This is a ficlet of Cloverleaf, written to Eseme’s prompt to my current “third rail” prompt call. 

🚂

Sometimes, Cya seriously regretted having made Cloverleaf a semi-representative government.

Generally, those were council days, when she was sitting at a table with the chosen and voted-in representatives of all three circles.

Being a dictatorship would be so much easier.

She listened carefully to everyone’s arguments.  She asked the question she made sure to ask every time:

“Do we need a law for this, or is it a matter of personal choice?”

She listened to them argue some more.

Last week, there had been a very polite, very cautious, very anonymous letter to the editor.   It had been complaining about the heavy-handed way that Cya had, of all things, named the streets.

It suggested that certain streets could be renamed for early settlers into Cloverleaf, or perhaps to some of the first stakeholders.

The week before, it had been where the gates were placed.  There’d been another one about the “sort of people allowed in Cloverleaf” and one that she actually read with interest about refugees and their welcome into and status within the city.

People wanted their taxes lowered.

People wanted their services raised.

(Some people wanted the opposite, to be fair.)

People wanted laws to keep certain people from doing certain things.

“They bulldozed their houses and put up a road!”  That was the elected representative from Feoh Circle.  And he was angry.  “Just tore down their houses!  And put in a road.”

Cya raised her eyebrows.  She’d torn down any number of houses to build Cloverleaf.  “Did they own the houses?”  She already knew they did, of course.

“They built a road.”

“Have they paid for the property?”

“They’re going to put in a competing rail!”

“They’d have to buy a lot of houses for that, or tunnel under the sewer system.  Or break the laws we do have about obstructing the roads.”

“But what if they do?”

“Well, then they’ll have done something we can deal with.”

Sometimes Cya regretted having passed over much of her governing power to representatives.

But on other days, she really needed the laugh.