadgets
to go around, and there were. The trouble
was that they were quite rarely of equal appeal.
Disputes often arose during their bartering,
when for example one person who had
received two smaller or less conspicuously
attractive gadgets for a highly coveted
gadget would of a sudden change his mind
and request its return, only to be rebuffed.
Injuries in such scuffles in general were
minor, but one could foresee that bruised shins
would soon enough lead to broken legs and black eyes
to concussions – perhaps far worse.
As with much else,
debates with regard to what should be done
to obviate any further calamity
began in the didactic plays, initially
in the form of questions they put to us
as to how specific passages in the life
that spoke in mysterious terms of the gadgets
and the troubles people had had with them
should be interpreted. At first, the discussion
was a pleasant one, full of the naiveté
of youth as had been the like discussions
over the uncertainties that had arisen
with respect to the texts. Before long, however,
it became evident that this issue
led to a degree of emotionality
far higher than anything brought up heretofore.
I must now submit to posterity
an account of the events that helped to usher
our youthful Accord to its end. It began with
a session that was decisive for much,
possibly all, that would follow in this fragile
Venue of ours. Emotions had been running high,
due to recent altercations between
several LA who coincidentally
were scheduled for performances on the same patch
of Floor. After a round of questions posed,
as was the custom, to introduce the topic
around which today’s performance would be centered,
the individuals concerned began
to fall out with each other, and within minutes
we (the greater accord, that is) were entirely
ignored. From that moment on, the Lesser
Accord dropped the pretense altogether that they
were interested any longer in what we
had to say. In fact, we were more or less
forced to our feet and elbowed aside as other
groups of LA performing on patches of Floor
both near and far dropped what they were doing
and gathered around to have a look and perhaps
take part in the commotion rising all around.
There were variations of opinion
from individual to individual,
but of course the extremes managed to polarize
the LA as a whole. On the one side,
men and women argued that the gadgets should be
completely left alone until the Retrieval
had reached a later stage of advancement
when we’d be able to sort the gadgets into
categories and thus ensure that things were not
misused or ruined. On the other side,
the opinion was advanced that there was no need
to institute such drastic measures and that age
restrictions should rather be imposed that
forbade the exchange of certain presumably
dangerous gadgets with the most youthful members.
With an effort that no one could deride
as feeble, the greater accord elicited
one last moment of stillness in the hubbub that
resounded across the Floor when a few
of us banded together and suggested that,
instead of resorting to pushing and shoving,
a vote should be taken. But the LA
wouldn’t hear of this, as if the mere suggestion
that there might be differing opinions on such
a basic issue as the gadgetry
were an extreme blasphemy against the very
idea of accord and an insult as well
to the sacred herb that symbolized it.
Before long, our suggestion, placed in italics
by the momentary, sudden hush of silence –
representing a futile last effort
on the part of the Now to call an abrupt halt
to a time that of necessity would ensue –
was mowed down by the surge of dissension
that was quick to seek a dome off the Floor and out
under a starry sky which would provide it with
a wider resonance – the Floor to be
abandoned to itself for quite some time, until
that murky date in the untold ages ahead
at which the Lesser Accord, long after
it had subsided or been dismantled, and well
beyond the derision, now forgotten, that would
pursue it perhaps for generations
into infamy, would receive its belated
due as a momentous and vital phase – one filled
with men and women, their events and their
objects – in the annals of the Early Venue.
[Next: In the Margins and the Corners]