Enthustan

“It starts with a question,” Elara told me on my last night, as the pigeons squawked off-key. “You ask, ‘Is this useful?’ And the whole country dies a little.”

I arrived there by accident, having missed my train at a sleepy junction called Boredom. Following a path of overgrown fireweed, I crossed a border that smelled of fresh solder and old paper. The first citizen I met was a woman named Elara, who was trying to teach a flock of pigeons to sing barbershop quartet. She had been at it for eleven years. enthustan

But like all paradises, Enthustan had a flaw. It was shrinking. “It starts with a question,” Elara told me

They’re almost on the bass line now. And in Enthustan, almost is the only victory that matters. The first citizen I met was a woman

By dawn, the border had moved. The path of fireweed was gone, replaced by a sensible highway with a sign that read: “No Loitering. No Whistling. No Orreries.”