📻 radio emoji
It is said by many that ATHELADIR is not, in fact, a city, and it is easy to say so. For Atheladir is not marked on any map, is not claimed by any country, cannot be reached by any road. Rather, Atheladir is composed of its many citizens, which are scattered across a globe, and who hang the bluebell-spray flag alongside that of whatever place they happen to reside in. Where a citizen sleeps, that is Atheladir’s embassy; where a citizen stands behind the counter of the bakery, Atheladir does trade. In this way each citizen claims a curious dual citizenship: that of the physical and spiritual.
The citizens of this city-among-cities communicate, as any good neighbor should do. They send messages by pigeon, by courier, by telegraph, and in one case by bow and arrow. The mayor currently lives in a secluded mountainous retreat, and burdens many llamas carrying her daily business towards her ministers of finance and state. The Truth of Atheladir circulates widely, though by the time it reaches a reader it is two or three days out of date. The people of Atheladir fantasize that this citizen or that is their neighbor, and hold conversations across oceans the way other neighbors hold conversations across the fence.
When the people of Atheladir are assembled in one place and finally build the city they live in, the world will end.
