Topic: Sublimation: The RhyDin Post

Darien Fenner

Date: 2013-08-26 01:23 EST
Huffing and puffing, Michael M. Twert, Editor in Chief of The RhyDin Post waddled as quickly as he could down Main street in RhyDin, terribly unkempt by his standards: mustache unwaxed, socks mismatched" And with not so much as a dab of cologne! How utterly humiliating, it was. But alas, the Post required his expert attention, and his expert attention it would receive, lest the whole place collapse by printing time Monday morning without he himself holding up the girders.

Wheezing and red-faced, Twert stopped to catch his breath at a corner, patting his forehead with a silk handkerchief. A practical joke, some had said the printing errors had been. They had published nonsense that was ancient history by news standards. Stormblade" Proposition 37" And then there was that column by Chase Dawson!

"No, I mean I seriously didn't write it!," she'd insisted when he phoned her personally, the spunky damsel.

The Post building came into view, new and pristine as the day they leased it. He entered, and up, up, up the elevator he went, until he reached a floor that would surely be derelict that time of night. Instead, the doors opened to the hustle and bustle of a busy newsroom, the digital timekeeper on the wall reading some date from years ago. But it wasn't the date he was looking at, it was his reflection. Or, rather, the mirror image of himself standing on the other side of those brand new, stainless steel elevator doors.

"Oh, my," he said.

"Isn't it, though?" said he of the same voice and body, but minus several pounds and missing a few gray hairs.

"Hmm' I suppose we should?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"Then I'll right away."

"Certainly, my good man."

And with that, they parted ways and waddled in opposite directions. This could take some time to sort out.

Sublimation.]]

Chase Dawson

Date: 2013-08-26 15:56 EST
Things were getting weird. Not that they weren't always a little weird in Rhy'Din, but this was weirder than usual. After a rather tense evening at home last night, with Ivan in a bad mood, acting incredibly strangely and insisting on having seen her somewhere she hadn't been, Chase was having only a slightly better time at work.

"No, I want to know why I'm getting mail addressed to Chase Dawson, columnist," she was saying into her phone, staring in disbelief at the pile of letters that were stacked in her in-tray. She'd already been accused of writing something she hadn't, even if it had been printed, and the disruption to her routine was telling on her work. "I'm not a columnist, I'm a reporter ....What do you mean, I called down this morning and said exactly the same thing in reverse" I only got in twenty minutes ago ....Oh, for goodness' sake. Look, I don't have time for this. Just sort it out, all right?"

She put the phone down and glared at it for a few minutes, before switching her attention to yesterday's edition of the Post. There it was, a column attributed to her, with her picture at the header - though it was a picture she had no memory of posing for, much less a picture she would ever dream of using for work - written in the chatty, roundabout style she'd used when she was a reporter for her university paper. She hadn't written like that in years. She certainly didn't write a column called Chasing The Times. No, she was a serious lifestyle and events reporter these days.

So someone had either donated a piece of whimsy under her name and somehow convinced the editor to run it, or there was something even more fishy going on. She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Please God, let this be a one-off bit of weird."

Chase Dawson

Date: 2013-09-05 06:58 EST
So it wasn't just a bit of one-off weird. There was another Chase Dawson in the building, in the city, wreaking havoc on the original Chase's life just by being. She recognized her doppelganger with a sinking heart though - that was the Chase she'd been fresh from the Nexus, the Chase she had almost become if she hadn't held out in her interview for more serious subject matter to be allowed to write on. That Chase wrote a whimsical column and toured the town in ridiculously skimpy dresses, flirting with anything even vaguely male and apparently even going to far as to proposition a god for a roll in the hay. No wonder Ivan was so mad at her, the original Chase. He must have met the other one on the day of his interview at the university.

Well, it had to stop. It had taken a bit of work, but finally she'd found out where Columnist Chase made her home in the Post building, marching up there. She was tired of getting odd looks from her colleagues, of Emmet Bane's suggestive comments about her hands and his backside, of people who had respected her until a couple of weeks ago now assuming all she wanted to do was sleep with them. There had to be some way to differentiate between these two versions of her, and she had a feeling she was more stubborn than the other one.

Stalking along the line of cubicles toward the one currently occupied by a younger version of herself, Chase was unaware that what looked like the rest of the floor was retreating to a safe distance to watch the fireworks hat were inevitably going to ensue. She came to a halt behind her younger self, reached out, and snatched the phone from her ear, slamming it down and tugging the plug from the wall. The other Chase turned, fury igniting in familiar chocolate brown eyes only to be stopped dead by the sight of, well, herself, glaring down at her.

"What the hell ...?"

"Yes, what the hell. I'm getting trouble because you haven't learned how to control your sex drive yet. So here's the deal - you stop using Dawson as a surname. Use Mom's surname instead. Get out of my space, and for god's sake, leave my boyfriend alone!"

"Why do I have to change my name" You're the one with the problem!"

"I belong here!"

"So do I!"

"You're only here because of some freak cosmic alignment! Give or take a few weeks, you'll go poof in a little puff of smoke, and I'll still be dealing with the population of the city you've slept with!"

"Are you calling me a slut?"

"Hmm, let me see ....yes. Yes, I am."

From their place near the elevator, it was virtually impossible for the curious columnists to see what exactly was going on at this point. The argument had degenerated into a screech of anger abruptly cut off by the sound of furniture being quite heavily moved over the floor. Speculation abounded as to what the Chases were doing to each other, though blessedly, no one thought to get Bane down here to watch. He could have written a whole column just about this, and their Chase, the real one, would have blown her top even worse. As it was, the little fracas seemed to die down fairly quickly, and the familiar original Chase came back into view, a little disheveled, but calm once again.

"Are we done?"

The other Chase sounded just a little bit sulky. "We're done."

"And you are?"

"Chase Mackenzie."

"And what else?"

"I'll have more respect for my body and your reputation. You're such a killjoy."

"Get used to it."

The original Chase turned on her heel and walked back along the line of cubicles, ignoring the sudden scatter of her colleagues back to their individual work-spaces in the glow of victory. With any luck, she'd just dealt with her own problems in one fell swoop.

Darien Fenner

Date: 2013-09-12 22:16 EST
From: Mtwert@rhydinpost.net To: PostStaff@rhydinpost.net (group)

Subject: INTER-OFFICE MEMO

After the second incident of inter-staff violence in as many weeks, all employees are hereby required to attend a mandatory workplace sensitivity training seminar led by Flower Sunchild at 9AM tomorrow morning. Attendance will be taken. Any absentees will be subject to suspension.

Also, be advised that whoever stole and left the ransom note for my prized bulldog bobble head will NOT be invited to the company picnic. Return it unharmed, and I will at least consider permitting participation in the potato sack race.

Michael M. Twert Editor in Chief