Carlos Fallanty lost his wife at the
time of the Violent Unknown Event. She was a voluble, untidy woman who made her own
clothes and washed once a week in the water wrung out of the
laundry. She was invaluable to her husband. She looked after his poultry, kept his accounts, and when roused,
was as uxorious a wife as Carlos could wish to have. On the night of June 12th of the VUE, Carlos's wife
suffered a stroke, and Carlos transferred his affection to a
turkey. The VUE Directory records for Carlos a debilitating malfunction of the
left ventricle, bone-marrow disease, and save for the VUE immortality clause,
would have normally given him six months to live. Carlos had buried his wife in the floor of his
greenhouse. The local authorities later had the body exhumed. Now Carlos lived in the greenhouse to keep his turkey
company. A fowl-pest epidemic finally erased Carlos's other poultry, and two
veterinary officials came to make sure he had burnt or buried all the corpses.
Insisting that the one remaining bird should be destroyed as well, the vet
promised to compensate Carlos with at least a set of photographs. These are the photographs
taken as the vet stalked the bird with his camera, whilst
the vet's assistant stalked the bird with a shotgun. Carlos was not happy with
the photographs. He is now awaiting trial at Clichy for shooting the vet.
