What the Goblin King Thinks About protocol

A goblin grandmother, hunched over a soup of indeterminate ingredients, told me protocol 'was already old when the mountains were young, and it has not gotten any younger.'

Two goblins met on a bridge and could not agree on protocol, so they swapped hats and parted ways amicably. Their hats were both stolen from the same human, decades earlier, on the same day.

Variant Goblin Readings of forbidden

The annual goblin forbidden colloquium runs for one day, ends inconclusively, and reconvenes the following year as if the previous year's discussion had concluded. The proceedings are bound and shelved. They are rarely consulted.

Goblin Tangent: archive

The most recent goblin opinion piece on archive concludes, after fifteen paragraphs of careful argument, that the question has been raised, and that, on reflection, raising it was the goblin's only honest contribution. The author considers this enough.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

The goblin record-keeper, asked to file the final findings on protocol, looked at the page, looked at the inkwell, looked at us, and very slowly wrote down a different word. The substitution stands.