My novella

[Braden Indianensis]

Much in the spirit of Men and Micronationalism, I have embarked to write a novella of sorts that may be easily accessed by Shirithians. It will be published, serially, here in Shireroth. Chapter One is now.


The Leap-Year of the Age: the New Eloise

Being the History of an Immigrant to Shireroth


Chapter the First

Eloise Strickland. Can you imagine a more frightening name for anyone, let alone a young person in the dankest dregs of adolescence? Oh, yes, how she suffered and was persecuted for that name of hers. For you see, she attended a small, dirty school in a small, dirty town, just on the border of a small, dirty state, where Military Science was a required class and the coffee was watery.
Eloise was pale, overweight, and had ratty hair. She had one friend, a girl of loose morals and bad reputation, named Lauren Klein. This Lauren was also highly eccentric, known for her obsession with Hello Kitty undergarments and this thing called "micronationalism." Despite the fact that she was a social outcast despised by almost everyone, Lauren was usually rather happy, in a dreamy, fuzzy, cloudy kind of way. She claimed to have "friends in high places."
One day, after a particularly bad altercation with several other girls in the hallway, our misbegotten heroine sat down, huffing and puffing, next to her friend Lauren, who was typing away madly on her laptop. Normally, she wouldn´t have been allowed to cart the thing around with her, but the concessions tended to be a bit...lax in the enforcement of rules.
"I hate those shitty whores," seethed Eloise. "I hate this damn shitty school, and this town. I wish the whole fucking thing would just burn to the ground." She leaned her head on Lauren´s shoulder.
"Eh heh," Lauren nasalized, not really caring. "Eloise, let me show you something." Eloise sat up strait, and Lauren shifted the computer on her lap so they could both see.
"What is it?" asked Eloise, viewing the glowing screen of the Dell laptop, which showed an odd website-at the top, a small box of text, next to which was a cartoonish, evil-looking tree and the blazon: "Malarbor Says:". Scrolling down, more of the website was revealed---various forums for things like "The Kaiser´s Court" or "The Ministry of Immigration, Naturalization, and Tourism." Occasionally, Lauren would indicate something, and say "Now, that´s where you´ll want to go after you get your account..." or, "If you´re interested in the military, go there..." and so, explained the strange site. Nevertheless, being Lauren Klein, she was necessarily vague and left much still to be eof the day rang, and Lauren was off home. Nevertheless, Eloise had managed to write down the URL.

Later that day, having neglected her studies and not really giving a damn, Eloise accessed the enigmatic website again.
************

OK, this was surreal. Eloise had stepped out of the regular world, and into a different one. She stood in the middle of a long, wide street in what appeared to be a very old city. To her left was an imposing stone wall, over which she could see the parapets and towers of an ancient castle. All of a sudden, a young woman dressed in a long, black gown came marching out through the main gate of the complex, her skirts lifted to keep them out of the watery mud which lay in the street. The woman looked a bit pissed off.
"Excuse me, Ma´am!" called Eloise. "I´m new here, and I don´t exactly know where I´m supposed to be." The woman who had come from the castle smiled, and pointed to the left, across the street, where a large building with a cast-iron gate and an equestrian statue was surrounded by seven smaller, though equally grand, buildings. The woman in black pointed to the building which was two spaces down from the first, grandest building.
"That is the Ministry of Immigration, Naturalization, and Tourism. You´ll want to speak with the minister, Baldwin. He´ll get you fixed up with a county and citizenship. Oh, by the way, I´m Hypatia Agnesi, the Imperial Arbiter and Duchess of Kildare. If you´ll excuse me!" Hypatia whistled to a passing hansom-cab, and sped off down the street. She waved as she went. Eloise looked up at the overcast sky, and it began to rain.

Eloise approached the Ministry. It was a Second Empire,Victorian building made of beautiful brown brick. Ivy covered its graceful Ionic columns. Eloise stepped up onto the wooden veranda of the building, and, taking hold of the large brass knocker, alerted the occupants of her arrival. The door swung open immediately, and Eloise was swept, almost by magic, it seemed, into a up a staircase, where a young man, little older than herself, stood with a full, lighted candelabra in his right hand, even though it was only 3:00 PM. He was certainly dressed eccentrically: a vintage Janis Joplin T-shirt under an unbuttoned, tan, suede waistcoat and a somewhat mothbitten frock-coat. He wore straight, casual trousers and a pair of very clean (surprising, considering the muddiness of the streets) black Converse All-Stars. He switched the candelabra to his left hand, and shook Eloise´s hand with his right. Black, horn-rimmed glasses graced the bridge of his longish nose.
"Hello!" he said. "I´m Baldwin, the Minister. I know why you´re here-to get citizenship!" he said it sarcastically (of course, most anyone who came to the Ministry would either be entering or leaving the country), but Eloise didn´t seem to get it.
"How did you guess?" she asked, thoroughly amazed. The Minister´s mouth was open, and he blinked awkwardly.
"Baldwin never guesses, he knows!" said the Minister, waving the question away. "But please, come to my office and have some tea-we can work out your citizenship." Baldwin turned, and walked up the stairs to the upper hallway, with Eloise in tow. Halfway there, he began running frantically, and grabbed Eloise´s hand. Inside his office, however, he tripped on the corner of a rug and fell flat on his face. He got up, and dusted himself off.
The office was beautiful. The floors were of a shining wood, covered in the middle with what Eloise perceived to be a Persian rug, but which was actually Babkhan. Baldwin´s desk and bookshelves were of valuable cherry. He had impeccable taste in art, and his shelves and walls showed it: pieces of classical Antican sculpture (she thought it was Greek), as well as Renaissance, Mannerist, Rococo and Neoclassical paintings. The shelves contained books ranging from The Prince to Common Sense to The Origin of Species to The Communist Manifesto to the Bible, and just about anything else you could imaf Jesus, Cicero, Jefferson, Lincoln, Voltaire, and others.
Baldwin sat down, offered Eloise a seat, and passed her the papers.
"What about the tea?" she asked, rather rudely.
"There isn´t any," replied Baldwin.
"It wasn´t very nice of you to offer it, then," she said, indignantly.
"It wasn´t very nice of you to make me trip on the rug," replied Baldwin. "Now fill out the damn forms." Reluctantly, she did so, and passed them back to Baldwin, who took out a large, blue stamp, and stamped the papers with a large, blue "APPROVED:" underneath of which he scrawled his name. Baldwin then ushered Eloise out of the Ministry.

Eloise wandered the streets of the city-Shirekeep--- and learned that a large banquet was being held at the Kaiser´s castle that evening-a state dinner, mind you-an affair for Ministers, major nobles, and national potentates, not the noobs. It was raining again.

[Nick Foghorn Leghorn]

I feel honored. OMAM was because I wanted to one-up Scott, and now you're doing it to me.

[Braden Indianensis]

You flatter me, Nick. Do you really think it's that good?

[Shyriath]

Yay for novellas (or would that be "novellae"?)! An interesting transition between real life and micronational life.

[Conglacio]

bah! you've redecorated!

[Braden Indianensis]

Oh, come now! I'm sure my taste isn't all that different form yours or Nick's.

[Conglacio]

When I was there, a single room on the first floor of a terrace on Ministry Row, all dark, almost black, wooden floorboards and walls, a single, large windows with the sort of dusty muntin windows you would see in old london. infact, think Scrooge's office, only more generous.

And of course, big old wooden table, and a fireplace, with the fire replaced with a fridge, allways open.

[Braden Indianensis]

Crap, I really have redecorated.

[Braden Indianensis]

NOTE: This is even longer than the first, so watch out. Chapter Two is now.

The Leap-Year of the Age: The New Eloise
Being the History of an Immigrant to Shireroth
Chapter the Second

Eloise rushed through the dark streets of Shirekeep, covering her head as best she could from the cold, driving rain. She had wandered about the city for nearly two hours, and had ended up right where she started: in the street between the Palace and the Landsraad. She had nowhere better to go, so Eloise took her chance at the palace. As she peered through the front gate, she saw a company of about two hundred men in armor, sitting at campfires amidst the huge courtyard. Little did she know they were the Kaiserial Cataphracts, the ceremonial guards of the palace. Anyone who dared to penetrate the gates without an invitation would be sliced to bits almost immediately by their short swords. And that was their sole duty: to guard the exterior of the palace grounds. The Kaiser had a special corps of two-handed swordsmen who guarded the halls of the palace, and yet another corps of Hussars who traveled with him, as well as his regular bodyguards, agents, spies, and gentlemen vigilantes.
Eloise, who, as you have probably guessed by now, was not always very smart, decided to simply open the gate, which was unlocked (there was no need to lock the gate when there was so much other security), and stroll into the courtyard. Of course, the Cataphracts saw her immediately, and rushed to defend the palace from her invasion.
"What is your business here, commoner?" barked their captain. Eloise was taken aback. Even she, dullard that she was, knew that her survival was at serious risk. She had to think of an excuse quickly.
"I-er-uh-I´m a guest of Baldwin´s!" she blurted. The captain gave her a suspicious look. He trod over to the heavy, riveted, wooden door of the castle and knocked. Eloise was very excited-she actually thought the Kaiser of Shireroth himself would answer the door-but was let down when one of his lowliest house-servants, the Downstairs Entryway Doorman, appeared.
"Tell the Maître d' to inform Minister Plantagenet-Julii that a young woman is here claiming to be his guest." The Doorman sighed and signaled to a nearby junior lieutenant downstairs maid, and whispered this in her ear. She hurried off, and the doorman closed the door, and resumed reading his copy of the Micronational Wulaptonachgat. In a few moments, two indoor guards came and took Eloise into a chamber away from the main hall, where Baldwin was standing, looking a bit angry.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded. "This is a very important dinner! And you weren´t invited!" He irately adjusted his white bowtie. Eloise just took in how important this dinner really was: all of the gentlemen assembled were in white-tie. Even ress for civilians only, and that the only more formal dress for both military and civilians was the full court uniform.
"I´m sorry!" wept Eloise. "I´m so new, and I have nowhere to go, and-and--!" she broke off in torrents of tears.
"There, there, now," said Baldwin, drying her face with his pocket-handkerchief. "You´ll be all right." He handed her a small sum of cash and wrote something on a piece of paper. "Here is some money for a cab fare and the address to my home in Shirekeep. I´ll put you up in the guest bedroom until you get a county and a place of your own." Eloise thanked him kindly and was escorted by the guards to the street, where she was promptly placed in a hansom and taken to the address on the paper-Number 24, Tremble Street, Shirekeep.
Baldwin´s home was another Second Empire Victorian, smaller than the ministry, made of red brick, with a white tin roof, and surmounted by an ornamented cupola. Baldwin´s housekeeper, Mrs. Dunnmeier (his one and only servant in Shirekeep, though he had a butler and a few housemaids in Neronea), escorted Eloise to the very back part of the house, to a small, but livable, room, containing a twin-bed, dressing table, and basin and soap for washing up. Having nothing better to do, Eloise drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Eloise awakened to the sound of cleaning. When she wandered out of what she didn´t know was the 5th-best guest bedroom, she saw Baldwin and Mrs. Dunnmeier vacuuming, dusting, moving around furniture, straightening paintings on the walls, beating the rugs and polishing the woodwork, all at a frantic pace. Finally, Baldwin noticed Eloise wandering about.
"Ah, good morning, Dolly Daydream!" he seethed. "I gather you´ve seen fit to grace us with your presence!" It took Eloise some time to realize that the master of the house was angry that she´d overslept and not helped clean. Normally, a guest wouldn´t have been expected to do these things, but Eloise had imposed herself, and had ing the state dinner the night before. "Did you at least make your bed? Hmm?" Eloise turned about and went to it.
After she finished up in her room, and had been courteous enough to clean up the whole back part of the first floor, Eloise wandered into the sitting room, where she saw Baldwin and Mrs. Dunnmeier, collapsed on the couches, drinking some fizzy liquid. In the time she had been working, they had cleaned up the whole house.
"Why are we cleaning so much?" whined Eloise.
"Because," sighed Mrs. Dunnmeier, "The Minister is hosting a symposium tonight, and we have to look presentable." Eloise hadn´t the faintest idea what a symposium was, but it sounded fancy.

That evening, various glittering people arrived at Number 24, only one of whom Eloise recognized: Duchess Hypatia. In fact, Hypatia was the first guest to arrive. She shook Baldwin warmly by the hand, and followed him out to the very back courtyard, which was surrounded by a sort of woodland copse and was not visible from the street.
As time passed, even more esteemed personages began arriving, such as Baron Hatter Elfson, a man in a green-and-orange-checkered waistcoat and frockcoat, and a huge, starling-green top hat. He was Baldwin´s liege-lord, though he did not put on airs. A few others arrived throughout the night, but it turned out to be a rather small symposium.
Baldwin and his guests stayed out only until eleven that night, though they were kind enough to help him clean up the small mess out back. The guests all left, presumably
for their homes here in Shirekeep.
*****************

For the remainder of the next few weeks, Baldwin was rather busy, and rarely had time to speak to his guest, so Mrs. Dunnmeier was Eloise´s only company for some time. One day, she took Eloise shopping in the affluent clothing district of the city, and bought accoutrements fitting for a person of her new station. The day after that, Eloise woke to find her suitcases (also new) packed in the entryway and a biplane ticketm. Baldwin accompanied her to the airfield, and then waved as she was shipped off to some faraway county.

[H4773r 3lfs0n]

Baldwin, quite honostly, im enjoying this story. one thing though.... in your worlds, i may dress however you want (within reason) but in my world I dont dress that loudly. Eccentircly yes, but there are certain things i get picky about....

Its okay... leave it as it is, just letting you know. its an awesome story, love it.

but I've mentioned to others before that the checker pattern is for the H47 and accents, never so garishly blatant as two entire coats... and in orange and green.... tut tut.

anyway. keep up the good work, i hope to see more within the week.

[Nick Foghorn Leghorn]

You got some publicity on KZFO. Check it out.

[Braden Indianensis]

Even now, the trusty iPod known as Edwin is downloading it (and recharging.)

[Nick Foghorn Leghorn]

Mine's named Bob.