NationStates Jolt Archive

Memorandum

To: Most esteemed Representative Rosa of Tanah Burung
From: Banadum, humble Trade Minister, Republic of Bipedal Apes
Subject: Trade agreement

Ms. Rosa,

It is with great joy and happy tidings that I greet you upon learning of your nation's gracious grace in agreeing to enter into trade with our humble Republic. In re: said agreement of trade, we respectfully request an opportunity to deliver unto your nation the Chief Operational Officer of our national bananale brewery, Ms. Toesturtium. As primary responsibilitator for Bipedal Federated Fermentations, Toesturtium should naturally discuss with Burungian brewers specifics and logistics re: brewmentation and distribution of products within our two nations, both esteemed and humble.

If this is agreeable to you, please allow Toesturtium and her small bipedal delegation of brewngineers and financialators visas to enter your esteemed and rightously gigantic nation.

Respectfully yours,

Ms. Banandum

As people's representative for economic affairs & cooperatives, Rosa Almeida had read some trade proposals in her time. The inquiries from the banana-wine brewers of The Bipedal Apes, though, that stood out.

Rosa wanted to meet whoever had written that letter. She recalled her first trade talks with a non-human nation, the Grand Duchy of Hell Bovines. That had been a good party, although she thought in retropsect that perhaps she had over-indulged in the hallucinogenic grasses a tad. But the Bovines had been buzzed enough that she suspected no one had noticed her own inability to form coherent sentences.

So: apes. Weren't all apes bipedal? She thought perhaps they were. No doubt this Toesturtium would be able to tell her, assuming the ape did not think that the delay in responding to her very nice letter was overly rude.

Dear Ms Toesturtium,

It would be our great honour to receive your brewing professionals in the United Provinces. I am quite certain that each United Province would enjoy meeting your delegation and sampling their products, which i am confident are unsurpassed in their excellence. It will be up to you how extensive a visit you choose to make to our simple nation, but please allow to assure you that each day you spend with us shall gladden our hearts and uplift our spirits. No pun intended.

Remind me to tell you about how my parents met. Bananas enter into the story. I won't bore you with it now. If you like, we will send an airship to pick you up and carry you to Tanah Burung. Or you can arrange your own transportation, if by any chance you're not a fan of blimps. To be honest, they scare the bejesus out of me. Nice seats, though.

Either way, i shall await you with the greatest of pleasure.

Rosa Almeida

Toesturtium watched through window as ground slowly rose toward her, horror growing by second. Despite knowing shiny new jet was made by clever humans and probably not likely to crash much, sight of buildings and trees getting closer and closer almost made her whimper with fear. Truly she regretted demanding window seat from brewmentaion underling at lift-off. In fact, only thing preventing her from ordering said underling to trade seats back was fear of fear itself; looking afraid best way to undermine authority.

“You okay, Ms. Toesturtium?” asked Freecow beside her. Toesturtium put on her best angryface and turned to underling.

“I am okay,” she said with snarl that should end speculation. Chastened, Freecow looked at her toes.

But Toesturtium did not look at own toes. Toesturtium looked straight ahead at next seatback and tried to put thoughts of dying horribly in plane crash out of head. Instead she focused on upcoming meeting with Burungi brewery bigwigs and importance of meeting to Motherland. Strangely, despite pressures on her, business matters frightened her not. Perhaps long years of management experience and dealmaking prepared her for even this. Or perhaps lack of airplanes in Republic of Bipedal Apes made trans-border travel especially harrowing. Although great aviation expert Ms. Aeroflotnana explained theory of “lift” to her before departure, still idea of hugenormous metal airplane not falling out of sky mystified poor Toesturtium.

Voice came over loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We’re on our approach into Tiga Burung International Airport. The temperature on the ground is a humid thirty-five degrees, just right for lounging on the beach or staying inside a nicely air-conditioned hotel. The forecast calls for plenty of sub-tropical weather, so I hope you like it sultry. We’ll be on the ground in about fifteen minutes, and until we’re in the terminal, I’ll be keeping the seatbelt lights on and asking everyone to refrain from moving around the cabin. I hope you’ve enjoyed flying Oglethorpian Airways, and stay out of trouble in Tanah Burung.”

Fifteen minutes, Toesturtium said to self. She closed eyes and leaned back in seat, trying to trust in human pilot to keep them from dying in fiery explosion as plane touched ground.

Across aisle, Spittlenose hummed loudly. Toesturtium shot underling financialator withering glance, worried adjacent humans would disapprove of poorly-evolved behavior. But Spittlenose did not see her, and even hissing did not attract his attention. Headphones covered ears, playing bad music-- if humming was representative. Freecow turned eyes to mistress, then Spittlenose, then back again, looking worried. And well she should; despite being hampered by seatbelt, Toesturtium reached across Freecow and aisle and whalloped humming financialator across top of head.

“Ow!”

“Hush!” snapped Toesturtium, and Spittlenose sulkily obeyed, rubbing head gingerly. “No humming on airplane,” she added, but he did not respond. Toesturtium pretended not to notice Liliendra grooming his injured co-financialator. Pathetic males, she said to self. Yes, comfort each other. Disdain distracted her from aiplane crashdeath thinking for so long that before she knew it, extreme turbulence of final descent threatened to make her wretch on Freecow.

Freecow as well looked almost green, while across aisle, weak-stomached males vomited vociferously into barely-adequate paper bags. But within moments it ended, descent became smooth again, and then bump of wheels contacting terra firma make Toesturtium nearly squeal with joy. Such was her pleasure at not dying in horrid fire that she ignored surreptitious passing of hankie by Freecow to vomit-lipped males. Glow of lifejoy lasted entirely until plane finished taxiing across tarmac to terminal and doors opened, letting in thick Burungian air. Was like breathing with head in tropical fishtank, only hotter and wetter. By time line of passengers disembarked, allowing Toesturtium and underlings to exit plane, she longed for dry veldt of Motherland. But knowing duty, she steeled herself and looked regal as they descended steps to crowd of assembled humans.

((i am slow, please forgive unworthy tardy human type for lateness))

Rosa hated air conditioning. She hated the humidity here. Back and forth from too-cold room to too-hot outdoors: it was more than a woman should have to endure.

Why in hell the powers that be had decided to put the country's only airport in this godforsaken swamp, she could not imagine. Perhaps the apes would enjoy it, though.

Rosa awoke with a short sharp shock of awareness: it was past time (she always dreamed alliteratively: it was a tradition among the Meida people. As were overly self-conscious asides). She jumped up, showered as swiftly and as little as she dared, and rushed to the airfield. There, the band was playing the super-extended version of the Burungi national anthem, which to any discerning visitor sounded almost indistinguishable from a free-form jazz version of a Michael Stipe song, played by a bunch of musicians who might haved heard the original once many eyars ago, but were now making it up as they went along.

Not for the first time, Rosa reflected how pleased she was that no one had ever got around to writing a national anthem. It came in handy at times like these.

Around the air field, Buruingi and Bipedal flags caught the wind periodically. More noticeable, though, were the enormous Stout Lout billboards. Behind them, banana and olive trees were visible, and in the distance, the smog-choked industrial city of Tiga Burung. One billboard, painted with the slogan "Welcome to Tanah Burung, the Land of Birds! Your dreams made flesh!" still bore the graffiti message "Knooter filth not welcome." Rosa made a mental note to have that removed. It couldn't possibly be good for the tourist trade.

As she bolted into the band leader's field of vision, the anthem came to a surprisingly sudden halt. The band quickly struck up what foreign ministry officials had assured them was the national anthem of the Bipedal Apes, giving a bit of a flourish on the tuba wherever possible. As the final strains were piped out, she put on her best smile and strode forward to greet the visitors.

"Ms Toesturtium, i presume," Rosa said brightly. The she winced. Did i just say that? Never mind. Forge on! "I hope you found your flight as delightful as i find it to meet you at last!"

She sniffed slightly. Was that the smell of stale vomit? No, it couldn't be. She turned and nodded to the rest of the party, picking one of the larger apes at random.

"What enchanting lipstick! You must let me try some!"

Infuriated, Toesturtium walloped Liliendra across back of skull.

“Ow!”

Stupid male! Couldn’t even be trusted to clean lips right, and human bigwig Ms. Rosa noticed too, even. Also she seemed concerned by head-smacking. Humans not discipline their males that way, Toesturtium reminded self. She would have to be careful not to seem primitive or under-evolved in harrowingly hugenormous Tanah Burungland or they might ship her to gulag or archipelago or something. She shuddered at thought.

“I Ms. Toesturtium,” she said, holding out hand. Ms. Rosa grasped it, partaking in human greeting-gesture ritual. “This Freecow. She number-one assistant. These male financialators. That one Spittlenose. That one--” she paused, tempted to introduce him as Stupiddumbhead. But she refrained. “That one Liliendra. He need to go behind bush and wipe face off.”

“Behind bush?” Ms. Rosa repeated, maybe not understanding what bush for.

“Poop-bush,” Toesturtium explained. “Behind poop-bush, where wipe hands and face after pooping.” Looking around, she realized no bushes grew near stinky fume-spewing but incredibly advanced airplanes. “It can wait,” she added, and turned to Freecow. “You have big gift?”

Freecow rummaged in bag briefly, coming up with green-papered package about size of banana. “How come humans all wet?” the brewmentator whispered.

Toesturtium took look at sky. No rainclouds anywhere. “Maybe they fell in water-hole on way here,” she surmised. Freecow nodded at bigwig’s sage wisdom. Taking the package, Toesturtium turned back to human assembly.

“This gift from humble Prime Matriarch of RBA to esteemed and noble bird-loving peoples of Tanah Burung,” she intoned, holding package out to Ms. Rosa. Human accepted it with possibly reluctant smile.

“Thank you.”

“Go ahead and open.”

With crowd watching, Ms. Rosa carefully tore paper away.

“It Spingball bird,” Toesturtium explained. “Exceedingly rare and beautiful bird found only in southeastern rainforest of RBA.”

“Aha. It’s... lovely?”

“Sorry it dead. Not allowed bringing live birds on airplane, they said.”

“Urk.”

“Don’t worry, we didn’t kill it. Wouldn’t do that. We found dead bird on ground and wrapped it up. Last week.”

“Gruk.”

“Ms Rosa look sick,” Freecow whispered to Toesturtium. Apparently loud enough for respected human to hear.

“It’s just the humidity,” Rosa said.

“Yeah, it intense. You humans must be exceeding noble to stand it.”

Liliendra unexpectedly fell over. Many humans, and Spittlenose, rushed to his assistance.

“I think it too hot for him,” Ms. Toesturtium apologized to Ms. Rosa. ”He just a male.”

Though he was still breathing Liliendra did not look well. He might have to go to hospital.

((i am slow, please forgive unworthy tardy human type for lateness))

OOC- this shall be the thread where the frequency of the posts is inversely proportional to their quality and comic value. ;)

A dead bird, Rosa thought. How very disturbing She was not at all sure that she was cut out for this type of work. And why in hell hadn't anyone thought to provide a poop-bush? She made a mental note to get someone from Non-Human Relations on this greeting squad as soon as humanly possibly. Or should that be apishly possible?

No, she was not cut out for this at all.

Rosa realized she had been standing there dumbstruck for some moments, mouth open, holding a dead bird which looked rather the worse for its trans-oceanic journey. And was maybe starting to attract too many mosquitoes and moss flies and rabbit flies. She tried, as discreetly as possible, to rehinge her jaw.

Get a grip, woman. Say something before you accidentally violate some simian taboo.

"... just the humidity," she offered weakly to Toesturtium, attempting to smile. The effect made it look as if she had swallowed a mink, and was trying to explain to the mink's mother that she had mistaken the mink for a glass of cola. In a word, unconvincing.

Rosa suddenly remembered her own gift, a wood carving in ivory-inlaid mahogany of Manrmakeri, the Itchy Man of Loro Sae. Desperate for a distraction from the bird carcass in her right hand, she fumbled with her left hand to try to find it and hand it over.

"You honour us with your gift," she began. "As a token of our esteem for our new friends from the Republic of..."

The ape with the vomit breath suddenly keeled over. Medical attendants, and people who thought they might be medical attendants, and others who had taken a CPR course in high school, and a few others who enjoyed hospital dramas on TVTB a little too much, mobbed the fallen ape.

"Give him some air!" Rosa shouted, taking the opportunity to hand the dead bird to the Third Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary for Protocol Affairs.

Zach, a local boy of 15, had been sitting with an air of detached boredom at the wheel of one of the electric gold carts that was serving as limousine, in light of the new restrictions on petroleum-fuelled cars. With great excitement, he saw the furry dignitary fall. What an opportunity! He flicked on his toy siren and motored over to the assembled bigshots.

"Ambulance service!" he shouted gleefully. "Let me through!" Dutifully but a little skeptically, the crowd parted and let his golf cart pass.

The golf cart, Toestutrium would have noticed, was unmarred by the usual beer advertisements. It did seem to have an ad for "Third Eye Cosmetic Surgical Services," however. Whatever that was.

Rosa stared at the boy. She appeared to have rather lost control of the situation. No, definitely not cut out for this. And yet Liliendra did not look well at all. Maybe he did require medical attention.

"Have a vet rushed to Calvinist Memorial Hospital," she whispered to the Fifth Under-Secretary (Acting) for Media Relations, who had been photographing the rapidly-congealing mass of birdflesh.

"Ms Toesturtium," she said, turning back to the apes. "Your, um, colleague does not appear well. Perhaps we should skip the rest of the pleasantries and take him to a hospital?"

This looked like a hierarchical culture. She was damned if she was going to touch one of the males without permission from the ape who was clearly in command of this crew. Those teeth looked like they could sever her wrist cleanly and still be sharp enough to slice an olive.

Not for the first time that day, Rosa wished she was having a martini.

OOC-- Don’t know if “electric gold carts” was a typo, but I’m sure you won’t mind my seizing on it, eh?

IC-- Ms. Toesturtium watched impressive crowd of human doctor-bigwigs mob stupid heatstruck male and shove him into back of shiny new ambulance which she noticed was made of solid gold. His head lolled ridiculously over side, and feet too, over other side.

Spittlenose jumped around during rescue operation, getting in way of doctors and making general nuisance of stupid male self. If she was close enough Toesturtium would certainly have put end to that with proper headsmacks, but under circumstances all she could was watch with embarrassed dismay. “Where I sit? Where I sit?” Spittlenose cried, shoving humans about as he tried to find room. With Liliendra taking up entire back he tried squeezing into front, but aside from crushing tiny human paramedic driver nearly to death, this accomplished little. Finally Spittlenose leapt to canopy rooftop of ambulance-cart, which proved poor idea, as weak-willed supports gave way under two hundred kilos of sudden ape-weight. Rooftop and Spittlenose crashed down unceremoniously, causing great squealing distress to human driver and swiftly reducing Liliendra’s chances of rapid recovery.

Toesturtium covered face with hands, wondering whether humiliation would kill her outright, or if Burungi flogging-squads would have to finish job. She could only imagine cost of repairing damage to solid-gold ambulance cart and penalties associated with crushing one. If there was any consolation, it came in fact that entire incident happened in midst of huge crowd of clever human doctors, who immediately dove into exciting field-rescue, helping Spittlenose off ambulance roof and then extricating driver and Liliendra from mangled wreckage.

Through some fortuitous stroke of good luck, driver was not seriously injured, although her anguished cries of, “My cart! My cart!” did little to reassure Toesturtium regarding penalties that Burungi law would undoubtedly impose on errant apes for this heinous crime.

Stupid male being already unconscious, degree of new injuries sustained in Spittlenose accident was hard to judge. From somewhere a new ambulance was quickly procured, humans shoved Liliendra into it, and off it sped to hospital, stupid male’s head hanging over back and bonking against side of cart with each acceleration. Spittlenose loped along behind and in truth, despite great advanced human technical engineering and time-warp technology, ambulance barely drove faster than ape could run.

Finally Toesturtium turned back to Ms. Rosa. Human bigwig looked upset by whole turn of events. It seemed like good time for humble apology.

Toesturtium looked at toes. “We very very sorry for stupid male breaking lovely solid-gold Burungi ambulance,” she said, feeling no less ashamed than she sounded. She waited for headsmack, but remembered a little while later that humans had invented other subtler, more effective means of punishment, such as sarcasm and passive aggressiveness. When finally she raised head, Rosa was standing there staring at her, looking like she wished she was somewhere else, undoubtedly feeling smitten by extreme crazy tropical saunaweather. Esteemed human muttered something that sounded like absolution and lunch before turning and leading entourage toward air terminal.

Toesturtium took a last look at smooshed ambulance before following. Some extremely clever human doctors turned out also to have advanced degrees in engineering and metallurgy, which they were demonstrating by repairing roof supports with quantum stickytape. Maybe this would mean no legal sanctions, Toesturtium hoped. Propelling Freecow before her, she hurried to follow Ms. Rosa.