Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Sudetenland Tales

Page 23

The absence of government does not create a vacuum. There is always something coming along to fill all empty spaces; black holes. Nature has yet to follow any of man’s laws, possibly because it feels no need to deign to read them.

The frequency a pirate radio network uses when broadcasting from junkyard towers and apartment basements is below the mainstream radar. The DJs aren’t spinning records; they’re reading neighborhood updates, warnings of turf wars, and sharing resources. Many find themselves “tuned in,” tracing clues through the static. Every broadcast ends with the same cryptic signoff:; “Keep your signal clean.”

Gray market medics once driven out of hospitals with slashed budgets, former nurses and EMTs now work under burner clinic names. They’re ghost skilled and fiercely ethical, treating everyone without asking why they’re bleeding. One medic who calls herself Drelet brings cold packs and calm, with morphine and miracles.

Street arbiters emerge. No one any longer respects or defers to the contradictory, purchased judges. There is no longer a respected and followed court. So disputes are resolved or not in neutral zones; convenience store lots, skate parks, unused subway stations, and the like. Arbiters act as traveling