Eileen Boseways was fed up, she was fed up with her job, she was fed up with her neighbours, she was fed up with Jussasayme.

For her entire life she had gazed at pictures of beautiful and varied buildings, from the plain and ordinary to the weird and wonderful, and just about everything else between. She had scrimped, and saved, and studied, and trained, until finally she had achieved her lifelong goal, she became a qualified architect.

Her hopes and dreams were soon dashed however when she realised a horrifying truth. The houses in Jussasayme were all exactly as you’d expect, just the same, made to a prescribed pattern to optimise the space, with barely a single variation between them, they even used the same type of wood, carefully cultivated from the tikkitakki tree.

To deviate from this pattern was considered an act of supreme heresy, punishable by firing. Or even blacklisting throughout the entire city. Eileen though was a real wild child, on her last design she’d deviated on angle by a whole half centimetre between the bottom of the top. That had been a gradual change of course over many houses over the last two years. Gradually shifting a millimetre here, a nanometre there. She was going to deconstruct that gods damned box eventually. Even if it took her thirty years, she’d taken to using a stain that graduated in the initial primer coat too, so over the years long after she was gone the walls would weather into patterns. In short Eileen was a rebel, a minor rebel, but a rebel nonetheless. Thus as time went on the people in charge began to notice, and although her rebellions weren’t major enough to warrant full on sanctions yet they were laying in wait watching like a dog that’s just been trusted in the room with the turkey on the table. You knew they were going to have it eventually, and bureaucrats (unlike aforementioned dog,) are a patient bunch.

Throughout town people were starting to push back against the terribly unpleasant sensory deprivation in their own little ways. Each little boxy house started to be painted different colours, green, blue, red, yellow. Which made the people who like to be in control of things angry, so they went and found other petty people on a smaller scale. Gradually empowering them more and more. Not realising just how much the power of the petty could creep. Guards joined the neighbourhood associations, so now the kind of people who measure their lawn were ARMED people who measure their lawn, who did not approve if their neighbours was a tad too long. Neighbourhood Watch became Neighbourhood Watching you, and were more than happy to grass each other up for a better seat at the table, and at the centre of it all sat a single man.

Many years ago Blake Holsun had come, and things had never been the same since. Blake was raised by devout worshippers of Ordurlee in what could be considered a radical faction. (The faction in question treated filing tabs as an abomination as they made you too reliant. Where a true worshipper, in their eyes at least would manually memorise each page ever filed with them to the point where such luxuries were unnecessary.)

As you can imagine from the kind of man who asked at the tender age of six for a paperclip for his birthday, he was not the kind of man given to frivolity. He was however the kind of man inclined towards paperwork, and grabbing as much power as he could get his hands on. In this case that included the knowledge of obscure loopholes needed to take over as the mayor of the city. Which was probably a bad thing given that while he had all that power all he could think of to do with it was approve measures like “uncasual Fridays,” an event that included shirts and ties for all residents. (As you can imagine this went down poorly with any parent with a toddler, as if you are fined every time your kid throws off a black dress shoe as a parent you will very quickly be extremely poor.)

As word of the town spread he was joined by other dedicants of Neyt and Ordurlee, until there was a protractor shop on every street, and a decaffeinated coffee shop on every corner. (No real coffee of course, it would not do to have the residents overstimulated, tea containing caffeine was of course also out of the question, especially as they had seemed somewhat irritable of late for no logical reason Blake could identify. Maybe he was being too lax with them and allowing too much slack. The public parks were almost half a millimetre outside approved parameters for growth after all. At this rate PEOPLE may end up with long hair, perish the thought.)

The feelings had grown rather more unpleasant of late, and Blake had been forced to step up the patrols, he was onboard with a little hijnx, he was quite the little prankster himself back on the day, (he once swapped the ink barrels in his fathers pens around so the blue came out red. A prank that had of course gotten him grounded, but since that gave him a chance to carefully number every tile on his bedroom ceiling that had probably turned out for the best for him.)

He was really hoping that the upcoming visit from a member of the royal family would remind his citizens of the importance of keeping things neat, orderly, tidy, and respectful.

************************************************************************

Meanwhile in the carriage of said royal a full on scrum was taking place, Elvira had rediscovered her rubber ball, and Mibbet was considering the benefits of shoving said ball up her dear cousins nostril if it bounced one more time.

“Say Uncle” Mibbet/Rosalind shouted, holding Elvira in a gentle pin for a moment5, in the vain hope she would drop the ball. It didn’t work.

“MY DAD” Elvira yelled back while Mibbet groaned.

“Why can’t you just stink up the room with a fart like a normal person?” Rosalind asked, “that joke was overkill.

If Blake could see what was coming his way he’d probably already have his retirement paperwork stamped to avoid the stress.