3.16. Embassy to the Never-Recognized
Very Short Story:
They circled again, twenty steps shy of the door. Judai marked the ground with chalk. Each round, the line appeared further ahead. “The closer we come,” he muttered, “the more it moves.” Juna held a sealed envelope addressed to “Any State Capable of Imagination.” She pressed it against the flagpole and waited. A soft vibration passed through her hand. Judai tried knocking on the air. It answered with diplomatic silence. “I think the embassy is conditional,” Juna said. “It appears only to those who could have belonged.” A wind rose—not cold, but corrective. When they stopped walking, they were no longer where they’d started. “We were permitted entry,” Judai whispered. “But only to the part of ourselves we almost believed.”
