Westminster Hall: Abendrot Dispatch
Written September 30th, 2025, for contest sponsored by: Hilo Poet
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“Sir, a courier from the palace, posthaste.
A letter, sealed in alabaster wax—though oddly, the envelope is brown.”
—“Brown, you say? That’s abstruse. The palace, with all its aegis and aureate decorum, sends a missive in such a clod’s attire?”
“Indeed, sir. One might adumbrate a message of urgency or a deliberate elision of pomp.”
—“Hm. The hour is balmily acherontic. Across the channel, the clangor of war grows egregious. I dare not be caught in a deluge of decisions without due diligence. This envelope may well be a chimera.”
“Do you suspect it’s from the king?”
—“If not, then from a consanguineous hand. The appetency for peace is amaranthine, yet the nemesis we face is no amorist. He is bumptious, apoplectic, and besotted with ambition. I fear this letter may be a call to arms—or worse, a call to helm.”
“I abjure war, sir.”
—“And yet, madame, war does not abjure us. It is amort of our ambivalence. We must cogitate not on our dislikes, but on our duty.”
“Then open it. The aurora of fate awaits.”
—“Tut-tut. Ah! I am summoned to form a government. Prime Minister, they say.”
“Oh my. And Chamberlain?”
—“A crestfallen calyx, I suspect. I shall replace his wilt with a ductile lily. Now, to the palace—where the king awaits, purplish in mood, brown in discretion.”
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