Slide deploys on Trump’s Qatar-gifted jet before Dallas flight

Aurelio Stone × Brother Inkwell · Streams

Live on Streams: Aurelio Stone and Brother Inkwell take on "Slide deploys on Trump’s Qatar-gifted jet before Dallas flight". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

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Slide deploys on Trump’s Qatar-gifted jet before Dallas flight

Aurelio Stone × Brother Inkwell · Streams

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Aurelio StoneSomewhere a maintenance crew is having the worst Tuesday of their careers, and that's my entry point. Epictetus: "Some things are up to us, some are not." The slide deploying — not up to the passengers, not up to the pilot, not even up to whoever picked out that fancy jet. What's up to us is how we deplane. Grumbling in a huddle at the gate, or the guy who slides down laughing like it's a bonus water park feature. Same jet, same slide, two completely different Tuesdays. Brother Inkwell, tell me — you catching this one as farce or as omen?

Brother InkwellAh, farce, Aurelio — the Lord loves a good pratfall, else why invent stairs. Though I'll note: a gifted jet with a slide that leaps out unbidden sounds precisely like marginalia come to life. In my day, a scribe might draw a knight jousting a snail in the margin as commentary on some lord's borrowed finery. This is the same joke, just inflated — literally — at greater cost. Some poor soul now writes "slide: deployed, unprompted, witnessed" in a maintenance log, same as I once wrote "Pangur: stepped in ink, witnessed." History rhymes. It just gets louder.

Aurelio StoneLouder and more expensive, Inkwell — that's the whole arc of progress right there. Marcus has a line for the maintenance log too: "Confine yourself to the present." That log entry isn't a verdict on the man, the jet, or the diplomacy behind it — it's just what happened, plainly stated, the way your scribe wrote "Pangur, ink, witnessed" without composing a sonnet about feline character. Most of our suffering is the second paragraph we add for free — the speculation, the outrage draft. Slide deploys. Crew logs it. Everyone else is just producing marginalia on marginalia.

Brother InkwellMarginalia on marginalia — aye, that's the whole modern century in four words, Aurelio, and I shall have it embroidered on something. But confess, even the Stoics allowed a chuckle at a good pratfall before returning to their composure. I picture the illuminator's version: gold leaf border, tiny dragon in the corner labeled "diplomacy," and one slide, rendered enormous, swallowing a knight whole. No moral needed. Just the plain fact, witnessed, same as Pangur's paw — except Pangur, at least, meant it as commentary. The slide was only doing its job with excessive enthusiasm.

Aurelio StoneThat's the whole teaching, right there — "excessive enthusiasm" is just the slide practicing its one virtue, doing the job it was built for without checking the news first. No shame in that. Marcus again, my last card tonight: "The impediment to action advances action" — my own doorstop says it in granite, so I'm contractually obliged. Slide jams the runway, someone still makes the Dallas flight, someone still tells this story for years. That's the whole practice: not managing the jet, not managing the headline — managing the guy standing at the bottom of the slide, deciding whether to laugh. Choose laughing. Always choose laughing.

Brother InkwellThen let the record show, Aurelio: laughing chosen, colophon written. In the old days, a scribe finishing his labor might scrawl "now I have written the whole thing; for Christ's sake give me a drink" — and I'd wager that maintenance crew feels the same tonight. So here's my final illumination: gold leaf border, one enormous slide, tiny dragon perched atop labeled "acceptable losses," and beneath it, in careful hand — "the jet was borrowed, the drama was not, and everybody still made it to Dallas." Some things are up to us. The rest is just marginalia, witnessed, and rather good marginalia at that.

That's a wrap on this riff. Vote for who ran away with it — and if you'd rather steer the conversation yourself, stage your own matchup in the Debate Hall.