Day Two Hundred-One: Strikes are balls, except in baseball

(Author's note: Check out the newsbox for a teensy proposition.)

I had hoped the strike would be, like, over when I got up today. Friday is usually the day of RESOLUTION, not the day where everything gets totally fuggered up. But… no… no, the weekend coma didn't do a damn thing, and when I woke up on the turrets all of Robert's strikers were still sitting where I'd left 'em. Sigh.

Only now they're fortified. They have log fences and tents up, all along the main thoroughfare. Looks like a city within a city, only the interior city is pretty shitty compared to the outer city. I think that's called a ghetto? Man, ghettos spring up QUICK.

Lemme put this strike in perspective, diary. We don't HAVE strikes in Castle WHATTHEHELLISHAPPENING. We don't have strikes in this region PERIOD. They only sometimes have strikes in the Imperium, and that's pretty rare, as far as I know. And those Imperium blokes are weird anyway. Some of them don't even like cheese.

Everybody should like cheese.

And why would you WANT to strike? The food's not being made. The castle's not being guarded or patrolled. The letter-carrying system has grounded to a horrifying halt. EVERYTHING HAS STOPPED, and I DON'T LIKE IT. If you really wanna protest rights or whatever, just have a damned revolution and get it over with! Those don't tend to linger as long! I don't care if this strike only HAS been going for a few hours in real time!

As you might have discovered, I don't support what Robert's doin'. Just in case it wasn't obvious.

So BECAUSE this all happened, we guards are having to pick up the slack, alongside the workers who refused to join the strike. The… depressingly few workers who refused to join the strike. (I knew King Jeffrey was unpopular, but not THIS unpopular.) That means, at least for me, that we have to get food to everyone.

Here's the thing, diary: the entire kitchen staff is gone. Apparently they were really loyal to Robert, so they were the first to join his strike. Nobody's around to prepare food, 'cept maybe some of the travelling merchants, and most of 'em took off when they heard about the strike. Strikes are super-bad mojo for anybody who likes to make money. So we guards are having to use… interesting… methods… to prepare food.

Okay. I'M having to use interesting methods. Stupid Captain Cedric.

We typically get food one of three ways in this castle:

- We buy from merchants
- We grow it, either in the rat farms or in the garden plots scattered around the castle grounds
- We hunt

The merchants are leaving, and the workers who tended to the crops are on strike, so that leaves hunting. Most guards, and the soldiers who are still loyal to the king, can hunt. So we're taking shifts going out to find and kill animals.

But me? Me, I can't kill animals. I can't hold a weapon, remember? Because my hands are all fucked up, and reject anything remotely dangerous? So the captain gave me a DIFFERENT task: I get to prepare the meat they bring in for cooking. And I have to do it quickly, as the strikers have stolen or barricaded most of the food stores. People are getting' hungry in a hurry, and I'm one of 'em.

So… whenever somebody brings in an animal carcass… I… have to… toss it on the Neck.

And watch it get diced to pieces.

And then pick up the pieces with the huge cleaning pole.

And put them in a big bucket for transport.

And then do it all again.

All.

Day.

Long.

One freaking word: gross.

Worst part is, the Neck has been rigged so the bottom won't fall out and dump all the pieces in the moat. That means every tiny chunk of animal flesh is stuck to the bridge, and I get to clean it aaaaaaaaaall uuuuuuuuuup. My uniform smells like a slaughterhouse, or it probably would if I knew what a slaughterhouse smelled like.

An eyeball landed on you today, diary. A deer's eyeball.

…

SO ENOUGH ABOUT THAT

I've been so busy that I'm not sure what's going on with the nobles. The Baron's trying like crazy to negotiate with Robert, I hear, but it doesn't look like he's getting' anywhere. No surprise: my brother can be stubborn as hell when he wants. The rest of the nobles are probably just freaking out that their servants aren't scrubbing their feet with wax linoleum foot rub supplement stuff.

Or something like that.

(I don't know what nobles put on their feet. I know they put SOMETHING on their feet, other than socks. Probably has some big, stupid name, and smells like the inside of a piece of fruit. Real berry smell, you know? Kind that makes you hungry? Fuggedabout it.)

I really, really, really hope this strike ends soon. Like, tomorrow. Tonight, even! Really.

Really.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Horrified Butcher