Summary: By Jetse de Vries Read by Nathan Lowell Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Jetse de Vries All stories read by Nathan Lowell Rated 15 and up for language Connoisseurs of the Eccentric by Jetse de Vries Salvador Dalí took his pet ocelot to a New York restaurant, where a woman protested that wild animals were being allowed in. Dalí replied it was only a cat he’d painted in op-art style. The woman looked closer: “Now I can see it’s a cat,” she said. “At first, I thought it was an ocelot.” Seated near the swimming pool in the artist’s retreat in Port Lligat, a BBC interviewer said that he had “heared that Dalí was unkind to animals. Was that true?” “Dalí cruel to ze animal?” The artist exclaimed, “Nevair!” After which he picked up his pet ocelot and hurled it into the swimming pool. —Eccentric anecdotes; I SEE HER arriving in her private vacuum zeppelin, flying over the rewilded mountains of the Nagasaki peninsula, while I’m tending the extreme bonsai wine garden on top of my farmscraper. Expertly manoeuvering through the photovoltaic city forest, the zep berthes at the telescopic docking station. It gives me time to change from my gardening attire into something more formal. Originally, she found me through my hyperdense pinot noir à la bonsaïe, almost two decades ago. Back then, I proudly showed her my grotto garden, but she quickly decided that she liked my ecological acumen better than my micro bonsai specimen. Today, for the second time only, she comes unnanounced. I come prepared, but even my Icho’s ‘the power of light and shadow’ complemented with a pair of Peron & Peron’s is no match for the way Afri Kamari makes an off-the-shelf, demure business suit look like haute couture. Above ebony cheekbones: deep brown eyes that see straight through you. Under a head of long, thick, fine curls: a brain that never shifts from top gear. Inside a very conservative skirtsuit: an animated sensuality that puts any anime girl to shame. Thousands of times I’ve talked with her over vidcon and — recently — EPIT-link: but when I see her in the flesh, I’m both entranced and edgy. I open my special cabinet and start uncorking my Takashima pinot noir — still the most exclusive wine in the world — to celebrate her extremely rare personal visit. She takes her time to smell, taste and enjoy it. Not bad for a beer aficionado, part of me thinks, while another part wishes she would cut to the chase. Neither needs to wait long. “Superb,” she says, “the Delirium Nocturnum of wine.” “Which you didn’t find special enough to sell to the aliens.” I remind her. “It’s phenomenal craftsmanship, second to none, but not quite . . . eccentric enough.” “Well, you are the true connoisseur,” I try to hide my frustration behind my half-full glass, in vain, “the best of the world.” “The best of this world.” Her eyes shine like crazy diamonds. “It’s time to expand the market.” “You don’t need me for the mad part of your schemes. Am I not the orderly yin to your chaotic yang?” “I do. You can deliver a quintessential part for this project.” The moment I’ve most feared and longed for in my life. “What is it?” Her amused smile broadens. “Your soul.” # THE ALIENS ARE still alien. After twenty years, nobody knows how they look like, where they came from or even how many there are. Yet, out of the grey they came. Of all places, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence ended when it received a clear, unencrypted message from the Moon, about the only place where SETI wasn’t looking. The aliens said they declined to say who they were and where they came from, as that was ‘irrelevant’. They said they came in peace, looking for trade. They declared the Moon off-limits, while the rest of our solar system was open ‘to explore as you see fit’. The trade items they were looking for were something else: they weren’t interested in our science & technology, art & history or culture & biology in general. They didn’t want to tell us[...]
