Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

It was always there, in the furthest corner of the lot next to the abandoned and closed bar and grill. No one ever saw the Camaro come or go, but it was the newest model, windows tinted and body waxed to a radiant shine.

There was idle speculation, of course. A pimp, a drug dealer, an adulterer. When the car was issued a ticket, the fine was paid in cash in an envelope with no return address. Fines couldn’t be paid in cash, but the ticket had been in error anyway.

The day the building burned down, it vanished. No one thought anything of this, since who would want to park there after such an intense fire?

But then the Camaro appeared in the far corner of another lot, and people began to talk.

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Myassa al-Thurayya chambered a fresh round in her rifle and looked through the scope for another target. None presented itself; the Vyaeh assault squad had apparently been held off for now. Myassa adjusted her aim, cursing as her hijab got in the way and temporarily blocked her sight picture until she batted it free.

“Why do you wear that thing?” Jai Chandrakant said, covering her flank with his freshly reloaded assault rifle. “If the sailor-talk wasn’t enough to show that you’re not exactly daddy’s proper little meek religious girl, there’s everything else you’ve ever said or done alongside it.”

“The last person who asked me that is still waiting for the wires to come off of their jaw,” said Myassa, without budging from her rifle. “You don’t ask. You’re told, when and if I choose to tell you.”

“Fair enough,” Jai said.

There was a pause, and at length Myassa made a resigned grunt. “I am a secular Muslim,” she said. “I wear the hijab so that people know my heritage and I have a tangible link to thousands of years of religion and culture that shaped me into who I am today.”

“A secular Muslim?” said Jai. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“And yet nobody is surprised when someone calls themself a secular Jew or a secular Christian, even though they do the same thing for the same reason,” said Myassa. “You can be a secular anything. It’s a frame of mind; I didn’t fill out a bloody application form.”

“Well, sure, but why something like a hijab?” Jai said. “Why not just wear a crescent on a chain around your neck like I’ve seen people do with a Star of David or a cross?”

“The crescent is an Ottoman symbol, not an Islamic one,” said Myassa. “I have no desire to associate myself with that hoary old despotism, thank you very much.”

“Well, then what about that Arabic creed thing? The sha…shaha…hada…”

“The Shahada,” Myassa said. “And no. It’s a statement of faith, and I have none. Believe me, Jai, I’ve thought this through.”

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No one saw it coming. Weren’t they notorious for their inability to compromise, their brutal tactics, their picking of fights? Weren’t they derided for their clumsiness and stupidity even as they claimed to represent purity and honor?

And yet, as the sun rose on that January morning, the Grammar Nazis had come to power. There was nothing now standing between them and a reign of pedantry and pettiness the likes of which the word had not seen since the French Vowel Wars, the vicious Orthography Reform of 1996, and of course the brutal Colon Revolution in San Serriffe. What could have possessed the people to hand over power to the Grammar Nazis and add themselves to that grim list?

Now had it come to this?

In retrospect, it’s clear that the depredations of the Grammar Communists had grown as of late. Txt spk, L337, ostent. abbrevs., all of them were rampant in the great democratization of language and spelling that accompanied the rise of the internet. In an age where “LOL AFK BRB K?” is considered a coherent sentence, some people clearly valued the security of their spelling more than the merciless pedantry openly promised by the Grammar Nazis in their election platform.

One thing is clear, though: the Oxford Comma is now enforced by iron maiden, dangling participles is punishable by guillotine, splitting infinitives will result in drawing and quartering, the passive voice will be met with active measures, and breaching the they’re/their/there or you’re/your/yore barrier will result in an appearance before the merciless elite units of the Grammar Guard.

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DATELINE: ANGERS – Despite the release of a royal report on the death of King Richard Lionheart, many in the kingdom continue to doubt the official story.

Led by Chief Yeoman of the Guard Warryne of Courtshire, the so-called Warryne Commissyione undertook an exhaustive analysis of the evidence following Richard’s sudden death at Châlus-Chabrol in April 1199. Interviewing over a dozen witnesses, examining material evidence including the crossbow that reportedly fired the fatal bolt, the bolt itself, and interviews with the assassin Betrand de Gurdon before his untimely death at the hands of Jacobus de Rubis not long afterwards, the investigators’ report espoused what critics have since called the “single bolt theory.” Or, more derisively, the “magic bolt theory.”

“It’s insanity,” said a tradesman who declined to be named. “Clearly there was a conspiracy at work, with multiple crossbowmen firing multiple bolts from multiple angles. Triangulation of crossbowfire, that’s the key.” His sentiments were echoed by many on the street and in the fields. “It’s a conspiracy,” agreed Herbert the Muttoneer of Brittany, “manufactured by Prince John to seize power and prevent King Richard from putting through reforms to free the serfs and deliver free milk and honey.” When reminded that no such decrees were found in Richard’s desk, he added “They must have gotten to you too.”

Conspiracy theorists disputing the “single bolt theory” point to the Zappruder Tapestry, which was in the process of being woven by Zappruder of Munich when the King was struck down. The tapestry appears to show several crossbowmen on the ramparts of Châlus-Chabrol with several bolts in flight, with the King’s head being thrown up and to the left in a motion supposedly inconsistent with the position of Betrand de Gurdon (identifiable in the tapestry by his frying pan shield, which the King laughed at seconds before his fatal wounding).

“Ridiculous speculation,” said Yeoman Warryne in response to the allegations of a conspiracy. “The ‘second shooter’ on the ‘mossy wall’ of Châlus-Chabrol is clearly just another defender and the ‘second bolt’ is just a bird or a feature of terrain. As for the attitude of the King’s head, it is clearly just an artistic interpretation on Zappruder of Munich’s part.” King John echoed Yeoman Warryne in a statement from court, saying that he “deplored any indication of a conspiracy or conspiracies in the death of my late beloved brother, and that the incident was the unfortunate result of a lone crossbowman.”

Many remain unconvinced, with the man-on-the-street and the man-in-the-field offering any number of alternate theories. Many blamed Prince John for the killing, but most seemed convinced that it was an attempt by unknown parties to head off Richard’s divestment from the war in France, instead deepening the conflict into the present quagmire with Phillip II. The chronicler Sir Olivier of Stoneshire has promised to illuminate a manuscript revealing the truth of the matter, but his efforts have as yet not been released.

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Crimson Empire
The Crimson Empire historically dated its epoch to the reign of the emperor Honorian II, who created the calendar used by the Empire until it was swept away by the Dominion of the New Order. In an unusually modest move, Honorian II didn’t choose his own reign or birth as the calendar’s epoch: year 1 was, instead, the Battle of Noaad at which the Empire was reunified after the Succession Crisis.

República de San Martín
The Sanmartínese institute a civil calendar after the dictator Sebastien came to power in 1852. Rather than set the epoch in 1812, the year that the country gained its independence, Sebastien set it as the date that the liberator José de San Martín died: August 17, 1850.

The Vyaeh
The Orphan Court, the mysterious and unseen ruling body of the Vyaeh trading empire, maintains a complex calendar that is constantly readjusted for relativistic effects and observed celestial phenomena on their homeworld. At one time, they followed a strict lunisolar calendar based around the calculated creation of their world in the old Vyaeh religion, but the link between the two calendars is now theoretical at best.

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