All the smiles I’m wakin’ up

All the space I’m takin’ up

All the sound is breakin’ up

Maybe you get what you wanted

Maybe you stumble upon it

Everything you ever wanted

In a permanent state… Coldplay

Thus society and laws “gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom for all time, established forever the law of property and inequality, changed a clever usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the whole human race to work, servitude and misery.” Rousseau

“That’s right…I killed your Master!”  Elle Driver

Names, handed down through generations so that their bearers could retrace footsteps to their ancestors, could be made to carry power rather than responsibility. A name could erase crimes long forgotten, until one day, all that is left is the faint remembrance that a struggle was lost by the little people, and won by the heir to some invisible fortune.

So Helena Peabody awoke one rainy morning in London’s east side, in her small, hard-one home, to learn that her record was erased, her former mistress paid off in full (and distracted by a new woman, no doubt introduced to her by a friend of a friend of Peggy Peabody), and the title of heir reinstated back to her.

“Good, we’re moving.” Bette said cheerfully. Noting her partner’s scowl, she rolled over fully and reached out to rub the soft part of her belly.  “Oh dear, ok, darling, can you please use your vast sums of money to buy us a proper house in this country?” Bette joked, feeling the money to be nothing more than a convenient tool, like the monkey wrench she had found the day before, buried beneath Helena’s hair dryer.

“Fair enough…” Helena conceded. “You’ve stuck by me when I’ve had so little…I don’t begrudge you a larger home.” Still, she scowled. “I just don’t like it…how easy it’s been for me to leap over my responsibilities.”

“You did run away from the country before your court date dear.” Bette tried to keep the teasing out of her voice.

“Yes, of course I did. I don’t think a person should have to go to prison…well, ever…prisons are ridiculous inventions…I just think that I also shouldn’t be able to use…oh fuck it, nevermind.” She turned over and pouted while Bette reached for the laptop and began a search through real estate listings. As hard as she tried, Helena could not articulate that for her, there was little difference between the police who harassed some of the youth she worked with, the idiots who wore crowns and jewels and demanded subservience in exchange for god knows what, and her own family.