Mark Dunn - Ella Minnow Pea

NOLLOPVILLE

Sunday, September 10

Dear Ella,

Most wonderful news. Mr. Warren, who will be arriving on the 18th, is coming to our rescue! I know it’s foolish to put stock in any promises of assistance (and while I hope that your underground meetings prove independently fruitful, I cannot count on them — forgive my blunt honesty here — and must parcel my optimism in such a way as to best contribute to the state of my emotional health) but I am nonetheless encouraged by the following: Warren arrives bearing more than simply suitcase and notebook. He brings, as well, the results of chemical analyses performed on slivers of the errant tiles — analyses which prove beyond doubt and wanton denial that the tiles are falling for the simple reason that they can no longer hold themselves to the bandiford. It is as elementary as that. Nollop is not God. Nollop is silent. We must respect that silence and make our decisions and judgments based upon science and fact and simple old-fashioned common sense — a commodity absent for too long from those in governmental elevatia, where its employ would do us all much good.

I seek your assistance, dearest cousin, in determining which of the pious five would be most open to reading Mr. Warren’s report. I think, perhaps, it should be Mr. Lyttle. He has always seemed to me the least moronic of the bunch. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, Mother voted for the man many years ago for this very reason.

Rush me in tomorrow morning’s post, dear Cousin, your much anticipated opinion in the matter. And good luck with tonight’s meeting. Please don’t interpret my lack of active endorsement as a dismissal of your family’s admirable efforts. I’m afraid I am becoming more and more the selective cynic. Thankfully, now and then I do see glimmers of hope. And Mr. Warren has just unveiled such a glimmer.

I am looking forward to my upcoming visit with you and Aunt Gwenette and Uncle Amos. Let me know when it would be most convenient for me to come down.

Mother sends her love.

Tassie

THE OFFICE OF HIGH COUNCIL

NOLLOPTON

Monday, September 11

Greetings, Nollopians,

It has come time for the Council to make its position clear and direct with regard to the issue of the fallen tiles. Indeed, our last three executive sessions were devoted exclusively to this task. The product of those sessions is this letter which we now post to every family on the island in an effort to bring us to common mind on this, the most pressing matter ever brought before our people. It is a matter with which each member of this body has tuss-and-tangled. Late into the night have we searched our souls, into the wee smalls have we plumbed our hearts with profound and intensured moral rectilitude. Because a formidable duty has been charged to us, an overtitious ask-me-now posed, yea posited, which we cannot in good conscience ignore. And in the answer, in the noble venture of compliance, our mission now comes to encompass the putting forth to all of you, the good people of this proud and independent island nation, the reasons behind what at times must seem a harsh and unwavering capitulation to the wishes of Almighty Nollop. This we do. We do willingly; we do dutifully.

Some, including those malcontents and apostates who have since departed our shores, might wish to modify the word “wishes” in the previous paragraph by the term “perceived.” As if everything passed down to you from Council Assembly has been based upon supposition — upon meandering hypothesis and amorphous conjecture.

It is none of these things.

The signs have been presented to us, and while it took us a while to ascertain the desired course rising from their assignment, we now, we are happy to say, and with only temporary delay, securely grasp and freely endorse without temperage these pathfinders dropped, literally, at our feet.

For those of you who desire explication, we offer the following ten salients:

1. Nollop was a man of words.

2. We are a people of words.

3. All that we are, we owe to Nollop.

4. His will be done.

5. We have become unfortunate victims of our own complacency.

6. Complacency is a destructive force, capable of ending through invidious stagnationality all that is good which we have created for ourselves here.

7. The falling tiles can represent only one thing: a challenge — a summons to bettering our lot in the face of such deleterious complacency, and in the concomitant presence of false contentment and rank self-indulgence.

8. There is no room for alternative interpretation.

9. Interpretation of events in any other way represents heresy.

10. Heretics will be punished, as was, for example, Mr. Nollop’s saucy stenographer, who was cashiered for flippantly announcing to her employer the ease with which she could, herself, create such a sentence as his.

Those of you who see undue cruelty in the penalties meted out for speaking or writing the forbidden letters should make note of the following three points:

1. Adhering to the commandments of Nollop leaves no room for fear of punishment or forfeiture. (He who walks in the light has no reason to fear the darkness.)

2. There is no such thing as accident or misspeak, only grossly underapplied discoursal perspicacity, with unguarded exposure to distractional digression. (A lighted path is clear. There is no reason, save mischief or inattention, to stray into the darkness.)

3. The severity of punishment is an irrelevant issue, given the opportunity to avoid punishment altogether. (Keep to the path to avoid what is promised to be a broken and jagged shoulder.)

Returning to the saucy secretary: she was given fair warning by Nollop that her insubordinate speech would not be tolerated. That one of such intellectual inferiority could ever in a lifetime duplicate the work of Nollop was unfathomable, her claim hypercomical. Nollop said as much, even challenged the pert stenographer to come up with a sentence of her own measuring thirty-five letters or less and containing all of the letters of the alphabet.

She tried.

She failed.

In fact, the best that she could muster was a short anecdote about an imaginary animal park in which the occupants revolted by exchanging their stripes and spots. It ran precisely 289 letters.

She used the word yak three times.

The secretary, we might further add, was never able to come up with a sentence matching Nollop’s because it simply cannot be done. This is what has given Nollop his preeminence. Omnipotent. Omniscient. Omniglorious.

Praise Nollop.

And honor his wishes by removing “J” with jubilation.

Sincerely ,

Your High Council

Gordon Willingham

La Greer Houston

Harton Mangrove

Rederick Lyttle

A. Plastman

The* uick brown fox* umps over the la* y dog

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA U.S.A.

Monday, September 11

Dear Mr. Minnow Pea,

I am in receipt of your letter regarding my order of miniature moonshine vessels. (Note that I have no interest in violating your Island Council’s three recent statutes regarding alphabetical elision, and so we will continue to refer to the vessels as, simply, vessels.)

Given the marketability of your previous consignments, the 50 figure is much too low. Please deliver to my warehouse double that amount by December 1—in time for the Christmas market — and I will pay you an additional $5.00 per vessel, with a bonus of $550.00 for the effort. (Please note: all payment will be in American dollars and not in Nollopian Nevins. Given the instability of your national currency, I see no reason for you to oppose this arrangement.)