Confusion really started in The Bloom of
1213-hoo-hoo. Records of the
time, brought together by historyun Huce Merrinko, show that the confusion started at a high level and only got worse.
In fact, at the beginning of the records, a report even
gets the word ‘Confusion’ confused and describes it as ‘cream piping’ which led
other (less experienced and open-minded) historyuns to wrongly sub-label large
parts of the Confusion and invent a whole new segment of island history where
incredible, exciting things happened. All of which had to be officially erased
from text books, with a lot of mumbled apologies from the Information Board,
plus a bit of shoe shuffling and averted glancing. (It was the same thing when they wrongly documented the rise
and fall of a tribe of heavily-moustachioed accountants, whose economic grip
kept the lower parishes in financial slavery for hundreds of cycles. They
conjectured that even coins had to wear tiny manacles. But it was all a lot of 'bull locks'.)
Huce Merrinko, who is a well-known cliff-gripper and
great fun after a couple of cups of Pelch, laughs as he describes how his
researches themselves began, ended and middled in the same kind of horrible
Confusions:
‘Ha ha ha!
Yes, I began rummaging around in a set of dusty old drawers at the back
of the Jinsy Institute for Forgotten Details, using my bear hands (I received these fake-fur gloves as a present on
my hatchday and I’ve used them as protective gloves ever since! Ha ha ha!).
There was something caught at the back of one particular drawer. I think it was the third drawer down.
Or it might have been the fourth. Or the sixth. Ha ha ha! Anyway, I reached as
far back as I could, and got one of my gloves stuck in the narrow place at the
back of the cabinet. I was caught, bending at an unfortunate angle, and I could
feel a chilly draught passing across the upper cleavage at the back of my
trousers, just sort of toying with the small hairs at the mouth of the cleft. I was swearing really loudly when Mrs
Hurritch, the chief bookarian at the Institute, happened to come in with a
laden tea tray. I was using words
like K***** and D*******. I think
I also made reference to the three Int*******s, which unfortunately struck a
chord with Mrs Hurritch, as -
unknown to me – she has always been a private sufferer. She took one look at my reverse
cleavage, screamed, and dropped the tea tray, splattering the only existing
copy of the Jinthy Thenthus’, a hugely old, completely priceless illuminated
manuscript. Ha ha ha! My hand suddenly came free from the
drawer and I propelled backwards at incredible speed, firing Mrs Hurritch
across the corridor into the Private Reading Room, along with a lectern. We can
laugh about it now. Ha ha ha! Well, I can. Her mouth is still recovering from splinter
injuries. But I’m sure eventually
she’ll laugh too. Anyway, crumpled
up at the back of the drawer was a set of notes, describing the entire
Confusion period. Although it was
incorrectly titled “COSFUNION.” Ha ha ha!”
The tangle was eventually unwoven by Fourth Arbiter
Jerris, who managed to find one end, then deployed teams to work backwards,
simply unpicking it.
“Ha ha ha!”
