Romance 1

Two bookstore employees bought coffee at the counter, found a table. Once seated, the man of 21, also an undergrad said cheerfully, "I'm starting to get suspicious of some of our customers."
"How so?" replied the 30 year-old woman, also a grad student.
"These Meena Zohra books, men are buying them. They always say it's for the wife or girlfriend, but you can tell they're lying."
The woman laughed gently, "good for you. Only a week in the store and you've figured it out. Marketing department estimates men buy a third of those."
The young man gasped, "thought is was ChickLit. So, what is her secret?"
"She seems to have found where romance, love, porn, suspense, intrigue and glitteratti lifestyle all intersect. Complex, multi-dimensional, the book is anything you want it to be. Every year, another one. Dozen books, all smash hits."
"I'd love to get even 1/100 of one of her royalty cheques."
The woman laughed, "that'd be nice. I'd settle for a quarter of the romance her heroines find. But seriously, to any young aspiring writer, they're a useful model. Read a couple, you'll see what I mean. Learn technique fast."
The man smiled affably, "yeah, I don't get hung up on macho image. Thank you, I'll give it a try."
At the very next table sat Meena Zohra. Not the author, Meena Zohra the library worker, who hated the author with a visceral passion.
Yet their lives had never crossed; the author Iranian-American, the library worker Afghan-Canadian. Nor had the library worker even read one of them.
Symbolism, every time she saw one, it reminded her of what a failure her own life was.

A block away, a dishwasher and kitchen helper sat in an alley behind a restaurant, on plastic milk crates, with cigarettes and coffee. The kitchen helper, who had started today asked, "so, did you say your name was Marcel Leblanc?"
"Yes," he replied.
"No fooling, Marcel Leblanc was my sociology prof at university."
He grinned, "love to trade paycheques with him."
"Don't be in a hurry. Three support cheques every month, rest on cocaine. Sometimes you see him go to the campus food bank."

Lata tore open her phone bill, silently cursing it. Not her fault she needed an unlisted number, yet she had to pay extra for it all the same. Still, beats all those angry phone calls from citizens. See, the other Lata Persaud was Finance Minister, which definitely is in the running for most hated. She shrugged, well look at the bright side, very few telemarketers.

Two men were finished in the bathhouse. Bathhouse culture specifically frowns on any conversation more profound than condoms and lube. It's a shame - the culture was doing both men a disservice - keeping apart 2 potential professional allies.
Suresh Patel, Revenue Canada employee and rabidly totally gay, would be shocked if he learned Professor Marcel Leblanc actually swung both ways.
Now if they should meet later in a gay bar or coffee house, they might - gasp - exchange names and shop talk. Their work would dovetail neatly, a sharing of experience.
Prof Leblanc was widely acknowledged as the foremost sociological expert on interaction between sub-cultures and mainline culture in Canada. In actual fact, 3 others did research as good or better. But these lacked media savvy, could not get their voice heard outside academia. The professor knew how to play journalists.
He was a total maverick, touching issues others wouldn't.
See, the American model is "melting pot". You are any culture you like, but American first, last and always.
The Canadian model was considerably less demanding. Cultural mosaic, cultural diversity. This model led to one of the more tolerant nations of its minorities. But it also contained a gigantic black hole in its thinking.
Suppose a white man decides to savagely assault his Native girlfriend. He can stand by to receive the same police action as if the girlfriend were white. Good and admirable, the government is sending out 2 messages: no tolerance of domestic abuse and no tolerance of racism.
But should a Native man assault his Native girlfriend, the law is largely reluctant to intervene in relationships within a particular sub-culture.
Similarly, a white employer pays Chinese workers less than the legal minimum wage. He can definitely anticipate a friendly-at-first and not-so-friendly-later-on visit from a labor inspector.
Should a Chinese employer abuse Chinese employees, labor inspectors are conspicuous by their absence.
See the Canadian model says you cannot abuse a minority and that is admirable. But within minorities is where it shows its dark side.
Suresh Patel's fame was within the walls of the Revenue Canada cult only.
Mainline thinking is your typical anal-retentive accountant, who books an appointment for 8:30 and gives you a list of documents to have available. Almost universally unwilling to admit the underground economy even exists. Why? If you admit its existence, you might have to do something about it. Far more civilized to just deal with legitimate businesses.
Mainline management has a pronounced disdain for those interested in UGE. Akin to the stodgy commanding officer of a regular British unit who despises those of his junior officers with Special Air Service or Para experience.
So while orthodox PM4 Program Officers worked on endlessly revising ways of doing business with established businesses; Suresh devoted the lion's share of his time to UGE issues. He was an expert at milking published statistics for tax leads.
The 2 men could gain greatly from each other.
Prof Leblanc would profit greatly if he had even half of Suresh's ability to read between the lines of stats.
Suresh would enhance his career if he had more sub-culture knowledge. After all, much of the tax dodging was happening within sub-cultures.
Just one of those twists of fate, the 2 men destined to never meet professionally. One of those things which could have been.

Aboard ship, 3 aliens gathered over tea.
Lt Xoz, a dashing young cavalier just out of the Academy, was on his first collection (euphemism for abduction) mission.
The grizzled mid-age Sgt Xar had successfully collected sentient beings from over 2 dozen planets, but never Earthlings.
Councillor Zir, an elderly woman, outranked the ship's captain on this mission.
Lt and Sgt would be on the ground; Councillor remain aboard to supervise beamers.
Councillor starts by laying down the law, "I would remind you of standard procedure on violence. No killing ever, any circumstance, even self-defence. Your trank darts are quite sufficient."
She then produced four files, which they examined in detail: author Meena Zohra, Professor Marcel Leblanc, Finance Minister Lata Persaud and Suresh Patel.
She liked a certain level of informality, especially since the boys were risking their lives.
She smiled, "Lt, may I please have your opinion as to why the High Command chose the author?"
"Ma'am, that would be the deplorable state of literature. Nothing but stodgy, hackneyed nonsense published anymore. Isn't a man anywhere who reads books; only a quarter of women do. They desperately need this Meena Zohra."
Councillor grinned wickedly, "Lt, privately I agree. Publicly, we would not wish to offend the Writers Guild. So, if I could trouble you to confine those opinions to this ship."
She turned to Sgt, "Sgt, if you would be so kind as to guess why Suresh Patel was chosen."
"Ma'am, the underground economy. Gets any worse, the space program is toast."
"We ah would not wish to offend Revenue Zarana. So, you too can be trusted to keep these views informal."
She smiled, "either feel free to guess why the socio prof?"
Sgt blushed, "ma'am, got me stumped. Our minorities and sub-cultures would be very different from theirs."
"Yes and no, Sgt. Yes in specific terms, no in generalities. Theirs are geographic, ethnic, religious, occupational or drug-related, exactly as ours are. So Lt, please guess why this might be useful."
"Ma'am, I remember reading how some of the East German writers got their work passed by Communist censors. They set all that corruption and inefficiency in some despotic African regime. Since the government saw them criticize others, it wasn't offended."
"Very good, Lt."