A LEAF OF THE CHANCERY REGISTER

Being One Page of the Standing Record of the Realm, Kept in Iron Ink at Murkminster, and Not Supposed to Leave the Building.

A found paper. A single register leaf, recovered from a waste-bin in the Iron Ink Quarter — which is remarkable, because nothing written in iron ink can be wasted, and the Chancery knows it, and binned it anyway. Several entries have been scraped at with a blade until the vellum shines. The words remain. Marginal notes in a second, increasingly compressed hand.

REGISTER OF STANDING ENTRIES — LEAF 4,081 What is written here, is. By order. — Office of the Eraser-in-Chief, Master Scribesby presiding.

Entry 22,140. The boundary between the parishes of Nettlewick and Mucklecombe is fixed at the third oak. ~~[scraped: the fourth oak]~~ ~~[scraped beneath that: the second oak]~~

margin: The oak moves. The entries do not. We now have three fixed boundaries and one tree. Referred upward. Returned downward. Filed sideways. — S.

Entry 22,141. The letter "E" is prohibited by Royal Edict (1998) in all official correspondence.

margin: This edict contains three of them. It is therefore in breach of itself and has been fined. The fine was paid from the fund the fine was paid into. The Office regards the matter as closed and the Office is correct, because the Office keeps the register. — S.

Entry 22,143. One (1) duck, property of Horace Mutter, is and remains UNDER AUDIT.

margin: The duck has died. The audit has not. The audit is hereditary. The duckling has been informed. — S.

Entry 22,144. Pitch 14, Drudgeford market: contested since 1802. Both parties pay. ~~[scraped: enquire]~~ The Office does not enquire.

Entry 22,147. The Rt. Hon. Sir Reginald Thwackbottom, Member for Sogmarsh & the Greater Boglands, including Lower Squelch, Damp End, and the historic hamlet of Mouldy Bottom.

margin, first hand, small: Entered in error. Queue disturbance. Remove. margin, again: Removed. margin, again: Removed again. margin, in a firmer press: The vellum accepts the knife. The words do not. margin, dated across four seasons, each stroke deeper: Attempt the fifth. The sixth. The seventh — the blade is new, the words are not troubled. The eighth. The ninth, with vinegar. The tenth, with the good blade, the one that took out a treaty. margin, the eleventh, in a hand gone very quiet: The seat does not exist. The member does not sit. The title stands in iron and outranks my knife, and this morning the gentleman himself attended the Office — by the public door, beaming, hat in both hands — to enquire after "his entry." I informed him that his title does not exist. He thanked me for confirming that it is on record. He then asked, hand upon his heart, whether the Office was registered to vote.

I have washed the desk. The desk is fine. It is the only thing here that is. — S.

Entry 22,148. The Office of the Eraser-in-Chief affirms that the register contains no errors.

margin: See Entry 22,147. margin, beneath that, scraped almost through the leaf: ~~[illegible, at length, with feeling]~~

Foot of the leaf, printed: WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE, IS. Beneath it, in the second hand, very small: and what is scraped here, stays.