Traycup acted quickly, because he only had another minute on the clock and he was not going to do overtime for this. He wrote down what he saw on a piece of paper—good paper, paper he was hanging onto just for such an occasion. On the corner, it had a cartoon of a kitten chasing a butterfly. Hopefully they'd be friends.

He put the paper in an envelope, folded neatly, and sealed the envelope before placing it in his coat pocket, and then put on his coat, buttoning it all the way up, and getting most of them right. He checked the clock, which referred him to the egg timer on the stove—there were still a couple seconds left on his shift. He resumed watching the tree, in case he saw something else, but he did not, and then the clock struck sixty-four, and he punched out, and headed out for home.

His route home normally took him through downtown Hoglistwune, the local skyscraper training grounds, and today would be no different, except for the titanically important message he had to deliver, and the mayor's newfound out-to-get-himness. Notwithstanding the dangers, he'd go post-officeward, and mail the letter to the main office in Oopertreepia, prior to going home. He wasn't sure if that's what he was supposed to do, but it was the first thing that came to mind, and whims can't be wrong if one's determined to follow one's heart. If he hurried, he'd have time to host a teleconference with a gopher and a half before he'd have to set out again in order to beat the traffic tomorrow. Tomorrow was Tuesday Jr., and traffic was always rough on Tuesdays Jr.

A passing tuna fish gave him a ride on its skateboard to Fourth Street, which was pretty close to the post-office. He just had to get past a towering wall of flame. No big deal, of course—he showed the wall his ID, but the wall was ill-disposed to let him pass.

“Who are you to me,” said the wall, “that you should get what you want at the expense of my pride, my time, and my dignity?”

“A descendant of my own,” Traycup said, “and a slight duckling as well.”

“Unlikely! You've hardly got a featherous bone in your body.”

“Body? Oh, it's so, but behold!” Traycup produced from his pocket, and in the professional sense, a three-act play for the high school about the pros and cons of hot air balloon racing—which wasn't a metaphor at all—featuring the lunch lady on the piano, which was perfectly tuned but in dire need of refinishing.

The fire gave the piano a good long look. “Listen,” it said, “my cousin has a business. He does woodwork, odd jobs—he can take a crack at that piano. Have the school contact him, he'll give you good prices. That's a fair deal, I think. We hate to see such a fine instrument degraded into a mere eyesore.”

“I've another think coming,” said Traycup, “and what's more, I could use some good socks.”

“Ha! Ha!” the wall burst into laughter, spilling all over the street, spraying the crowd as it ran screaming and shrieking, and the police were brought in with buckets to clean up the mess. Traycup wisely left this to the professionals, and foisted himself along the street until he came at last to his destination.

This was a brand new building, installed by the city only a century or two ago, two feet wide by thirty fathoms long, and a hundred milliliters tall. Traycup staggered before it, not due to its size, but it'd been more than twelve years since he had a small cup of orange juice, and he languished a bit at its lack. But, undaunted by the threat of imminent bureaucracy, he plunged forward on his quest, entered the office, and soon found himself at a counter, dealing with a clerk made out of wires.

“Oh! Oh! A customer!” This the clerk boomed. “Well, I know how to deal with the likes of you!” The clerk threw eighty boomerangs at Traycup, but since Traycup couldn't speak French, it was of no effect. Traycup admired some street art instead, and then had a pastry.

“I'd like to send a letter,” said Traycup honestly.

The clerk was out of boomerangs, and so said, “What, here? You'd want the post-office for that. This is the pre-office. You've got to get by me if you want to get to the post-office.”

“I b'lieve I've demonstrated my credentials needlessly,” said Traycup.

“Apt,” said the clerk, “but how's thine will?” Now the clerk became a hundred-foot goliath, and drew a great broadsword, and swung it at Traycup in a bid for destruction. Traycup did not own an ocean liner, and in fact, he recognized one of the paintings on the wall—a cheap, mass-produced thing, reprinted ad infinitum and winding up in offices all over town. His dentist had one just like it—he recognized the barn and the shed nearby, and remembered when, as a child, he imagined what worlds might lie beyond the frame, for there was no farmer visible, but his or her handiwork was evident, and so the story without doubt bleeds beyond the revelation.

When the clerk's sword clattered to the floor, it elicited a shhhh! from the other patrons and clerkmates, and they all saw the spindly fink's defeat. There was no need for a rematch. Indeed, the clerk was so bedazzled that it was without further word that he pointed at the door leading onward. Traycup, as astute as a table, passed through.

Now, in the next room, there was before him a vast lake, and at the center a mound of gold, on which sat the next clerk. Traycup coppered himself for this next encounter. A frog sat nearby, as they often do.

“Say, frog,” said Traycup.

“Frog,” said the frog.

“Come now—no attention for punctuation?”

“I sorry, sirrah, I cannot read, not words, no,” said the frog.

“Tell me this—may I, from you, rent a calf and a half?” asked Traycup.

The frog thought this was fine, and rented Traycup his calf and a half, and accepted five copies of the 1963 World Book Encyclopedia as payment—a worthy prize that'd feed his family for decades to come. Indeed, for the frog, this was akin to, if not better than, winning three lotteries on the same day and being struck by lightning in such a way as to survive due to some quirk of outfit, such as an intimate piercing that redirected the infinite joules of the heavens safely into the groundation of the Earth.

The clerk of the mound, who was made of tea leaves and most of a spice rack, beckoned Traycup to approach, and Traycup jet skied thither with all due haste. Traycup climbed atop a diving board and there found a small magazine feverishly writing some poetry.

“Just a moment, sir,” said the magazine. “Just finishing up a tidbit, here. 's for the archers, you know?”

“I know it well,” said Traycup. “Here's a bit of advice: leafly rhymes with paste. Use that in your rhyme, won't you?”

Quill flourishing, the magazine set to work, and soon had finished a poem that would bring lovers to tears across the country, up to the furthest borders, and not an inch beyond. Different tastes, you know. Paltropisburgians had specific interests—cultural divide, and all that.

Traycup approached the clerk. “I'd like to send a letter,” he said honorly.

“Blind idiot!” said the clerk. “This is the office! You need to go to the post-office! While it lieth beyond, you have wasted my time enough, and I shall dispatch you once and for all!”

This clerk, at once tea leaves and most of a spice rack, seemed to become tea leaves and all of a spice rack—and I say “seemed to” become because it was all a clever trick of the mind, and the illusion swallowed up Traycup, who was indigestible, and this is when Traycup put his plan into motion. He deployed the calf and a half in the only way expectable—it challenged Leonardo da Vinci's zombie to a chess-boxing match on this very evening. When Leonardo da Vinci's zombie's manager got the message, he said, “I do not represent Mr. da Vinci, and please stop calling me.” More than twelve people turned out to see the show, even though more than eleven had heard of chess in the first place, and before it even started it was all over, and the leftover sold-out tickets were used to patch a hole in Mrs. Cleering's basement walls.

Someone upstairs banged on the floor to get them to cut out the racket, but it wasn't necessary. The clerk pulled herself up to her desk, all out of breath and highly scuffed. “Fine, fine,” she said. “Fine,” she said once more. “Go on, then. Right through that. That's the way for you. You need to go there. That leads—post-office.”

Traycup shook the calf and a half's hand, and, in accordance with the rental agreement, kindly returned it to the frog from earlier, and went on past the office.

Pre-office, office, post-office—this was beyond the office. That was beyond offices. Perhaps it was beyond everything, but that's much too much, once again. This sort of thing always happens. Immediately out of the oven, you up and drop your pizza right on the floor, and wouldn't you know it, it's toppings-side down—dressing, some of you call it, which is adorably barbaric—so the floor's ruined, and the pizza too. Both dinner and the day are failed. What's there to be done now? And it's not just the dinner, it's not just that the evening is now slated for ruin and despair—it's the painful naivete that you labored under before, your pure and wholesome innocence, and how glad, how sparklingly happy you were to look forward to this blessed feast, and now, now, now the happiness you once endured seems imbecilically idealistic and haplessly moronic, and you occupy the lowest rung in human history for having ever believed that such an unwarrantedly lovely daydream could come true—even for a moment, even for a second, to have ever dared is truly the height of stupidity.

“I've too far gone,” said Traycup, but it was too late. He was post-office now—the era of offices was behind him. He patted the letter in his coat pocket, which sat mundanely and did nothing.

“Perhaps,” he reasoned, “it's best to d'liver this in person.”

Traycup wasn't the only one having difficulty with offices.

Roby was in quite a fix, and her fix was this: she had just begun her workday. Now, anyone who's ever worked before can attest to the fact that it's just the worst, and Roby, who had not worked before, could not yet attest to that fact, and was about to learn the hard way. That is, the only way.

She sat down at her desk, upon which were the myriad tools of work, none of which she recognized, and was about to set to her task: constructing believable clinical techniques out of graham crackers or curious wind patterns. She picked up an unbronzed spatula and a scam-scanner, when she all of a sudden realized that she did not actually know what the hell she was doing.

“I do not believe that this job I see if a job of me,” she said. “In fact—employment is not had, and enjoyment, while glad, likely lacks lately and little riddled whittling tools conspire to make me seem a fool—”

“Well, that's not my problem,” said a passing eclair examiner.

To Roby's left was a coworker's desk, and that coworker was sitting there. His name was Two-ply Gettles and he had five trophies in his hair, monuments attesting to his capabilities in the field of believable clinical technique construction. To Roby's right was another coworker's desk, that coworker also sitting there. His name was also Two-ply Gettles, and he too had five trophies in his hair, and they were also monuments to his ability in constructing believable clinical techniques.

“Egads!” exclaimed Roby, but it was too late, as Two-ply had her surrounded, and his jaws emerged from the depths and snapped at her like a bald eagle's bitter ex. She leapt onto a microwave, since it was not lava, and a fair bit safer than ordering pastrami from a juggler.

“My capital head!” said the microwave. “Scoundrel—elsewhere your feet should be placed, for if your shoes have passed through some untoward substance, transmitting it to me would be most unnunly!”

“That act seems rude and likewise crude,” said Roby. “I am unused to such abuse—it stinks, I think!”

“Most impressive, but so do I,” said the microwave. It abruptly flew into a rage and out a window, leaving Roby without a foothold, except for the nearby battering ram. Two-ply had evolved into a formidable beast, all fangs and jaws and teeth, slavering and snapping, and, for the sake of mobility, he had one foot with twelve toes which he used to kick-start his motorcycle to give chase.

Roby grabbed a plunger, which was not effective, and was not delicious—fortunately, it was not used, so if you were picturing a much-used, stained, still-wet plunger only recently removed from an overflowing commode and flecked with material of frighteningly certain origin, do yourself a favor and fail to imagine the taste and sensation of licking and slurping upon such an item.

Roby grabbed another plunger. “This scene is a vexation, so I think I am owed a vacation, or at least a hand in salvation!”

“That you shall not have,” roared the form of Two-ply, “and in its stead, I emerge to consume, and rend your form meat and moot!” He plunged from a balcony above her, but Roby knew a little bit of calculus. It was of no avail, and nearly half the cafeteria was turned into a morass of decaying baryon particles—moreso than usual. Roby looked to the clock.

“A hundred and seven,” said the clock.

“That is not a number,” said Roby.

“What?”

“I mean, it is not a time,” Roby corrected herself.

The clock huffed and chuffed. Clearly the lass was foolhardy. The clock resumed its literature, ignoring the goings-on of the assorted loudmouthed posse. The nerve of certain folk.

Two-ply surrounded Roby on all sides, as was his willless nature. He engulfed the room and became it, and from then onward all cafeterias were to be known as two-plies. It's fine to use lowercase letters when it's a genericized term like that. As for Roby, she went upstairs to where they kept the old coats, and tried to find some matching hats for them, but there were none, as the coats were from a time before the idea of having hats had come to be. Undaunted, she put on about six more coats, just in case.

Captain Ray Tube came downstairs and said, “All right—I've had enough. Both of you, get in my office. Back to back, pistols in hand, blindfolds on, mind the gap. We ride at dawn!”

Two-ply transformed into a decorative fern and went back to work. Roby didn't turn into anything.

“Roby?” said Captain Tube.

“I do not think,” she said, “my clinical techniques were very believable.” She was still holding a graham cracker, and ate it.

Shortly after getting fired, Roby stood on the corner of the street like a shivering mound of rain-sodden refuse, clutching a cardboard box explicitly labeled PROP DEPT.—DO NOT REMOVE and looking vaguely wide-eyed at such things as the goat parade, the seasonal cabinet singing contest, and the unveiled sardonic hourglass studio, and so much more that made up the normal day-to-day in Hoglistwune.

A passing obelisk shoved her aside and called her a bumpkin, but she thought he said “pumpkin” and so was confused. She spilled her box of junk at someone's feet, and he went to help her gather said junk, and he was Traycup.

“I'll to help,” he said.

“Thanks comes from me,” said Roby.

Traycup eyed her a little oddly. Or rather—Traycup eyed her, odd.

“Is there an accent of me?” said Roby.

“It'll not do to besmirch,” said Traycup.

“I will not attempt to do so,” she said, and then said, “Say, be a helper of me? Not the box that I want, it can be tossed, and oft forgot.”

“Alas, I'm off,” said Traycup. “I've a letter to deliver, and wait, it can't.”

“Oh! The post office is the best guess for a letter to be sent,” said Roby, being both friendly and helpful, or at least trying to.

“The era of offices is behind me,” said Traycup sadly.

“I as well,” said Roby.

“I've got a long trek coming up next,” said Traycup. “At now, I'm for Nesodi Iveent. This letter's vitality is primal, after all.”

“Before all, perhaps,” said Roby. “Oh! But, Nesodi Iveent is the home of the mother of me, and she has a birthday this year, and a visit herward was considered by me pending time away from work, which I now have, forever. May we be joined and so journey? All the better than a joyless sojourn!”

“Now, that is an idea!” said Traycup.

Roby smiled and mattered. “Oh! Sir! Say your name to me, so we will be friended at last!”

“It's a fine idea,” said Traycup, “and a kindness besides. My name is Traycup Lopkit, and you may call me Traycup, or you may call me by mistake if you fumble a dinner bell.”

“Then we are friended at first,” said Roby. “For me, the name of me is Roby Lopkit.”

Now, there was an unusual thing, for strangers to share a name, and while both were perplexed and suspected mishearings, there was not yet the moment to solve this little riddle, as a shadow came across them both, and spoke, saying, “Stand still and prepare thyselves!”