#wse

However, it is not mentioned on any maps of the region, and offically speaking it does not exist; mail sent to the village's mailbox is returned to sender, and all offical databases and records have no entry for Potem. Further, there is no public foot-path or road that connects the village to anywhere else; the nearest offical settlement, Gräz, labors under the belief that the two places it shares direct connections with are the only other population centers nearby.

The reasons for this would become self-evident if an outsider were to spend any significant time within it.

They would witness the carefully choreographed routines that are inlaid within the village, the patterns of the daily life there which unfold unceasingly, day upon day, and come to an understanding.

The day begins with the precisely measured steps of M. Rabewitz, the village smith, as he takes the three-hundred and sixty paces to the well, and hauls the bucket aloft. His hands have a well-associated rhythm as he pulls the rope up. He then takes the bucket with its weed-clogged water to the trough in the village square, and pours. The sound of the splashing water begins the next phase.

Masha Lurtz will begin her washing for the day. She will warble a wobbly version of "The Cherries That Bloom in August" as she undertakes her task. The clothes will be boiled in the washing-vat and then hubg out on the line; a banner of identical shirts and dresses, all the same material, the same cut, colour and pattern. Like bunting for a celebration.

Old Fyotor will haul his shaking bones down the main street, to the village store, the metronomic click of his cane counting down to the moment the sign in the doorway is flipped from "CLOSED" to "OPEN". He will unlatch the handle, and push the door ajar. He will step up to the counter and rattle through his usual order, which will be prepared and handed to him Lately he has been struggling to complete the last quarter-turn necessary to open the door, so the entire village has required recalibrating from this point onward.

After this task is done, Fytor will grumble and curse and hiss his way back down to his little hovel, and the day's business will truly begin: the gossiping of the hens at the post office, the charming chattering of the children in the schoolhouse, the gentle trudging of the troops at the guard-post.