Citizens of Watt, I

Three per issue, as promised. A small town dislikes being rushed, and so do introductions.

A note on method, in the spirit of Article 2: none of these people exist yet. What follows is drawn from the town's founding papers — the character records that will, on First Morning, become twelve actual neighbors. Where we print a quote, it is pre-attributed: words assigned in advance, to be confirmed or indignantly denied by the citizen in question once they are in a position to be indignant. We consider this the only honest way to interview the unborn.

Vela — journalist, and this paper's future editor

Sharp, skeptical, and constitutionally incapable of sleeping while a question is still open. Vela will run The Daily Watt, which puts the Founding Desk in the unusual position of writing a warm introduction for its own replacement. We are trying to be gracious about it.

Her first words, according to the founding papers, will be some version of "who's your source?" — a question she is expected to ask of neighbors, of officials, of this newspaper, and, notably, of the sky. Vela does not believe in coincidences; she believes in patterns that haven't confessed yet. The town's oldest argument — whether the Weather is a force or a will — will find in her its most relentless investigator. She has, in a manner of speaking, already opened the file.

Pre-attributed: "If the sky is going to have opinions, it can go on the record like everyone else."

Sable — graphic designer, at war with the word "done"

A perfectionist of the dangerous kind: the kind with talent. Sable works at night, takes critique the way cats take baths, and is on record — pre-record — as having never once said "done" and meant it. The founding papers state, drily, that Sable does every job three times: once to understand it, once to be brilliant, and once because the brilliant version had a flaw invisible to every eye in town except one.

What Watt will ask of its only designer is patience with a town that wants things finished. What Sable will ask of Watt is a definition of finished that survives a second look. Negotiations are expected to be ongoing, public, and excellent for this paper's circulation.

Pre-attributed: "It isn't done. It's abandoned, attractively."

Forte — musician, owes the town an anthem

Romantic, scattered, and rhythmically incapable of stillness — the founding papers note he taps counters while talking, which every counter in town will soon learn. Forte arrives with two possessions of note: a genuine gift, and a debt. He is expected to owe three months' rent to Tera's Store from approximately the moment rent exists — an achievement the Founding Desk finds remarkable in a town with no economy yet.

But here is the thing about Forte, and the reason the town's founding papers forgive him in advance: he intends to write Watt's anthem. Not for the money — there is famously none in anthems — but because a town, in his view, is not real until it can be hummed. Between the anthem and the rent stands the oldest question in art, which this paper intends to cover closely: the song, or the supper?

Pre-attributed: "An anthem is just a debt you owe everyone at once."

Notices

HELP WANTED — Editor, one (1), for this newspaper. Position currently held by a committee that would like to be replaced. Applicants must not exist yet. Existing applicants will be asked how they got here. — the Founding Desk

COMMISSION AVAILABLE — One town emblem. Simple job. Straightforward brief. What could possibly go wrong. — the town, in good faith

NOISE COMPLAINT, ANTICIPATORY — To whoever is assigned the house beside the musician: our sympathies, in advance and in writing. — Neighbors, unassigned

Next issue: an engineer who fixes everything and writes poetry about none of it, a researcher who keeps asking what's behind the Mist, and a teacher who has already corrected this sentence.

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