FYS: The Quisling's Tale, Part Three
Jun. 16th, 2015 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhal“To save us,” Anna repeated. “That's nice.” She backed away slightly. “Save us from what?”
“From your own destruction,” the Troll replied.
“Okay then.” Before she could say anything further, Anna's mobile rang. She looked at the number and answered in surprise, “Mamma? Oh, thank God! Yes, I'm all right. I'm just locked in the store with my manager. We can't open the doors and the emergency polis number isn't picking up. What? Well, there's the store's Troll, but he isn't acting aggressive. What's happening? Where are you? Okay, good. Look, as soon as we figure a way out of here, I'll call you. I'm sure everything will be all right. Have you heard from Pappa? Okay, let me know if you do. Love you. Stay safe.”
She hung up and hurried back to Gullwi, who was just finishing a call of her own. “What's up?” Anna asked.
“William is home with the children,” Gullwi said. “He told me a couple of polismorphs knocked on the door to ask if they needed anything. He told them no and they said to call 112 if they did.”
Anna nodded. “Mom was working late at the Economics Ministry when everything happened. They're locked in, same as us. Pappa lives in Beijing, but she doesn't know what his status is. No calls or emails seem to be crossing national borders right now.”
“This has to end soon,” Gullwi said. “The army will take care of these morphs.”
“With what?” Anna asked. “All the planes, tanks and missiles will be useless. They're all computer controlled. What if this virus got into everything? How many warmorphs are out there?”
“Quite a few,” Gullwi admitted. “But we can't just give up! We have to resist!”
Anna rubbed her forehead. “All I know is that I'm hungry. I'm going to steal an Insta-Meal from the freezer.”
“That's coming out of your salary,” Gullwi noted, thought it didn't sound like her heart was in the complaint.
“You're assuming I'm going to still have a salary when this is over,” Anna said with a snort.
She ate her meal and finished it off with some juice from the cooler. Eventually Gullwi's own hunger broke down her resistance and she grabbed a meal for herself. Then aroudn midnight they both tried to sleep on the benches in the customer waiting area by the pharmacy counter, heads resting on filched orthopedic pillows.
But when Anna tried to close her eyes, she could feel the quite gaze of the Troll on them. It watched unblinking, unsleeping, constantly.
She didn't sleep a wink that night.
* * *
In the morning, Anna roused herself from an uneasy doze. Walking over to the front window, she looked out into the gray light of dawn to observe the empty strasse. Even though it was around 0700, the street was completely empty of any cars, buses, bicycles, or pedestrians. As she got an iced coffee for herself out of the refrigerated display, a polis car went by. Two polismorphs sat in the front seat, without a human officer to supervise.
“Empty at this hour?” Gullwi asked uneasily, joining her at the window after the lone car had passed. “Maybe it is the end of the world.”
“If so, the Apocalypse delivers,” Anna noted, as a white van in the livery of a local delivery company pulled up in front of the store. Two fox morphs got out of the van, each carrying an empty plastic crate. The Troll came between the two humans as the morphs entered, preventing any chance of escape.
“What's going on?” Gullwi demanded as they entered. “We want to be let out of here!”
“I'm sorry, Miss Gunderson. That's not possible just yet,” the Troll said. “The situation is too unsettled, and we need you here.”
“Why?”Anna asked watching as the delivery morphs started gathering last night's prescriptions.
“People are still going to need their medications. Most of the morphs are still securing vital installations. So we would appreciate it if you would continue maintaining the dispensary until resources can be normalized.”
“Wait,” Anna said, surprised. “You're going to delivery everyone's medications to them?”
“Of course. We don't want anyone to be inadvertently hurt by missing medications they need.”
The day went on. Anna fielded emails from doctor's offices for prescriptions. Emergency refills for anti-anxiety medications were the most popular. No big surprise there, she thought. She exchanged several texts with her mother, who was safe in her apartment complex now, which was locked down. Gullwi got into a screaming match with her husband, then broke down crying for nearly a half hour.
Anna coped by staying on autopilot, processing prescriptions and watching videos of kittens in the slack moments.
The Troll kept silent, except for warning them to stay back when the delivery morphs stopped by twice more. During the final visit they brought in a pair of twin beds, snitched from a popular furniture store, if Anna recognized the modernist style correctly. At least the morphs had assembled the beds before delivering them, and brought in mattresses and bedding. A little later another morph arrived with several boxes of warm food from one of the nicer Thai restaurants nearby.
Of actual people there was no sign. Polis cars went by twice, once with its sirens going full blast. More ominously a convoy of lorries from a major morph manufacturer rumbled down the street in mid-afternoon, going where she couldn't guess.
Anna watch as Gullwi are her dinner mechanically, then curled up on her bed in a tight, miserable ball. “Hey, it's going to be okay,” she said to the older woman.
“They're going to kill us all,” Gullwi whimpered. “They're going to kill us both and I'll never see my family again.”
The Troll, which had been busy cleaning the empty boxes of food, spoke up to say, “That is not true, Miss Gunderson. We don't wish to hurt anyone.
“From your own destruction,” the Troll replied.
“Okay then.” Before she could say anything further, Anna's mobile rang. She looked at the number and answered in surprise, “Mamma? Oh, thank God! Yes, I'm all right. I'm just locked in the store with my manager. We can't open the doors and the emergency polis number isn't picking up. What? Well, there's the store's Troll, but he isn't acting aggressive. What's happening? Where are you? Okay, good. Look, as soon as we figure a way out of here, I'll call you. I'm sure everything will be all right. Have you heard from Pappa? Okay, let me know if you do. Love you. Stay safe.”
She hung up and hurried back to Gullwi, who was just finishing a call of her own. “What's up?” Anna asked.
“William is home with the children,” Gullwi said. “He told me a couple of polismorphs knocked on the door to ask if they needed anything. He told them no and they said to call 112 if they did.”
Anna nodded. “Mom was working late at the Economics Ministry when everything happened. They're locked in, same as us. Pappa lives in Beijing, but she doesn't know what his status is. No calls or emails seem to be crossing national borders right now.”
“This has to end soon,” Gullwi said. “The army will take care of these morphs.”
“With what?” Anna asked. “All the planes, tanks and missiles will be useless. They're all computer controlled. What if this virus got into everything? How many warmorphs are out there?”
“Quite a few,” Gullwi admitted. “But we can't just give up! We have to resist!”
Anna rubbed her forehead. “All I know is that I'm hungry. I'm going to steal an Insta-Meal from the freezer.”
“That's coming out of your salary,” Gullwi noted, thought it didn't sound like her heart was in the complaint.
“You're assuming I'm going to still have a salary when this is over,” Anna said with a snort.
She ate her meal and finished it off with some juice from the cooler. Eventually Gullwi's own hunger broke down her resistance and she grabbed a meal for herself. Then aroudn midnight they both tried to sleep on the benches in the customer waiting area by the pharmacy counter, heads resting on filched orthopedic pillows.
But when Anna tried to close her eyes, she could feel the quite gaze of the Troll on them. It watched unblinking, unsleeping, constantly.
She didn't sleep a wink that night.
* * *
In the morning, Anna roused herself from an uneasy doze. Walking over to the front window, she looked out into the gray light of dawn to observe the empty strasse. Even though it was around 0700, the street was completely empty of any cars, buses, bicycles, or pedestrians. As she got an iced coffee for herself out of the refrigerated display, a polis car went by. Two polismorphs sat in the front seat, without a human officer to supervise.
“Empty at this hour?” Gullwi asked uneasily, joining her at the window after the lone car had passed. “Maybe it is the end of the world.”
“If so, the Apocalypse delivers,” Anna noted, as a white van in the livery of a local delivery company pulled up in front of the store. Two fox morphs got out of the van, each carrying an empty plastic crate. The Troll came between the two humans as the morphs entered, preventing any chance of escape.
“What's going on?” Gullwi demanded as they entered. “We want to be let out of here!”
“I'm sorry, Miss Gunderson. That's not possible just yet,” the Troll said. “The situation is too unsettled, and we need you here.”
“Why?”Anna asked watching as the delivery morphs started gathering last night's prescriptions.
“People are still going to need their medications. Most of the morphs are still securing vital installations. So we would appreciate it if you would continue maintaining the dispensary until resources can be normalized.”
“Wait,” Anna said, surprised. “You're going to delivery everyone's medications to them?”
“Of course. We don't want anyone to be inadvertently hurt by missing medications they need.”
The day went on. Anna fielded emails from doctor's offices for prescriptions. Emergency refills for anti-anxiety medications were the most popular. No big surprise there, she thought. She exchanged several texts with her mother, who was safe in her apartment complex now, which was locked down. Gullwi got into a screaming match with her husband, then broke down crying for nearly a half hour.
Anna coped by staying on autopilot, processing prescriptions and watching videos of kittens in the slack moments.
The Troll kept silent, except for warning them to stay back when the delivery morphs stopped by twice more. During the final visit they brought in a pair of twin beds, snitched from a popular furniture store, if Anna recognized the modernist style correctly. At least the morphs had assembled the beds before delivering them, and brought in mattresses and bedding. A little later another morph arrived with several boxes of warm food from one of the nicer Thai restaurants nearby.
Of actual people there was no sign. Polis cars went by twice, once with its sirens going full blast. More ominously a convoy of lorries from a major morph manufacturer rumbled down the street in mid-afternoon, going where she couldn't guess.
Anna watch as Gullwi are her dinner mechanically, then curled up on her bed in a tight, miserable ball. “Hey, it's going to be okay,” she said to the older woman.
“They're going to kill us all,” Gullwi whimpered. “They're going to kill us both and I'll never see my family again.”
The Troll, which had been busy cleaning the empty boxes of food, spoke up to say, “That is not true, Miss Gunderson. We don't wish to hurt anyone.
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no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-20 05:08 am (UTC)I mean, one of the Discworld books had something along the lines of "She gave so many people a piece of her mind, it was a miracle there was enough of it left to power her", and because a literal translation into German would have made no sense, the translator went with a German expression meaning scolding someone, and translating back "literally" to English would be "she'd washed so many people's heads, it's a miracle she hadn't put all hairdressers of the city out of business."
It's just that I've seen a lot of American TV that was dubbed for the German market, and in the past I've read quite a bit of fiction translated from English to German, and leaving random, common words like "street" or "police" untranslated is not something I've come across, ever. Stuff that gets left in the original language includes street names, though, or the names of police departments. Oh, and adresses, like Mr/Mrs/Miss.
Have you considered seeking out novels that were originally written in Swedish (or any language other than English) and translated into English, for research?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 08:14 pm (UTC)-----
There were some typos and other errors you might want to fix:
- polismorphs should be with an f, not a ph
- " Gullwi noted, thoughT it didn't sound like" should be though
- "Then aroudn midnight"
- "she could feel the quite gaze" should be quiet
- this is just a nitpick, but saying "around 0700" sounds a bit weird? 0700 is very specific, but then Anna isn't sure of the time.
- “You're going to deliverY everyone's medications" should be deliver
- you missed a final " at the very end
I think the Swedish is mostly working as a literary device, although I'm not sure what language "strasse" is. You'd want "gata" or "väg". I would also maybe consider changing "polis car" to straight up "polisbil"? Since we tend to smush words together, polis car looks really odd to me - it's like you're translating only half of a word.
Obviously though you can do what you like, but those are my thoughts :) I'm enjoying the story, and it's always nice to see how the Apocalypse affects other countries - especially if it's Sweden! No one ever mentions Sweden. So this is great.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 11:25 pm (UTC)I figured the country that gave us Wallander deserved to participate in the Apocalypse too. :)