The Founding of
Ex.
(extract taken from Understanding the
past, a school textbook by Prof. Mufudazi Flowers)
Chapter 7. In The Year of the Falling Rock (1114) a small group of Goolooian explorers
sailed north down the Fly River, bribing their way through the
aristocratic states of Art, Quake, Frostbitten, Music, Rhubarb and
Small. Eventually they battled through the Forest of Ex and arrived
at the northern coastline where they discovered a bay of great
beauty. Delighted by what they had seen, they hurried home only to
find that no-one else wanted to know about it. The Culture and
Natural History Museum rejected their carefully stuffed and dried
specimens, and also the beautifully-written and -illustrated
journals which are today mandatory reading for any Umbagollian
scholar worth his salt. The Gum Gooloo governor refused to
acknowlege their expedition. From the official point of view, it
looked as if the explorers had risked the lives of everybody in the
city for the sake of their own amusement. What if they had stumbled
across the persecutors, the sinister "They" who lurked in the corner
of every brain in Gum Gooloo? Civilisation as Goolooians knew it
might have come to an end. Fear became open vilification, as we know
from 'Featherstone,' still one of Umbagollah's most popular
childrens' games:
Featherstone, Featherstone, why is
she? She wants to kill you, and she wants to kill me
-
the children then scatter, and whoever is caught falls down 'dead.'
Sarah Featherstone was the young woman who led the expedition.
Deciding that the people of Gum Gooloo Gum Jublet were, "A
collection of invertebrate fuckwits," - to quote one eyewitness -
she led another, larger expedition back to the forest and the bay.
Here they founded the city of Ex. Ignorant of this, the Gum Gooloo
Governor declared them 'dead,' a memorial plaque was erected by
their parents and the tale of the Forty Foolish Travellers passed
into folklore.
Featherstone was the driving force behind Ex.
One of the other travellers later wrote, "She told us from the start
that this was going to be a city, not a settlement, but a proper
city, a place that would put Gooloo to shame. It seemed insane;
there were only forty of us after all. We could barely have
populated a town. She informed us that our buildings would be tall,
not flat, and that we would fool the world by surrounding ourselves
with a complicated hedge maze. It was completely the opposite of
everything we knew. We were skeptical, but enthralled. It seemed
impossible, but - what if it wasn't? She had pulled that great
charismatic trick of hers: she had convinced us that we were part of
something heroic. As it turned out, I believe we were." "
Go ahead to the next chapter, The
Triumph of Ex or back to the Timeline.
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