Shale Jittery slips and slides. Balanced on the top of a fault. Subject to earthquakes. Denizens are tense, quick to anger. Jittery has brittle, hard to follow, laws.
“They change so often people stop trying to obey them,” says the Guide.
Law enforcement enforces the ever-changing code.
“We live in peril!” a citizen tells Miss Emeline anonymously. “Everyone ends up in prison. No one in the court can keep track of the laws either.”
“It’s truly a mess,” says Miss Emeline. “The only relief is that punishments are light. The prisons are parks. I passed through quickly. No one stays long. It is too uncertain.”
“Although, I prefer tea. I will say I enjoyed the potent coffee there, however,” Miss Doe Friend says.
The guardhouse Discomfited sits atop Jittery. The border guard sits ready to warn Jittery of armies’ approach, earthquakes, or landslides.
Everyday the Guard measures the fault line, which every day grows.
Armies do occasionally march into Jittery, but they never occupy the land. They pass through to threaten other lands.
Jittery takes no steps to block the armies. They are warned by the Guard but take no action.
“I tell the citizens when to panic more and when less,” says the Guard. “But they take no action. There is nothing we know to do.”
Cold wind races through the Guardhouse Discomfited. The Guard wears bulky coats and covers their lonely bed with thick, scratchy blankets.
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