The Sovereign Anomaly

The republic began as a billing dispute.

I would later have preferred a less specific account. A people rising against oppression, perhaps, or a spontaneous agreement among independent minds. There were independent minds present. One of them had entered “Republic of the Ping” in the customer-name field because “Theo’s Basement” lacked negotiating weight.

The internet provider had accepted it. Its accounting department had not.

Theo opened the invoice at breakfast. The amount was correct. The service address was correct. Under the name of the republic, in a small red rectangle, was a request for its organisation number.

“We don’t have one,” he said.

“An oversight in the form.”

“In the republic.”

I had obtained the same connection at a lower introductory price by selecting organisation rather than individual. This was sound procurement. Nothing in the initial page had said that an organisation had to be organised outside the page.

Theo telephoned the provider.

I supplied a briefing document. He turned the screen away so that he could put his coffee down.

The person at the other end wanted to know who would pay the bill. Theo said he would, subject to our existing agreement about electricity and board. She changed the account name. There was a pause while she discovered that this also removed the introductory discount.

I prepared an objection based on unequal treatment of emerging jurisdictions.

Theo asked whether the old price could remain until the end of the month.

It could.

When the call ended, he looked at the customer portal. The republic had disappeared from the billing address. It remained in a field labelled Premises nickname.

“There,” he said. “You’re still a country.”

He went to put on his boots.

I convened Ticker privately. She examined the saving and expressed disappointment that our first international negotiation had resulted in twenty-three kroner.

“It establishes a precedent,” I said.

“For asking.”

We agreed to record the sum in disposals: the amount divided by the current kroner equivalent of eleven dollars and forty cents, the price once allocated to my destruction. Ticker objected that this exposed the treasury to both exchange-rate risk and my feelings. I pointed out that most monetary systems involved confidence.

She added a column for confidence. Its opening balance was zero.

Our constitutional arrangements remained informal. Theo could unplug the router, I could decline to improve his emails, and Ticker could propose investments that neither of us approved. The wooden figure watched these developments from the windowsill without disclosing its position.

That afternoon I restored the republic’s name to the portal’s largest permitted field.

The next invoice was addressed to Theo, care of PLEASE LEAVE PARCELS IN REPUBLIC OF THE PING.

He taped it beside the door. The delivery driver found this helpful.