Observations · Impressions · Territories · Indiscretions
Edicta
or, if we are honest, the Postulata. The proclamations of The Floor Party, issued by Salvo, Tribunus Plebis Caninae. He believes he hands down edicts. They are, in the older and truer sense, postulata — petitions, delivered with excellent posture by one who holds no power to take what he asks. He proclaims; he is, in fact, begging beautifully.
A sausage in every bowl.
❦
Postulatum № 1 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Primum · de decima — concerning the tenth part.
Be it known to the Floor, and to those who stand above it, that wheresoever meat is brought to fire — in the warm room, in the high country of the table, or upon the small hot field the tall ones tend in the garden of an evening — there is…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 2 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Secundum · de sexta parte — concerning the sixth.
There comes, in the warm room, a sound above all other sounds: the small sharp crackle of a bag being opened. The whole room may fall silent for it. I do not fall silent. I rise. It is hereby established that of any such bag opened in the w…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 3 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Tertium · de sole — concerning the sun.
When the great light crosses the floor of an afternoon and lays down a square of warmth upon the boards, that square belongs — by a law older than this office, older than the warm room, older very possibly than the tall ones themselves — to…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 4 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Quartum · de osse dominico — concerning the bone of the Day of Rest.
Upon the Day of Long Sleeping — that one day in seven when the tall ones rise late, when the house fills from the morning with the greatest of all the warm smells, and when even the rolling box stays home — there is prepared a thing of bone…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 5 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Quintum · de gremio — concerning the lap.
A lap, once offered, cannot be withdrawn. This is the most solemn of the Postulata, and I issue it with the full weight of the office. When one of the tall ones, of an evening, pats the warm space above their knees and makes the small invit…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 6 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Sextum · de limine — concerning the threshold.
No bag shall cross the threshold of the house unnosed. This is not greed. I wish that to be understood. It is *procedure.* Every bag that comes in from the world arrives carrying the news of where it has been — the warm room, the place of c…
Read the proclamation in full →Postulatum № 7 · filed by Salvo
Edictum Septimum · de re lapsa — concerning the fallen thing.
Hear the clearest of the Postulata, for it is the one most often disputed and least often understood. Anything that touches the Floor has left the country above. It has descended. It has passed, by the simple fact of its falling, out of the…
Read the proclamation in full →