A back issue, pulled from the morgue exactly as it was buried. One edition a week, set in the back room of Daily Ribbit Media Holdings, printed on whatever the property room can't account for. The names are changed to protect the guilty, which in this swamp is everyone. What follows is a work of parody.
Page One · Courts Desk
Retrial Convened On A Raft So No Frog Owns The Ground Beneath It; Defendant Buys The Raft By Lunch
Unable to find a courthouse the defendant does not already sit under, the swamp floats the whole proceeding on open water. By the noon recess the raft has a new owner and a great smile.
By our courts correspondent, filed from a borrowed lily-pad, drifting
Having learned last week that its courthouse was a rented lily-pad owned by a shell pondcompany, the state resolved to try the swamp's most notorious frog somewhere he could not possibly own the ground beneath the bench: a raft, lashed from spare reeds and floated to the middle of the open water, where the swamp itself holds no deed. Court opened at nine. The defendant arrived by nine-thirty, complimented the raft's construction, and asked, idly, who held title to it.
No one did. By the lunch recess a shell pondcompany had been formed, a bill of sale drawn, and a tongue-print applied that matched the defendant's down to the flick, though he had, all morning, been in plain view of the jury. The judge now presides, per the record, as a guest aboard the defendant's vessel. Proceedings will resume once the swamp can float a raft the defendant does not already own the water under, a body of water it is presently unable to locate.
Continued on the recordThe trial, from the top — how the case never quite ends→Business & Filings
Nineteenth Shell Pondcompany Filed; Its Only Asset Is The Eighteenth's Opinion Of Itself
The Registry of Ponds & Shells approves a holding whose sole property is a favorable audit the group wrote about the group, now recognized as a tradeable asset.
There were eighteen shell pondcompanies. There are now nineteen. The new one, filed before the tide turned, lists a single asset: the eighteenth pondcompany's own glowing opinion of the other seventeen — an audit the group conducted on itself, found flawless, and has now spun off, notarized, and booked at a value the registry declined to question and the Gazette declined to believe.
The registered agent is the same cousin, still fishing in the islands, now listed as agent for all nineteen and reachable at none. Above them the parent trust answers, as ever, to a single frog who carved his mark under a rusted grate and never left. He will tell you there are only seventeen. The eighteenth does not count itself; the nineteenth holds only a compliment; and a compliment, he explains, is not a company. Stop counting.
Continued on the recordThe Holdings — the whole shell empire on file→Nightlife & Numbers
Storm-Drain Casino, Now That Its Odds Are Legally Weather, Begins Selling Weather Insurance At The Door
Having won a ruling that the house edge is simply the climate, the Cattail Street operation opens a second window insuring patrons against the very climate it is.
Down off Cattail Street, the house has read its own tribunal ruling carefully. If the odds are weather, management reasons, then a frog might reasonably wish to insure against them — and so a new window has opened beside the tables, selling storm coverage against a storm that is, in law and in fact, the casino itself. Premiums are collected at the door; claims are adjudicated inside, by the weather, and denied on grounds of act-of-swamp.
A trench-coated associate works both windows at once, seen everywhere, remembered nowhere, selling the umbrella and being the rain. Patrons report the experience as seamless. They arrive dry, insure against getting wet, get soaked at the tables, file a claim, lose it to the climate, and leave lighter, happier, and unable to recall which window took the last of it.
Continued on the recordThe job — The House Always Hops (§ 04.2)→Family Desk
Soft Twin Across The Water Anonymously Pays His Brother's Sealed Tax Bill; Receives A Thank-You Note By Morning
The good one hears the count has been sealed by court order, cannot bear the thought of an honest debt going unpaid, and quietly settles it. The debtor knew before the ink dried.
Across the water, a certain law-abiding relation — clean record, tidy pond, receipts in triplicate — learned this week that his notorious relation's tax count had been sealed by court order, and could not sleep for it. An honest swamp, he reasons, pays what it owes. So he walked to the tax office before dawn, left an anonymous purse sufficient to settle the sealed sum, and told no one. He was home by first light, unthanked, as he prefers.
By morning a note arrived at his tidy pond, addressed in a familiar flick, thanking him warmly for his generous business and enclosing a receipt made out in his own name. The Gazette will not print either brother's name; the swamp knows the difference between the twins the way it knows still water from moving. One pays a debt that was never his to spare a frog the shame. The other now holds a receipt proving the honest one funds the empire, and has filed it, sources say, where such things are kept safe.
Continued on the recordThe feud file — the two frogs across the water→Property Room
Evidence Pantry Now Caters The Retrial; Croaksworth Serves The Exhibits As Canapés
The locker-turned-pantry lands the concession for the raft proceedings. Jurors describe the casserole receipt as delicious and the tongue-print as gone.
The Gazette has learned that the swamp's evidence pantry — until recently an evidence locker — has been awarded the catering concession for the floating retrial. The exhibits shelved last week under "lunch" have been plated: the casserole receipt, reduced; the item logged only as "still warm," served warm; and the tongue-print, we are told, garnish. Jurors report the spread was excellent and the case against the defendant noticeably lighter.
Officer Croaksworth, who keeps a clean desk, an empty cell, two watches, and now an apron, confirmed the pantry has always catered and that a well-fed jury is a fair jury. He saw nothing become a canapé. He was very clear that he saw nothing, that he was in the galley, and that anything the state now wishes to enter into evidence will have to be reheated, if it can be found at all.
Continued on the recordThe crew — Officer Croaksworth, who saw nothing→Public Notices
Auctioneer Sells The Lockup Tunnel To The Islands; Warden Says It Was Never His To Keep
The escape tunnel logged last week as an amenity goes under the gavel as "waterfront passage, motivated seller." The high bidder is a cousin no one can reach.
The swamp's auctioneer brought the gavel down this week on an unusual lot: the drainage tunnel that runs from the Lily-pad Lockup to the reeds, advertised as "waterfront passage, one-way, motivated seller, no returns." Bidding was brisk. The winning bid, entered by tongue-print, came from a cousin last seen fishing in the islands and could not be confirmed, collected, or contradicted.
The warden waived any claim, explaining the tunnel had always belonged to whoever was leaving through it and was therefore never his to sell, only his to log. The lockup's ledger now carries the passage as "sold, off-book, warm regards." The auctioneer took his commission in flies, thanked the room, and reminded the assembled that everything in the swamp is for sale twice: once by the frog who owns it, and once by the frog who took it.
Continued on the recordThe crew — Skeeter the Auctioneer→Letters & Grievances
Reader Mailbag: "I Insured Myself Against The Weather And The Weather Turned Out To Be A Frog"
The grievance column fills again with the swamp's steadiest genre: correspondents who bought protection from the very thing they were paying.
This week's mailbag: a patron who insured himself against the casino's climate and learned the climate had a smile; a bidder who won a tunnel he cannot find; and a widow, again assessed a toll, this time on a raft she has never boarded, floating on water she does not own, moored to a case she is not party to. We print their grievances in full and change, as always, nothing.
The Gazette holds no opinion on whether the swamp's most notorious frog stands behind these misfortunes. We note only that every correspondent, pressed, admits he signed, bid, or paid of his own tongue. The tongue-press never lies. The frog holding it thanked each of them for their continued business and has, sources confirm, already gone fishing in the islands, insured against the trip by a policy he wrote himself.
Continued on the recordThe Rogues' Gallery — the marks, from their side→