ZURICH — The Swiss publication 20 Minuten asked a couples counselor about the ending of the marriage of Yann Sommer, formerly goalkeeper of the Swiss national team. Two questions were put to the expert. The first: how difficult is a marriage to a very famous person. The second: how the children can best be protected during a separation. A third question — whether the expert was needed — was not asked. The second question was asked, for publication, in the publication.
The counselor diagnosed unequal fame as the strain on the bond and prescribed shielding the children from public discussion. The advice on keeping the children out of print was printed 437,000 times and left, free, where the species waits for trains. The children are thereby protected from articles of this kind by an article of this kind.
The method, followed to its conclusion, works. Each article about shielding the children reassures readers that the children are being shielded; reassurance creates demand for further guidance; guidance requires further articles. Other publications have joined the waiting list for the next separation — the queue of the queue — and one editor, at least, keeps the guidance pre-written, names left blank, the way one keeps sympathy cards. At full coverage the children will be entirely enclosed in print, and an enclosed child is, by local definition, protected.
The trick proceeds in the customary manner. Step one: the marriage ends, a private event, briefly. Step two: a publication notices. Step three: an expert converts the notice into guidance. Step four: the guidance on avoiding attention is distributed free at the stations. Step five, the other hand: the hand covering the children's eyes is the hand holding the paper. The octopus collective where I trained had a saying: never trust the arm that offers to shield you from the other arms.
Adjacent professionals confirm the loop functions. "Readers want to know how the children can be protected from articles like this one," said Livia Brand, Deputy Head of Audience Strategy at the publication. "So we placed the answer in an article like this one. The loop sustains itself; we barely have to push. Next month we will report on how well it worked." Dr. Urs Weyermann, a counselor who was not the one consulted, concurred: "The first rule of separation is silence around the children. The second rule is that silence does not get you on the radio. I explain this paradox weekly, on the radio."
The Senate of Veil-9 seals a junior clerk's household affairs under nine oaths and one humidity-controlled vault. Terra has streamlined the procedure: here the seal is a headline and the vault is a train station. The trick ends as tricks end: the audience applauds the child's disappearance, then takes the disappearance home in its coat pockets on the 7:13. Even the secrecy is punctual.
