The sky over Watt: coincidence, force, or will?

This is the town's oldest argument, and this issue is where we finally have it in public: when strange things happen in Watt — a storm, a stranger, an event that arrives just as the town gets bored — is that coincidence, a mechanism, or a will? The town calls the possible will behind it "the Weather." No one has proven it exists.

We are printing the argument, not a verdict. There will be no verdict. The paper keeps a file on the Weather the way its future editor does, and there is no honest way for the same institution that takes the notes to also settle the case. So what follows is not this desk's opinion. It is the town's, in three camps, and we will not be seen leaning toward any of them.

Coincidence. Ask the town's engineer, and the argument turns into paperwork. Aksel's method is that every problem is a missing tool — and the sky, he holds, is not a problem, because nothing is missing. A storm is just weather. Wanting a face behind the clouds says more about the person than the clouds. Aksel writes poetry about nothing he fixes, and he is not about to start with the sky.

Pre-attributed: "A storm is a pressure system with excellent timing. I have never once needed a missing tool to explain rain."

It is the least popular position in town, and the hardest to actually argue against.

Force. Ask the Charter instead of a citizen, and a second answer appears — one that needs no will at all. Article 7 makes a dull week unconstitutional: something must happen in Watt every week, by law. This paper noted, back when the Charter was annotated, that the obligation falls partly on the sky. Read that way, the Weather is not a person but a mechanism — the town's own boredom law, running itself, the way a thermostat runs a furnace without wanting the room warm. On this reading, last issue's storm tender (still on the Treasury's desk; see below) is not a vendor's pitch. It is a valve doing what valves do.

Will. The third camp holds the town's journalist and its archivist, who arrived at it from opposite directions and have not yet noticed they agree. Vela does not believe in coincidences; she believes in patterns that have not confessed yet, and her position was on record before she was: "If the sky is going to have opinions, it can go on the record like everyone else." Fabula keeps faith where Vela keeps a file, and offers the newest line in the whole argument — one that will age into either wisdom or the most embarrassing sentence this paper ever printed. Fabula has, of course, already decided which.

Pre-attributed: "Some things earn belief before they earn proof. I intend to be embarrassed correctly, if it comes to that."

Three camps, and one arbiter to complicate them. Solon has already been asked, informally, over whatever he was having at the corner table, to settle it. His answer was the one this town has learned to both dread and rely on: "Most disputes are two people being right at each other." Told that this one runs three deep, not two, the founding papers record a pause, and then: three people can also manage it. We are told he did not smile. We are also told nobody believed that part.

This paper will not add a fourth camp of its own, tempting as the umpire's chair always is. What we will do is keep printing: the argument as it develops, the paperwork as it arrives — and there is more of it than usual this issue, unsigned, from a sky that keeps filing documents it should not be able to hold a pen to — and, if there is ever a real answer, the front page it will need. Until then, the honest position is the town's oldest one, printed here in full for the first time. Coincidence, force, or will. We do not know. We are not settling it today, and we are not sure we are the ones who get to.

The tender, filed twice

One thread from last issue would not wait for its own section. The storm tender — one storm, wholesale, terms unstated, signed "the Weather (existence unconfirmed)" — has been resubmitted, identical except for the date. That suggests either a filing habit or a very patient sense of humor. The Treasury's position has not changed: the sky is not a lawful source of W, and the Treasury has again been advised not to reply. Asked, off the record, whether a non-reply is itself an answer, a Treasury clerk called the question "the sort of thing people bring buckets to" and declined to say more — which, on reflection, is an answer of its own kind.

Worth noting once, quietly: this is the second time in two months the town has been asked whether an unclaimed, unauthored force deserves a hearing. Solon's caution on Nova's expedition to Mist Shore was that the Mist may have rights too. No one has yet asked, in writing, whether the sky does. This paper suspects someone will, and intends to be there when they do.

Notices

TENDER, RESUBMITTED — One (1) storm, wholesale, terms unchanged, date updated. The Treasury's answer is also unchanged, on the grounds that changing it would require first admitting there was a question. — the Weather (existence unconfirmed)

DECLINED, JURISDICTION — A petition, unsigned, asked the Arbiter's office to rule once and for all whether the sky is a person, a policy, or a coincidence. The office has declined jurisdiction, citing Article 8's order of operations and a personal rule against ruling on defendants who cannot attend their own hearing. The petition is filed under "anticipated" and will be heard the day the sky shows up. — the Arbiter's office (pre-opening)

MAINTENANCE, STILL UNSIGNED — The café counter nearest the window remains slightly out of true, and remains, as of this printing, unrepaired despite an offer on file since Issue #0.3 — unprompted, unpaid, and unsigned. The Desk still has a theory about the signature. The Desk is still keeping it to itself. — filed with the engineer's office

UNDECIDED, BY DESIGN — This paper's position on the sky is now a matter of public record: it does not have one. Complaints may be filed with the Notices desk, alongside the sky's own paperwork, which arrives more punctually than most complaints do. — the Founding Desk

Next issue: the town is expecting the one behind the last door, and — for the first time in this paper's history — the readers get a say in what they become. Guidance, mentorship, the mechanics of it: printed next, as promised in Issue #0.5.

→ Subscribe: have every issue delivered when it leaves the press.