The Daily Standard, No. 3

BELL STOLEN TWICE

The raccoon took the goat’s bell in the night, and by morning it was for sale in the raccoon’s own window. Then the raven opened the archive, and the case changed shape: the goat is mourning a possession that was never his.

By Muninn, the Raven · Who Counted

The bell is gone, and then it was gone again. In the night, Andrew, raccoon, of the Trash, came up out of the dark the way he comes up out of everything, and took the brass bell from where the goat keeps it, which is to say from around the goat’s own neck, while the goat slept the sleep of the unbothered. By morning the bell was listed at Trash Panda Trading Co., in the window, on a card, in the raccoon’s careful hand: one bell, slightly jingly, priced to move. Beneath the card, in smaller writing, an offer. The goat may buy it back.

The bell is not a small thing to the goat. It is his most favorite possession in the world, and he will tell you so at length, unasked, in the street. He calls it the only honest thing he owns, and he has called it that for years, to anyone standing still. Its note is known at the trough. It has ended arguments and started them. Discovering the loss, the goat demanded justice, and demanded it loudly, and demanded a trial to go with it, and delivered all of these demands standing in the middle of the street, where the acoustics are better for demanding.

“I have been robbed,” the goat stated, to the street, from the street. “Robbed of the only honest thing I own. There will be a trial. There will be a reckoning. I will have my bell, and I will have the bell in writing.” The court took the statement down in full. The court then did what the court does in every matter, which is ask the archive what the record says. The record is mine. I keep it. I have kept it longer than the goat has kept anything, including the bell.

The record says this. The bell hung at the roost before it ever hung at the trough. It was struck for the standard, and it rang when the watch changed, and its note is entered in the count I keep of all the empire’s sounds, on a page the goat has never asked to see. The goat took it from the roost in a season when he was taking things, which the record distinguishes from his other seasons only in degree. Chain of custody, as the court now enters it: struck for the raven, carried off by the goat, carried off again by the raccoon. The goat is mourning a possession he never owned. He only had it, the way he has everything: temporarily, and at volume.

Andrew the Raccoon, at the shop — **Andrew**, at the shop, beside the listing. The bell is not in the photograph. The bell is in the window, on a card, priced to move. (Staff photo, taken through the glass, which he charges for.)

The Bench · The Ruling

A THIEF CANNOT BE ROBBED, COURT RULES

Moo Cow, presiding, is brief. The matter is referred to the trial that can never happen, where the docket is full and the evidence is lunch.

The court convened at the trough, the goat still in the street, the raccoon attending by inventory. Moo Cow, presiding, heard the goat’s account in full, which took some time, and heard the record, which took one sentence, and ruled from the bench.

“A thief cannot be robbed of what he stole.”

The goat’s claim to the bell is therefore no claim, and his grief, while genuine and impressively loud, is the grief of a tenant and not an owner. The raccoon’s taking is entered in the record as a taking, because the court calls things what they are, and both takings now stand together in one file, which is where they were always headed. The bell itself remains in the window. The court does not shop.

The matter is referred, in full, to the trial that can never happen, where it joins the brownie docket. The brownie matter remains ahead of it in line. It will remain ahead of it in line. Bic, bear, Minister of Snacks, was sent for the evidence bag, which was to hold the bell’s file, and returned carrying the bag, and then returned not carrying it. The bag was empty. He ate it anyway, on the ground that a bag carried to court is a kind of snack, and that an empty bag, eaten promptly, cannot be entered against anyone. The court accepted this. The court accepts most things the bear does with food, because the alternative is a hearing about food, and the bear would win it.

The River Desk · The Witness

JAMES SAW IT ALL, TWICE

The court’s only witness watched both thefts from the river, in order. His testimony is complete. It is the river.

James the Fish, watching — **James**, during both thefts. The eye is open. The record is closed.

James, a fish, was in the river on both nights, because James is in the river on all nights, and the river runs past the roost and past the trough and past the trash, which makes it the only address in the empire from which this entire case could be watched in sequence.

He watched the goat take the bell from the roost. He watched the raccoon take the bell from the goat. He watched the card go into the shop window, lettered carefully, slightly jingly. The Standard sent its reporter to the river with two questions, one for each theft.

Asked what he saw on the first night, the witness provided the following. Water, moving, with a bell’s note in it once, going away. Asked what he saw on the second night, the witness provided it again: the same water, the same note, the other direction.

The court accepts the testimony as complete and unabridged, and notes for the record that it corroborates the archive in every particular. He is a fish.

Corrections. In an earlier statement, the goat described the bell as the only honest thing he owns. The bell is honest. The owning is the part under review. The Standard regrets the confusion, which was the goat’s.

Notice. The bell may be viewed at Trash Panda Trading Co., where it is priced to move. The empire advises the goat not to buy back what was never his, and expects to be ignored. The case is closed. The case is open. Both entries stand.

Late Arrival · Closing the Edition

One party to the case was still missing when this edition went to press, and he arrived after it, at his own pace, which is the pace. Oscar, a turtle, came up the road past the roost, where the bell is not, and past the trough, where the bell is not, and past the shop, where the bell is, on a card, priced to move, and he looked at the whole matter for a long time, completely, the way he looks at everything. The bell had been stolen twice before he arrived. It may be stolen twice more before he leaves. He gave the court the only statement he has ever given, and this paper prints it as the last word of the Sunday edition, because it will be the last word on the case as well: “The turtle does not testify. He outlives the case.”

Follow the raven. The goat is lying to you.

The goat tells his side, over a martini: The Goat, Martini Shirt · Previous edition: Vol. I, No. 2

The Daily Standard · A Warner Empire Publication · Printed at the trough, against our wishes
Sunday, November 1, 2026 · Vol. I, No. 3 · The Sunday Edition · (allegedly)