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Chapter Two: Law of the Circle

In the center of the marriage room, in fading white paint on the floor, was a circle. On a day to day basis, the spot is very well avoided. Everyone knows that once you have entered that circle, you may not leave untill you have been married. If, for some reason, several clumsy fools fall into the circle at the same time, they must be married to each other.

The only way you can fall in and avoid marriage is if you happen to be dust. Dust cannot be married. This is what is known as the "Dust Marriage Law". This does not protect, however, anything that is not dust. Sand can occasionally fall in the circle if, say, it fell out of someone's pocket. Now sand doesn't fall in there enough times for there to have been written any law about it, but it does happen. Even a beam of light that hits the circle must be married.

There were no worries about anyone having to marry sand on this Happy Tuesday, however. With large scrapemarks behind its boxy base, the industrial arm, freshly painted silver for the occasion sat patiently waiting for the other party. It streched and flexed in artificial excitement, turning ever so often as its censors picked up movement all around. The forward looking electronic eye that sat inside the base focused and unfocused onto the purple-skinned woman sitting in one of the surrounding chairs. This was its only view.

Suprisingly... or maybe not so, this factory robot had long been looking forward to wedded bliss. Waiting untill an arrangement could be made for it to venture out and become a bride. And then, supposedly, it would be happy.

Rain could hardly be heard on the roof overhead as the storm grew in strength outside. The purple-skinned woman, though seemingly pleased with everything was beginning to worry that her son had become a Wedding Runner. She rubbed the middle point of her triple pointed right ear. How terrible she would look if her son abandoned her like this by going to prison.

She looked over, quite ready to get her large rear up off the seat, just as the large oval door opened. Her most hansome son, Grek, stood there with slightly mussed hair. She gritted her pointed teeth and relaxed as the son this was all for was dragged out by his much better looking younger brother.

Mord hadn't bothered to dress too well for this. It even appeared that his suit was wet. Quite possibly from hanging too far out the window. He inched his way forward almost leaving drag maks as long as the robot's scrapemarks toward the circle. He stopped just short of his toes touching the line that made the outside border of the wedding circle. He took a deep breath and stepped over the line, right into the circle once again. His mother was very pleased and so was the robot.