📜 Annals of The Attic

The Incident of the Boeing with Self-Esteem

According to the Annals, Potoxof was asked to produce a “barely visible” aircraft.

The entity interpreted aeronautical modesty as optional.

Minutes later, an aircraft appeared, large enough to eclipse half the continent.

The records do not specify why the airport was called Turmeric Hollow. Whenever anyone asked, Sister Potato would usually reply:

—“Because the name was already there before us.”

Aurelius spent seven years trying to investigate its origins.

Sister Piety never told him she knew.

Staff of the Convent and The Attic

Aurelius

Official Chronicler of The Attic.

Gregorius

Assistant to the Official Chronicler of The Attic.

Sister Potato

Head of Popular Wisdom.

Sister Piety

Head of Completely Unnecessary Observations.

Mildred

General Archivist, Secretary of Everything and Official Locator of Lost Papers.

Agnès

Guardian of Words and Official Translator of The Attic.

Mother Patience

Superior of the Convent.

Responsible for maintaining an appearance of normality while the rest of the staff strive, day after day, to prove that it is an impossible mission.

Sister Chastity

Head of Institutional Innocence.

Asks perfectly innocent questions that provoke very long silences, especially when Sor Patata and Sor Pietat are present.

Any incidents involving Potoxof will be dealt with in order of arrival.

📜 DECREE OF EXTRAORDINARY APPOINTMENT

Preserved in the Annals of the Attic

By order of the General Archive,

whereas the Attic has opened its doors to other languages;

whereas the characters have the unfortunate habit of speaking however they please;

whereas the protocols are practically impossible to translate without losing a little of one’s sanity;

and whereas Potoxof has proposed translating the whole thing with a 1973 pocket dictionary…

the following is hereby decreed:

Article I

Agnès is hereby appointed

📜 Extraordinary Official Translator of the Attic

on a permanent, honorary, slightly chaotic, and absolutely enthusiastic basis.

Article II

The Translator shall have the right to:

argue for hours over whether a joke works better in English or Spanish;

invent adaptations whenever a literal translation would be a monumental disaster;

protect the personalities of the inhabitants of the Attic from any assault by literalism.

Article III

It is expressly forbidden to:

translate Potoxof as if he were merely an “image editor”;

remove jokes because “people won’t understand them”;

turn Sister Potato into an excessively respectable nun.

Article IV

When an expression has no equivalent in another language…

…the Translator may replace it with another of an equally absurd nature, provided that it makes people smile.

Final Provision

Any linguistic disagreement shall be resolved by means of:

consulting the Annals;

the opinion of Gregorius;

a sigh from Aurelius;

and, as a last resort…

never, under any circumstances, by asking Potoxof.

Signed:

✒️ Aurelius, Chief Chronicler of the Attic.

✒️ Gregorius, Deputy Secretary and Keeper of the Seals That Still Work.

✒️ Sister Potato, who signed with a smear of honey.

✒️ Sister Pietat, who couldn’t stop laughing while signing.

This decree was drafted with the invaluable collaboration of Agnès, Extraordinary Official Translator of the Attic.

📖 Step

An ordered sequence of actions which, when observed with sufficient calm, eventually reveal the way forward, even when the signs have been put up incorrectly.

See also: Montsada, Patience and Potoxof.

📖 Volume

A seemingly harmless noun.

Its use is best avoided in certain conversations if Mr Amadeus Culerus is within fifty metres.

See also: Annals, Culerus and Memorable Nonsense.