"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." – Genesis 11:1
FIELD REPORT – Bureau of Impossible Geography SURVEYOR: Ottoline Marsh, Acoustic Surveyor, Second Grade SHARD: THE ARCHITECTURE OF BABEL (city of Glossolaria) REPORT 1 OF 14 STATUS: Arrived; assigned one bed I was told to arrive before dusk and I arrived after it, which is the first mistake everyone makes, and the Head Gardener's assistant came running down the gravel walk to stop me at the door. She is nineteen, has soil to the elbows, and stopped me by putting her hand flat over my mouth. Then she signed something to someone behind me, took her hand away, and said, aloud and quite kindly: not in there, not now, not without an assignment, you will lose your English. I took it for a figure of speech. It is not. Glossolaria is a city grown around a glasshouse, the way old towns grew around a cathedral. From the sea you see the glass first: a long Victorian range of white iron and thin old panes, wide curved wings like the Palm House at Kew, and from its centre a spire, twisting, fort...
From the lore of The Architecture of Babel.