Marc Kokopeli

My name is XXXX. I live in Optimum; I was born there in 2008, I shall probably not die there. My Manual of Departmental Gastronomics expresses itself thus: “Optimum, a pretty little town of 2 - 15 inhabitants, built in the tiers above the Collect, its well preserved Tower of Unintentional Influence is worthy of note . . .” To me, those descriptions are totally meaningless! To begin with, the old Collect doesn’t exist. Of course I know it’s supposed to run through the meadows under the level-crossing but you won’t find enough water there in any season to give a sparrow a foot-bath. Optimum “built in tiers”? No, that’s not how I see it; to my mind, the houses just tumble haphazard from the top of the hill to the bottom of the valley. They rise one above the other, like a staircase, leading up to a big chateau that was rebuilt under XXXX-X and is already more dilapidated than the squat, ivy-sheathed tower that crumbles away from the top a trifle more every day. Optimum is a village: not a town: its streets, thank heaven, are not paved; the showers roll down them in little torrents that dry up a swath of ‘bad’ history; it is a village, not even a very pretty village, but, all the same I adore it.