N2

This is curious. I received the following message late last night.

Yo, Jim. (It’s strange to call you Jim, but the way I figure it, I’ve earned it, starting from Mr. Menick and going on to Menick way back when, and God knows I’m old enough now to practically be a contemporary of yours—all right, maybe nobody’s that old, but you get my drift.)

I will point out that, before I met Jules and the Nostrumite, I never used parentheses. I got it from them. They’re contagious, sort of like punctuation swine flu. The message goes on:

Anywho, I’ve been back in the country a couple of months now, actually since September. If you were following Moravian news, you know about the coup, and about how my chances of ever taking back the throne now are somewhat less than nil. So it goes, eh? The house of O’Shaughnessy finally falls. I think I would have made a pretty good king, all things taken into consideration, or at least a passable duke or earl, but what with the public beheadings of most of the royals, desertion seemed to be the better part of valor, so I gave up and returned to the States.

Needless to say, my first stop was up in Cambridge to visit the Mite, who as you know is teaching at Tennessee Williams High School. I can’t believe he has two kids of his own now. Who would have thought he’d be the first of the two of us to breed? The kids are cute, by the way, in a Nostrumian sort of way.

I lived on the Mite’s couch for a month or so until I finally got a job and a place of my own, thus preventing the Nostrumate from killing me in my sleep, as I’m sure she would have done if I had stayed any longer. They’re not much (neither the job nor the place) but it isn’t easy for displaced royals to get work nowadays. This is not a factor of there being too many displaced royals trying for the same positions as there just isn’t that much work, even for the commonfolk, among whom I must now number myself. But I managed finally to get a bookstore job, which should hold me for a while. And a small apartment in the rattier part of Harvard’s backyard.

Maybe I should send him over to CP’s house. Although for all I know that’s in the same ratty part of Harvard’s backyard, and would be no improvement. And the last thing CP probably needs is a permanent boarder like his former royal almost majesty.

The reason I’m writing, aside from updating you on my life and times, is to tell you that, well, in our spare time, the Mite and I have returned to the scene of the crime. We loved what you did with the audios, although we wish you hadn’t run out of steam halfway through. After all, we didn’t run out of steam writing them until we were all the way through, sort of, and we were the ones who had to do all the creative work while all you did was sit there reading them out loud with your feet up while you were eating chocolate bonbons; feel free to finish up any time you want to. But meanwhile, we have begun to work on what we’re calling between ourselves N2, and we thought you’d like to know about it. A lot has changed in debate since the old Nostrum days. So far, the only person who’s still in the activity that we’ve been able to track down is Tarnish Jutmoll, but there could be others. We never did plan too far ahead, if you remember correctly.

Another thing that’s different from back then is that the old delivery system of emails and whatnot is long gone. Getting started won’t be easy, seeing as we’re doing it without portfolio, so to speak. I mean, you’re the one that holds the reins on all the old stuff, after all. Not that we resent it or anything, because, well, it’s not like you’ve made any more money on it than we did, but, given that you’re there and we’re not, we were wondering if you’d mind hosting us in the future for a while, until we get our act together, so to speak.

Let us know.

Yr hmb svts,
Jules and the Nostrumite

That was, to put it honestly, an email I thought I’d never read. Jules and the Nostrumite are back? Writing more Nostrums? The mind boggles.

Of course I’ll take on the hosting for them. It is, after all, the least I can do. I might even do some audios.

I wonder how long this will last…