Blog Love Omega Glee: How Much Fort Can You Afford? (8 March 2012)

"Hey, it's the celebrity!" Lilith says, as Francine enters Purgatory.

"Hush up!" Francine says, smiling.

"Where are the media piranhas? No more food for their feeding frenzy?"

"I think they've moved on. America has a short attention span, so I think my time in the spotlight is over thankfully."

"So did you get a book or movie deal at least out of all this?"

"Well, I got a lot of strange offers, including a couple of agents who called about me doing a book but when I told them my book would be investigative journalism instead of a kiss and tell memoir, they lost interest."

"I tell you, I was a little disappointed you didn't bring them here during all that. I could use the publicity."

"I was basically trapped in my house. It was like living in a fort for a couple days. By election day afternoon, the siege had lifted."

"I lived in a fort once," a woman with brown hair, sitting at a table nearby, says.

"Oh, hi, Chris!" Francine says.

"Hi, Francine! Chris probably told you this story already, but when we moved into our first apartment in the neighborhood, we had about twenty keys. I felt like I was living in Fort Knox, where they keep all the gold."

"Actually, the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox is mostly empty. Government officials quietly sold off most of the the gold over the decades to line their own pockets and fund illegal covert operations," Francine says.

"Really?"

"Well, I've never audited the gold reserves myself, but I've read a lot about it."

"Well, anyway, we had two keys for the front door to the building, then two keys for the door to our apartment, then there was a key to the laundry room, then a key to the storage space, then there were two different keys to our back door . . ." Chris says, counting on her fingers, ". . . and then two different keys to get into the back staircase from the parking lot. I guess that's only ten keys, but that's still a lot for a one bedroom.."

"I'll say. Why did you have so many keys?"

"That's a good question, but here's another one: What do you want to drink?" Lilith says, tapping her fingers on the counter.

"Oh, I'll let you order. I have to get going anyway," Chris says, standing up and picking up her purse, "I'll tell you the rest of the story the next time I see you."

"Bye, Chris!"

Chris leaves, and Francine orders a coffee, "the blacker, the better," and pays with a piece of green paper, buoyed by our faith in its ability to purchase things like a cup of coffee.

"I'm surprised you didn't pay in gold," Lilith says, holding the piece of green paper up to the light in order to see the watermarks and security strip.

"Eh, you can use gold for some electronic things and other purposes, but even the idea that gold is real money is an arbitrary decision we made at some point," Francine says, taking a sip of coffee.

"Not an advocate for a return to the gold standard then?" Lilith says, handing Francine her change.

"I'm an advocate of the honesty standard. I think that's a lot rarer form of currency."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.