CHAPTER 28 - HAIRCUT COUPON

"Looks like someone forgot to clean the table off last night" Echo grumbled, adjusting a wet lock away from her face. Sifting through the melodramatic adverts, she came upon a conspicuous coupon buried in the mess. "Free haircut? That sounds pretty good" the early bird jibed, quickly clearing the breakfast table with a sweep of an arm. Between her feet the wooden floor devoured the refuse, transferring the useful ingredients to the portion's industrial system. Already bickering with an overcoat, Dazin came from the bedroom and marched straight to the other side of the room where the window-door hung. "Going before breakfast? I thought you liked to dine and dash" Echo observed dispassionately. Dazin turned around to see himself chastised with a head tilt. Must everything be studied with mockery? "I'm sorry, there's a protest in Idea's portion over logic rations and I've got to be there to settle the crowd" he explained, seeking reassurance. Echo's primary scoffing reflex was the farthest thing from concord. It was one of her day's off for goodness sake … a rare occurrence. Shifting mood she waved a hand, condoning the breach of breakfast, "Beats me why they ration logic like that in the first place, it doesn't make any sense". Unfortunately, the explanation for that was also rationed. "Wish me luck" Dazin encouraged, then left tout de suite. The early bird walked to the refrigerator to procure melba toast and raspberry jam. "Hmmm … I wonder if I used this coupon, what the result would be. I mean it sounds awfully good … but what would be the moral implications?" she speculated, crunching down on the first course. Peacefully the ventilation turned on in the background, automatically brushing theories of air through its filter. Insignificant motes of dust, trailing like strays. Sticks of chalk rolled across the blackboard on the eastern wall, then leaped off, creating paths of residue through space. Snatching one of them she dragged herself over to the blackboard, preparing its sable face with a wet sponge. With a line drawn across the middle, on the left, she wrote, "Normal Haircut" and on the right, "Free Haircut". It continued like that for some time as the day spread thin. With a labor across a prodigious length of the inner circumference, the Atmo became obscured until the mimicry of true night lulled those below to sleep in their miniature cities. Dazin came home from the long social escapade, shutting the door loud enough for an ordinary person to hear and be provoked. Making his way across the room, he found a full blackboard sprawling with arrows and cursive script. Such was hardly enough to outline the ethical boundaries of each proposal. Echo clawed a head of frizzy hair, shivering with the weight of the incompatibility. "Did you even go outside today, darling?" he sought, bequeathing a handkerchief for her to clean her dusty hands. The researcher shook her head to denote the opposite. "Naturally, the key to deduce the greater moral outcome is close, I just need a few more weeks to work out the precise details" the manic scribbler envisioned. "Let me take a look at that," he intruded, stealing the paper cut-out from the chalk-ledge, "darling, this one expired over a year ago, down here at the fine print". Gripping both sides of her frizzy fluffball of a head, the researcher stood dumbfounded, mouth agape, "Huh? Wa? But I …". Seizing the moment, he drew close, pressing his chest against hers. "You know what this means right? I'll just have to pay for a haircut" Echo whispered, voice overwrought with the grievous truth of the words. Her iris flickered with the gleam of esoteric wrath, then dwindled. Mute calmness disentangled the stress riveting every nerve and fiber of her being. The soft warmth of the Star-Map turned those aggressors to putty. "Really, I shouldn't have gone so far this time" Dazin thought privately to himself as he ushered her back to the bedroom. Things certainly had gotten out of hand.