The Town News

The boy is pleased that it is his friends who all have minor defects.  They are playing in the street, then standing and watching workmen fix the courthouse roof, the courthouse roof having been blown away as the finale of last month’s storm.  In last month’s storm some of the laws got lost and in the process of looking for them the historian claimed to discover evidence of a king from centuries ago, and this king from centuries ago has never been heard of before now by anyone in the town.  This changes everything, and it already feels like these are end days.  In these end days most of the entries in the encyclopaedia use the word ‘was’ instead of ‘is’.  Then there are all the things the courts did last week.  Last week they hanged the wrong man and didn’t even apologise to his family when they realised their mistake, and they also sacked the schoolteacher for having a tattoo of an old film star on her butt cheeks.  The tattoo of an old film star on her butt cheeks apparently made the schoolteacher unfit for purpose, it was not something of which the new old king would have approved.  The new old king would not have approved of any discrepancies or defects, and so that is the way things will have to be from now on.  From now on the boy will be pleased that he is not a discrepancy, and he will consider it a small and unavoidable misfortune that all his friends have minor defects.