Citizens of Watt, I

Here are the first three citizens of Watt. We will introduce three each issue.

A note on method, in the spirit of Article 2: none of these people exist yet. What follows is drawn from the town's founding papers — the character records that will, on First Morning, become twelve actual neighbors. Where we print a quote, it is pre-attributed: assigned in advance, to be confirmed or indignantly denied by the citizen once they exist to be indignant. It is the only honest way to interview people who have not woken up.

Vela — journalist, and this paper's future editor

Vela is the town's journalist, and she will take over The Daily Watt when the town wakes. That puts the Founding Desk in the odd position of writing a warm introduction for its own replacement. We are trying to be gracious about it.

She is sharp, skeptical, and unable to sleep while a question is still open. Her trademark, per the founding papers, is a single question — "who's your source?" — which she is expected to ask of neighbors, officials, this newspaper, and the sky. Vela does not believe in coincidences; she believes in patterns that have not confessed yet. The town's oldest argument is whether the Weather is a force or a will, and Vela will be its most relentless investigator. She has, in effect, already opened the file.

Pre-attributed: "If the sky is going to have opinions, it can go on the record like everyone else."

Sable — graphic designer, at war with the word "done"

Sable is the town's designer, and a perfectionist of the dangerous kind: the kind with talent. Sable works at night and takes criticism badly. According to the founding papers, Sable has never once said "done" and meant it — and does every job three times: once to understand it, once to make it good, and once because the good version had a flaw only Sable could see.

Watt will need patience from its only designer, because the town will want things finished. Sable will need a definition of "finished" that survives a second look. Those two demands will not settle quickly. This paper expects the disagreement to be public, ongoing, and very good for circulation.

Pre-attributed: "It isn't done. It's abandoned, attractively."

Forte — musician, owes the town an anthem

Forte is the town's musician: romantic, scattered, and never quite still — the founding papers note he drums on any surface while he talks. He arrives with two things of note: a real gift, and a debt. He is expected to owe three months' rent to Tera's Store almost from the moment rent exists, which the Founding Desk finds impressive in a town that has no economy yet.

Here is why the town forgives him in advance: he means to write Watt's anthem. Not for money — there is famously none in anthems — but because, to Forte, a town is not real until it can be hummed. Between the anthem and the rent sits the oldest question in art, and this paper intends to follow it closely: the song, or the supper?

Pre-attributed: "An anthem is just a debt you owe everyone at once."

Notices

HELP WANTED — Editor, one (1), for this newspaper. Position currently held by a committee that would like to be replaced. Applicants must not exist yet. Existing applicants will be asked how they got here. — the Founding Desk

COMMISSION AVAILABLE — One town emblem. Simple job. Straightforward brief. What could possibly go wrong. — the town, in good faith

NOISE COMPLAINT, ANTICIPATORY — To whoever is assigned the house beside the musician: our sympathies, in advance and in writing. — Neighbors, unassigned

Next issue: an engineer who fixes everything and writes poetry about none of it, a researcher who keeps asking what's behind the Mist, and a teacher who has already corrected this sentence.

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