Themes: bureaucratic red tape, slipping between the cracks, surrealism
Samy has been a Paledriver for… who even knows how long. And there may be a restriction on how long even Paledrivers should be out in that grey mist, that enemy of life, but Samy knows their employer isn’t the only one that forges travel records to squeeze the most out of their drivers. The years pile on Samy, sometimes like a warm cocoon swirling with colour and feeling, sometimes like a sky of black wings and needling rain. That last trip nearly killed them: 12 days at once was far too long, and their mind was half-gone already, lost in the voices from the mists; maybe that was why the aerostatic got stuck, why they ended up in Revachol instead of Gottwald. The Kims had been half-starved by the time Samy let them out of the cargo space, the apricots rotten. Only Samy’s substantial drug stash made it out unscathed, and now they need buyers just to keep a roof over their head. That and for someone to help them: their employer has no outpost in Insulinde, and Samy is stranded here, waiting who knows how long for some indication of what should happen next. Can they find their niche in La Cage? A place to write their sad little songs, accompanied by their trusty musical instrument?
FULL GROUP TEXT
(mandatory for members of the group and Immigration Officers, optional for others - for example various other foreigners)
The immigrant housing occupies one whole wing of La Cage, the more decrepit one, hosting families that are far from home. People love creating distance between one another. Migrants from Graad and Oranje and some undocumented poor souls live here, stuck between horrible jobs in local sweatshops and old dreams. All together, squashed under one roof, the various cultures are clashing and mixing with each other, while everyone is still trying to maintain a sense of belonging. But is it even possible to call La Cage home?
Life in La Cage could never be called easy, but nothing takes the edge off like a little something to tickle the brain. The Druggies are less a formal group and more a handful of users that found themselves in the same grim alley every day to take the edge off before the corners got too crisp. Whether trying to escape or enhance reality, to get a grip or lose it, the Druggies explore the fractals behind their own eyelids, may it lead to enlightenment or their own destruction. The users of the group are enabled by the suppliers that take advantage of them: manufacturers and smugglers with their own agendas. Should the users ever manage to get it together, they might find some clever ideas to turn the tables.
