Of Maps & Men

Inkognito

inkognitowrites@yahoo.com

Three men stood at the cliff’s edge, surveying the kingdom with the kind of confidence typically reserved for people who’ve never owned mirrors.

Among them was Ellis, who had always believed cartography was a noble profession. Precise. Methodical. Grounded in fact.

Which was tragically ironic, considering he’d been appointed Official Fact-Checker solely because he had sneezed right as the king had asked, “Does anyone here know how to read?”

His other option was Royal Compost Turner.

He sometimes wondered if he’d picked the wrong job.

Charles, meanwhile, had discovered that his government-issued hip flask contained something that tasted like liquid confidence mixed with dissolved regret. He took another sip and decided that whatever happened next would be tomorrow’s problem, which was future Charles’s department, and that guy was notoriously unreliable.

George pointed across the choppy sea with the decisive gesture of a man who’d never been wrong because he’d never bothered to check. “And what do we call that over there?”

Charles squinted through his alcoholic haze. “Ah, the Isle of Man. All island, no man.” He winked at Ellis with the subtlety of a brick through a window. “Tragic waste of real estate, if you ask me.”

Ellis opened his mouth to object, then closed it again.

What was the point of objecting when he’d already been objectified, commodified, and possibly monetized?

Without looking up, George motioned in another direction. “And over there?”

As if summoned by the sheer dramatic potential of the moment, a pod of whales breached the surface.

“Whales,” said Charles.

“Wales,” George echoed, writing it down with a flourish.

“Wait—” Charles began, but George was already pointing elsewhere. “And that large landmass?”

“Ireland,” Charles sighed. “And its defiant little brother, Northern Ireland, who moved out but still comes home for Sunday dinner.”

Ellis leaned closer. “Charles, you do realize he just named an entire country after marine mammals?”

Charles shrugged with the philosophical resignation of someone who’d worked in government long enough to know that logic was more of a suggestion than a requirement. “It’s not the worst thing on the map.”

“But—”

“Let it go.”

Ellis narrowed his eyes at Charles like he’d just arrived from the future with a GPS. “Let it go?” he hissed. “You just let him rename an entire sovereign nation because he misheard a mammal!”

Charles exhaled through his nose, the bureaucrat’s version of a scream. “And yet somehow, dear Ellis, the world keeps spinning.”

“Brie-top!” George shouted suddenly while pointing. “We shall name that cheese-shaped hill Brie-top! Wait! No! Brie-ton! Hmm. Brighton. Yes.”

Ellis groaned. “No, that’s not— you can’t just— ugh, Charles, help me!”

“Mmm. No,” Charles hummed, taking a long sip from his flask. “Frankly, I only took this job to meet men in uniforms. Deeply disappointed so far.”

“Right!” George announced. “We’re making real progress, lads. This map will be a masterpiece.”

Ellis looked around, mildly panicked. “Please tell me this isn’t official.”

Charles clapped him on the back. “Yes, once it’s on the map, it’s official. That’s how these things work. Besides, people love confidence over accuracy. That’s why he was promoted, you know.”

Ellis blinked. “Promoted?”

“Oh yes,” Charles said, almost wistfully. “From apprentice to Senior Royal Toponymist. Officially, because he guessed the king’s favorite cheese.”

Charles leaned in conspiratorially. “Mind you, between you and me, I reckon he is the king’s favorite cheese. Similar texture, similar intelligence level.”

Ellis quietly began digging a small hole in the grass.

Not for any official purpose.

Just to scream into.

Charles swirled his flask and let out a deep, contented breath. “It’s a beautiful day to rewrite history.”

George pointed northeast. “And that up there? Sort of grayish and cloudy.” He paused. “I’ve got it! How about Manchester? Yes. Like a fortress. For men. Very sturdy. Strong branding.”

Ellis stood from his scream-hole, brushing dirt from his waistcoat with the resigned dignity of a man preparing to witness the downfall of civilization.

“I studied cartography. I had standards. I once corrected a footnote in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Now I’m standing on a cliff while a man names entire regions after dairy products and vague concepts of masculinity.”

He paused, staring into the middle distance. “I should’ve gone into plumbing. At least pipes make sense.”

Charles nodded thoughtfully. “Pipes are lovely. Direct. Honest. You know where things go.” He took another sip. “Unlike names, which just sort of... happen. Like gout. Or babies.”

Ellis turned and stared long into the sea, hoping it might offer some cosmic explanation for this madness.

The sea, mercifully, did not answer.

Though it did seem to be laughing.

Charles patted his shoulder again. “Give it a decade. You’ll stop fighting and start assigning blame retroactively. Works wonders for the heart.”

George gestured toward the horizon. “That icy bit up north? Do we have a name for that?”

Ellis looked over with dead eyes. “That’s Scotland.”

“Well then. I didn’t know Scot had done so well for himself. Good for him. Scotland it is then.”

Ellis had the look of a man wondering if jumping off the cliff would count as early retirement. “I need a drink.”

The pod of whales, apparently drawn by the sheer absurdity unfolding on the clifftop, suddenly resurfaced with what could only be described as perfect comedic timing.

George faced the other two men, triumph in his eyes. “Gentlemen, we’ve done it. A land named. A nation mapped. Well done, I’d say.”

“Well done, indeed,” Charles toasted, raising his flask.

Ellis’s gaze drifted suspiciously from the whales to the other men, his eye developing a slight twitch. “Are you both making whale puns now?”

Charles blinked. “What? No. I said, ‘well done’.”

“As did I,” George added with the wounded dignity of someone whose integrity had been questioned.

“It sounds like ‘whale’,” Ellis protested.

George looked confused. “What sounds like whale?”

“Well!”

“Well what?”

Ellis flailed. “You did it again!”

Charles sighed. “Well, this is unfortunate.”

Ellis, without a word, turned, walked twenty paces west, and began digging a second hole.