The trees of Retaliation have been chopped down and turned into fences. Denizens live on square fenced plots. Stone fences rise too and fences made of clay. Piles of trash mark other boundaries. Travel between fences requires paperwork and signatures so no one does it often and no one gets along.
“Somebody once asked me to do something difficult and now I ask that of others,” says T. Grimly.
“Do you remember who it was?” asks Miss Emeline Traveler.
“No,” says Grimly. “Doesn’t matter.”
Once a man built a fence. Now a man builds one higher.
Visitors once admitted become trapped.
“I can’t remember why I came either,” sighs Grimly.
It is easy to get into the country, if one avoids the main gate (and the paperwork). There are no borders between it and other lands which refuse to participate in Retaliation’s foolishness.
But once one in Retaliation visitors tend to stay.
“Even I, an experienced Traveler, found it hard to extract myself,” says Miss Emeline.
“I asked, ‘Where is the exit to this place? How do I get out?’ I told them ‘I must return to Travel and my friends.’ and no one answered. Eventually, I journeyed to the center of capitol Offended. Despite all the fences it was remarkably easy to get to.”
A stone fence surrounds the square city, Offended. Guards look out from peepholes. They do not like what they see: the people, how they live, what they do. A king rules Offended and turns most petitioners away. They never like what others have to say nor find it useful.
“Visitors come by the busload,” says the Guide. “The buses are permitted to pass beyond the gates.”
“A bitter beer called You seems to be the main attraction and vendors sell lots of cheap trinkets, I recall,” says Miss Doe Friend. “More beer, another trinket, general dissatisfaction.”
Offended takes coin and uses it to reinforce the fences of Retaliation.
“I waited in line to see the King for days. Eventually, someone approached me and I found a plane out,” Miss Emeline Traveler says.
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