Golden City: The Fashion Police

Six months ago I was an art student. Then I died. And I guess I should have listened to my awful evangelical roommate more, because I went - came - to Hell.

This little subcircle of the Inferno is called the Golden City. It styles itself as the most beautiful place in the bad side of the afterlife and it’s probably not wrong, since it gobbles up so many of the artists. Everyone here is suffering for their art, because this is where artists suffer, because everything, bar nothing, must be sacrificed to the aesthetic ideal.

Or you can take a moment to blow off the stress and ogle some underdressed girls. Look up Sengoku Paradise, on Fleur de Mal Boulevard in Lower Bohemia. We do sushi, teppanyaki and of course sweets, served by a selection of samurai-themed waitresses, and by ‘samurai themed’ I mean ‘wear a Sexy Samurai halloween costume and economise from there’. It’s not a great job - in fact it’s a shit job - but it keeps me from starving or being out on the streets with the poachers looking for ‘models’. I don’t get paid, but I get to eat the leftovers and sleep under the roof. I also get free clothes, though that’s not as good as it could be given I haven’t had more than one of my thighs, my midriff and my cleavage covered at any given time since I started.

I guess that’s what you get after you die if you have a bad habit of paying artists ‘in exposure’.

Results of today’s changing room draw: bikini, but also the cool armoured showgirl skirt and pretty tolerable heels. Could be worse. I’m navigating a tray of cool parfaits to a table of hot byron wannabes when the cops walk in.

“Halt!”

I stop. One of the first things you learn after you die is which voices to obey. This voice has the pain and the gold and the icy certainty and I freeze midway across the floor, halfway to the table, tray balanced with its parfaits melting ever so slowly in the summer heat.

“This is the Public Aesthetics Committee. We are inspecting these premises.”

It’s the fashion police alright. The crack of her golden heels is the only sound in the room as she stalks across the shop floor in an exquisitely cut black suit. A bone-white face of perfect symmetry, accented neatly with golden horns. Eyes not so much balls as crystal spheres, showing the way to a bottomless darkness. A demon.

Two big goons move in behind her, with uncanny grace.

She points at me and I can feel every poorly-concealed blemish from my weird right big toe to the stray spot on my forehead. I really wish I’d taken time to dumpster dive for makeup last night. I don’t know how much longer I can convince the boss the truck impact scars are a ‘charm point’ and I have even less chance with the cops.

“You. Where is the manager?”

Oh okay phew, she doesn’t want me. The boss is probably in the back-

“I’m here.”

Or out here, walking out of the kitchen with her musket balanced across her shoulders. She says she had it when she died, shooting people invading her family restaurant. She’s been in the food-service-with-benefits industry for a long time. Fujiyama. (don’t tell the customers but she’s the only one of us who’s actually Japanese)

They square off like old and unhappy rivals.

“Didn’t you inspect us just recently?”

“I came last month, and found a rather elegant traditional sushi restaurant. What happened to that?”

“We remodelled.”

“I’m sure you did, and very quickly either side. Which is why this one is an unannounced inspection.”

Boss Fujiyama says nothing but her face says ‘geh’, as the woman turns to strut around the tables. “Tell me, what is the aesthetic principle behind this place?”

“Those who have torn their souls in a long day’s artistic work can relax and refresh in a dream of ancient Japan.”

“Mm hmm.” The cop taps a long razor-edged nail on a parfait on my tray. It’s a three-colour stack with a jaunty miniature shogunate banner poking out of a cluster of cherries. I’m actually quite proud of it, I was in the zone in the kitchen today. She doesn’t look impressed.”

“This is from ancient Japan, is it? And this thing your server is wearing, it’s also from ancient Japan?” she pokes me. It hurts. I daren’t look but I think there’s blood on my costume now, which I guess isn’t necessarily out of character for a samurai warrior girl. She doesn’t look impressed by her improvement though.

Fujiyama sighs. “Actually I’m from the Edo period not ‘ancient’ but-”

“Don’t talk back to me. You are supposedly providing your clientele with a dream of the Orient. Its mystery and ancient wisdom. Its aesthetic. Instead I come here and find you serving up cheap tat with performers leaving…” she looks each of us waitresses up and down. “…very little mysterious at all.”

“O-our food isn’t cheap tat!” Kumiko speaks up. She’s actually called Hyun-mi and was running a crypto scam to fund architecture school in Korea before she came here, but she’s a pretty good cook and proud of what she makes. Not sure she’s made the right tactical move, though, as the cop homes in on her and doesn’t stop until she has the poor girl leaning back over the table she was clearing up.

“It’s not cheap, no, your markup is the only thing this place is doing right. But tat? I will be the judge of that." She takes a maki set from a hapless customer and plucks a roll with a long and elegant tongue.

“This is a disgrace. Cheap ingredients, no proper balance.”

The customer mumbles something through his tentacular beard. A dagonite. They really go for sushi.

“What was that?”

“…I like it. It reminds me of the ocean. The ones in the upper city are too-”

“I don’t care whether you like it. I care whether it’s good.” She looks about at the chastened crowd. “Do none of you people understand the basics of aesthetics? You.” She pokes Kumiko. “What is the basis of aesthetics?”

“Ah… uh… well, I think a building should have firmness, commodity, and delight and you can…”

“I didn’t ask about architecture, I asked about aesthetics.” I’m not sure that makes sense. But I think she noticed my expression because now she’s bearing down on me and I have a pillar right behind me and can’t really back up at all.

“You, then. Parfait girl. What is the basis of aesthetics?”

“Ah, well…” I haven’t really had time to think about this you know? I’m up before dawn to start cooking and up after dusk cleaning and when I have free time I need to spend it scavenging for soap and makeup. But uhhhh I literally went to art school so surely I can think of something. This is the oldest question artists have asked besides who’s going to fund their next meal.

I take a breath. “Well. That’s a difficult question and only the wisest and most beautiful demons of our city know the answer probably.” The cop backs up a little, looking flattered. Good start. “To begin with I don’t think you can really find an ultimate objective basis for aesthetic judgements. Nontheless-”

Kaneko gasps. The customers wince. Fujiyama puts her head in her hands. The cop doesn’t look flattered any more. She looks apoplectic.

I think I made a mistake.

“Take her away!” snaps the woman with a voice cold and venomous as our best cyanide souffle. I don’t even try to protest as the goons grab me and drag me to the gilded cages waiting outside.

It’s not so bad. Maybe if they tell me what they want I can get a better job.