Letter Exchange

En-drek-a Hamanto Bismali greets Miss Jellia,

I would greet you with your full name, but news has not arrived to me what that is. Please excuse the unintentional discourtesy.

I write you to thank you for your courtesy on the ship, and to pass on my news. I am, as you would no doubt have expected, fully in relationship with my new en-drek. Our time so far has gone marvelously. He is everything I was led to expect, as is his house…

Curses! Jellia had completely forgotten Hamanto! She had been so busy and caught up with her new life… quick, write a snip that would go back with whatever ship had brought this in. Surely they were going to stay more than five minutes.

My Dearest Hamanto,

It seemed they were rather formal in their snips but she wasn’t going to so all of that ‘greets’ business…

I am so glad to receive news from you…

Which she was, of course, but she was also so upset she had forgotten…

My new name is Jellia Kiladi. My skadrek is named Iloh Kiladi, and he is an absolute dear. It is strange getting used to having a man in the house. We wouldn’t, you know, back on my old planet, except when Mother would have a date over…

“Busy, Dearest one?” Iloh asked, coming into the kitchen and helping himself to a brew.

“Oh, yes, I got a snip from this girl I met on the spaceship, and I had totally forgotten to write her. I have some eggs baking.”

“Occupy yourself with your snipping,” he said. “Some things take priority. I am glad to see you concerned with your failings. What are you writing her?”

“Well, right now I’m telling her about you. And our house, and the neighbourhood. I’m not going to talk much about school, because she isn’t going to school. She just got en-drek-a’d, which is rather different on her planet. It took a month. Celebrations and all.”

Jellia’s fingers were as busy as her mouth, and she had managed to describe their arrival, the meeting with Iloh, the house, the park, her trip to the store… She had better read some more of her letter so that she could make sure she was answering her questions or whatever…

My en-drek was most pleased to find that I had formed a relationship with you and your mother. He says he will send a snip to you, and ask you to pass it to your mother, suggesting an increase of trade. He says that the route should be simple, since it lies along the route to Ephemera, at least one of the routes.

“Oh, Mother,” Jellia said, when she came in, yawning. “I will be sending you a snip in a few minutes from the en-drek of that girl, you remember her, Hamanto, that we met on the ship? Her en-drek is something in trade or business there, I forget, and he would like to form a relationship with you in order to increase trade.”

“I will read it with pleasure,” Mother said, sitting down on Iloh’s lap and sipping her own brew. “There’s is a difficult market, but potentially a profitable one.”

“Why is it difficult?”

“There are several obstacles. Cultural obstacles. I don’t know if you have heard of ‘nepotism’, Darling?”

“Um, like having me pick up fruit for you to test?”

Mother laughed. “Very much like that, only more so. On Ephemera it is highly discouraged. On Libertas it is fully allowed, and even accepted. Perhaps even encouraged. But on Libertas the person hired must be competent.”

“Oh! So you don’t… I mean… it’s hard to get things done?”

“Very hard, at times. And very hard to fire someone who isn’t doing a good job. You have to send a series of disguised complaining snips. You can’t overtly complain, cause that will break your relationship with the trader. And you can’t ignore it, or nothing will ever get done. You have to just subtly hint that there is a bottle neck in the trade.”

“Now, mind you, once you do, the result can be rather extreme. We had a son sent to us as a slave, once. His dilatory behaviour had caused the loss of several hundred platinum in goods and his boss… his uncle if I remember right… had been furious. He had had him whipped… he sent us the video and I was forced to watch it… and then sent him to us to ‘learn how better to manage affairs in a timely manner’, if I remember the phrase.”

“And they made it quite clear that all we needed to give him was bread, water, and a pot to piss in. And a lot of work to do.”

“Oh, my! What did you do?”

“There is a highly disliked position on our space station. Most cleaning is done by machine, of course. But there are some areas where the machines cannot easily go. So we put him in a position there, not a bad position actually, but he also had the duty of doing that kind of cleaning. And still get his other work done.”

“How did he do?” Iloh asked.

“Well, it only happened about six months before we left, but I heard he was adapting well. They had sent along a daughter with him, apparently they aren’t allowed to date our daughters, and she was helping him quite nicely. People like dealing with her, she was so invariably polite.”

“Ah, well, I need to finish this snip…”

Contract Marriage

Contract marriage is an adult dystopia examining the issues of marriage. Like 1984 and Brave New World, Contract Marriage treats the relations between the sexes as a fundamental aspect of how a society is formed and, thus, how a society can go wrong.

Unlike those dystopias, Contract Marriage isn’t all horrible all of the time. The characters for the most part have a good time and get along in their society. But the issues of sexuality, of marriage or not, monogamy or not, faithfulness or not, and gender roles… keep coming up and causing tension and conflict and joy and pain.

My desire is that my readers would be thinking along with my characters about these issues and perhaps even arrive at the same place (minus the flying cars).

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.

If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!

If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.

Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid: A Christian historical fiction chapter book about four orphans who go to live with their aunt on a dairy farm.

The Bobtails and the Cousins: The sequel to Preacher’s Kid. The aunt has married, and the cousins come to visit. Meaning town kids dealing with chores and manure and…

The Bobtails go to France: The sequel to cousins. The Bobtails, and Preacher’s Kid, get to take a trip to New York, London, Paris, and a small town in France. To get some cheese.

and

No Ordinary School: A brilliant but socially clueless boy gets recruited for a special school. Where he makes a lot of money, gets a girl, and solves a mystery.

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.

Arthur also has a substack, and a website. On the substack you can listen to some of his published books. Free.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von