Journal of a Nameless Clerk: Part I

THE FOLLOWING WORK HAS BEEN DECLARED APOCRYPHAL BY THE HIERARCH OF THE HOLY FELLOWSHIP OF THE FIRST SOVEREIGN. IN HIS INFALLIBLE WISDOM, THE HIERARCH MANDATES THAT ANYONE IN POSSESSION OF THIS DOCUMENT SUBMIT THEMSELVES TO THE NEAREST FACELESS GUARD AS A TRAITOR AND A HERETIC. FAILURE TO DO SO AND/OR THE REPRODUCTION, CURATION, DISSEMINATION, REPETITION (VERBAL OR OTHERWISE), AND THOUGHT OFF THIS TEXT IS PUNISHABLE BY EXECUTION.

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[All traces of any introductory pages have been scrubbed from existence. The same can be presumed of the author, themselves.]

Month Nine, Day 10, Year ██ of the Reign of Sovereign Mayhew XXI

What an opportunity! Three months out of the Central City Clerical Academy and I land myself an interview with the recruiter for the Hierophant's personal staff! Stern-looking fellow, that Fellow was (hehe!), but he can be as impolite as he pleases -- I have an interview, and nothing can spoil my good cheer!

How strange it was, to run into him while I busied myself reading on my morning walk to the office... Almost as if the encounter were preordained! He asked a passing question about the author (a naturalist academic, if I remember correctly), I gave him an ironic grin and told him truthfully that such ideas ought to be classified as skirting the edge of Apocryphal. Perhaps he was confused, and asked why then, if I thought such, I was reading it. I said (somewhat haughtily, I will admit...) something like "knowledge is the best defense against heresy" or another line I learned in school, and he grinned! Handed me a calling card and told me to meet him at its location precisely at noon on the eleventh (tomorrow!).

I apologize for everything I ever said about your boring lectures, Professors...

[the writer lists about twenty names, most of them misspelled.]