The chair waits before you, sagging and forlorn.

The chair waits before you, sagging and forlorn.

Listen for the song.

The soft tap of a drumbeat knocks against your eardrum. As the song grows louder, a spectral form takes shape, hovering in the chair.

"We've outgrown the need for Perpetual Revolution. That's what they don't understand."

"You're the only one of them with any sense, Antoine."

You follow his eyes to the desk. A miniature soldier stands watching him, immobile and unsympathetic.

Alternative wording

On his desk stands the same soldier figurine you saw on the balcony. It watches him unsympathetically.

"Point out that they haven't sponsored a single successful coup in years and you get accused of being a 'counter-revolutionary pessimist' or an 'intellectual midget'..."

That's a good thing. We should vote for change, not force it through violence.

"Rich indeed for the Kohilans to accuse a man of intellectual midgetry while bringing us nothing but a popular song..."

IT MUST BE A VERY GOOD SONG. THE LAST SONG YOU NEED TO HEAR. THE SONG THAT SOLVES MUSIC.

"Portofiro needs money, Antoine."

"EMTERR vultures will fund hospitals and homes for the indigent. Then we'll accept technical advisors from the Superbloc, use their expertise to develop our own private sector industries."

"They try to regulate Nestorismo... Compromises, concessions... Permissiveness... No más. Nestorismo is past and future. It is individual and collective. It is what will hold."

"We've been cuckolded enough, Antoine. Time for Nestorismo to do some fucking."

Face set in grim resolution, the vision fades back into his chair.

'Nestorismo' -- Nestor's personal brand of politics. It meant whatever he meant in that moment.

If you haven't overthrown anyone for years you need more revolution, not less.

This is all his fault for tolerating criticism in the first place.

A Pocket Combatant -- a type of miniature army which reached its sales height in the 50s. Recalled, discontinued, sued into bureaucratic oblivion when the figures were found to be made of lead.

"We've outgrown the need for Perpetual Revolution. That's what they don't understand."

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's supreme leader.

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's supreme leader from the years 28 to 80.

What happened in 80?

He fled to an unknown location after being exiled for the third and apparently final time, though a small collection of loyalists await his return.

That is a long time.

In his own words, he relieved his citizens from the burden of voting.

Hovering.

Embarrassing for him.

There is something humiliating about being spectral. Which is why you should get out of here.

The seat shrank over time.

It's a fucking ghost!

Ghost! A ghost!

Yes, I get it -- ghost! Hush.

You're just going to be in here with the ghosts. Alright.

Yeah is this a bit fucked maybe?

Get the fuck out of here!

Tune in to the building's frequency.

You breathe in, tasting the building's flavour -- stale damp, chalk. Dust swims through your lungs. The building knows you, now. It will allow itself to be known in turn.

Figures appear in the room. Hazy, human, laughing. They walk through you.

One tacks up a banner in the corner which reads: 'INTERNATIONAL PARTY CONFERENCE 66'.

With the ghostly figures comes a song -- a low and constant sound. The room ripples with noise, alive but blurred like a dream.

What... is happening?

Perhaps the song is hypnotising you into sharing a memory with the building, an architectural daydream.

People mill around you, chattering, formed in cloud by a slapdash maker -- some have both eyes on one side of their head, others are rendered limbless.

Ghost gäng. Huddle up.

Gäng don't fuck with ghosts. Scatter.

Must be an explanation. Need to see more.

A pair of hands passes you by, holding a glass of wine.

As the song grows louder, a spectral form takes shape, hovering in the chair.

A manifestation of psychic guilt, but whose?

Many spirits seem stronger than others -- their features clearer, their voices louder. The song rises as they pass. You could be onto something.

Spectral communists are trying to reveal immaterialist truths to me...

Some spirits seem stronger than others -- their features clearer, their voices louder. The song rises as they pass. Perhaps a side effect of their enhanced materialism.

Ghosts aren't real, this is bullshit.

The spirits mist and reform, swirling around you as they move. A floating arm passes through you clutching a cigar. Hurting them could be a challenge.

This building is having an existential crisis.

Look around.

A voice sings, but you can't make out the words.

Could have been the squatters down in the hall.

The faint drumbeat evades you, slipping away into the shadows.

So arhythmic that it may never have been a drumbeat at all.

Examine the wall.

It appears to be peeling.

SHEDDING ITS OLD SKIN, A LAUDABLE ACT OF SELF-CRITICISM.

It's the damp. Your lungs have probably aged two years since stepping foot in this office.

This isn't self-criticism, this is decay.

The air is practically wet. You could probably survive in here just by absorbing moisture through your skin.

The shedding part of the wall does look very ashamed of itself.

THERE IS NO 'DAMP'. ONLY THE SWEAT OF EFFORT.

Leave.

You step away from the sagging chair.

A steel conference table piled with bureaucratic debris. One of the chairs is embroidered with a red 'N'.

You find yourself humming along with the building, involuntarily.

A few lines of song, like tinnitus in the back of your head. You can't focus on it.

A guitar riff seems to sound from the chair itself, momentarily.