In my last bulletin update, we caught but a glimpse of the lavish lifestyle of Mayor Minopoly. We saw his Old World home, painstakingly restored. We saw his wife, and food. And a couple kids, who may or may not belong to him (unconfirmed). And, worst of all, I nearly paid with my life to find this information out.

We ended Part 1 with more questions than we began: How can he afford all of this? Where are the corpses on Ben Tuck’s Perm Road? Who are those two children? And, most importantly, what is he trying to hide so bad that he needs vicious beasts to patrol his garden?

We start now with Mayor Minopoly’s day. Who is he really? Let us discover, together.

Minopoly walks to work, all over the poor

The fog begins to clear as morning trudges its feet to work. The smog above must be light today, for I can feel an extra modicum of heat radiating out of the sky, and it glows with a dangerous white light. I’m pulling my collar up around my sensitive neck as I spot two of the sheriff’s deputies appear down Ben Tuck’s and wander up the road, turning into Mayor Minopoly’s property.

They’re not in there long, for I barely have time to cross the road and hide in a nearby bush, hoping to spot what they might be doing in there. But the stone wall blocks my sight, and they reappear shortly after, mayor in tow.

As a threesome, they stroll back down Ben Tuck’s Perm Road towards Crumble. The sheriffs look hither and thither, and I have to hang back quite far so as to not be spotted by the shifty bastards. Minopoly himself seems unconcerned, whistling tunelessly to himself as he heaves his ass down the road. I must admit that I’m surprised that no members of the Edwina-whack-‘ards gang appear to molest this group as they are so clearly vulnerable. But, I must also admit that the two deputies are rather large and scary-looking, and have obviously done this sort of thing before. It’s also very early in the morning and, well fair play, I’d still be in bed, too.

Not surprisingly, Minopoly and his goons turn left after they enter Crumble and march up Malty Road. There are still visible signs of damage from the rioting, numerous hovels never rebuilt when the storm of violence washed through the area. It’s disappointing to see that the mayor has left these homes trashed and in disrepair, their denizens picking out a meagre living amidst the rubble, but I’m far from shocked. He doesn’t seem the type to help the poorest of our town.

So what does Mops do all day?

The day that follows is long and arduous, but not without its revelations. Mayor Minopoly leaves his deputies as they arrive at Moppers’ HQ on Malty Road (which, shock horror, is immaculately clean, repaired after the riots), and then goes inside to do his dirty, filthy work. I follow in close behind, disguising myself as a lowly assistant, carrying papers confidently and looking like I know what I’m doing. You can go anywhere so long as you look normal. Even the heart of enemy territory, apparently.

I have to be careful where I walk and who I talk to, for fear of being discovered – I’m famous, after all – but although there are moments of terror amid the oppressive wooden walls of Minopoly HQ, some of the information I pick up from snippets of conversation is … enlightening.

According to what I heard between Minopoly and his advisers, I believe we’re in store for the following…

1. More homes to be torn down: Not satisfied with what’s gone already, Minopoly intends to rip down more hovels in the name of building farmland. As you know, the houses out at Ben Tuck’s Perm have already started coming down (except the Mayor’s, of course), but now there are men with sledgehammers forcing citizens out of their Rippin’ Whale properties. Rippin’ Down Rippin’ Whale, you might call it. Disgusting is what it is. Where will those people live? The wealth of farmland isn’t for them – it’s for farmers.
2. Something about Dr Goldstein: I’m not sure exactly what, but there were talks about changing up the town health care system, that is to say, something to do with Dr Goldstein. I think he’s getting a bunch of new apprentices, but it sounds like he’ll be encouraged to put his prices up. That’ll be nice, right? You can either pay an arm and a leg (literally) to see a real doctor, or you can pay the normal price for a bunch of idiots who don’t know what they are doing. Oh man, I’m starting to sound as grumpy as Melvin.
3. Funding to be cut effective soonish to the One Acre Wall: As promised along the campaign trail, funding will be slashed for General Archibald Archibald’s One Acre Wall. Yeah, seriously. Some of our troops get to come home, and the rest will have to make do should the forest ever attack again.  The troops will be encouraged into farming jobs to man the new crop fields, and anyone not farming will be supposedly building new hovels for the evicted townsfolk. Except it’s all promises, right? They haven’t even repaired Malty Road – do we seriously think they’re gonna build full-on new homes if they can’t even repair the old ones? Yeah, not likely matey. Not likely.

And once I’d found these out, hastily scribbling them down on my trusty hidden notepad, I was forced into actual work for the HQ – nobody realising I wasn’t actually an assistant, and me being unable to tell them the truth. So I copied out numerous contractual documents by hand, but at least we learned some interesting information.

These are the questions I have about Mayor Minopoly:

1. Where are the bodies disappearing to?
2. Who are those children?
3. Do you seriously think that evicting people, upping medical bills and cutting funding to our Wall will help people!?
4. What are you trying to hide, Mayor Minopoly? What is your dark secret that’s so worth protecting?????

This is Flynn Harris, signing off from what has been an enlightening, but dismally dark journey into the life of the real Mayor Minopoly. If you think that this is as messed up as I do, make your voices HEARD. You don’t need to protest to be heard. You just need to talk. Loudly.

Let’s get rid of Mayor Minopoly, Crumble. Before he gets rid of us.

– Flynn