Al was confused, and it had been for a while. The cause of its confusion? Simple and small enough to be held in its pale well-manicured hands. Endless confusion from a letter printed on creased white paper.

The letter was simple, cheap, and familiar starting with the same blunt lettering as always:

“To Mx Al Smyth, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs regret to inform one Mx Al Smyth that its right to work application has been rejected on the following grounds.”

A rough secondary fold obscured the remainder of the letter, held pinned closed by Al’s blue varnished nails. Al Sighed to itself and glanced out the window, its eyes flicking across the blurry void outside.

Was there any point to even read the reason its request had been rejected? It knew the actual reasons, the ones that wouldn’t be written down for fear of admitting the weird truths of the world.

Al didn’t exist, or rather not in this world, not in this world of “England” and “Scones”. It had been born of course, born in the city of London, in the year of 1992. But not London, England nor even London, USA. No, it had been born of two loving parents who raised it in the dull rainy streets of London Angleland.

A simple difference, but one which Her Majesty’s agents seemed reluctant to consider never mind resolve.

And yet there was hope in the form of a second letter which had also arrived a day prior. A letter currently held open by tiny pink magnets on the fridge.

This letter too was a cheap, simple, and printed with that so familiar blunt lettering. The letter, like many letters from HMRC had driven Al to a state of quiet seething rage. The harsh characters demanding taxation from Al as a “highly valued small business owner who had recently moved to the country.”

The words rolled through Al’s head as it kicked on its loose purple and black trainers and it muttered to itself. How pray tell can I be “highly valued” and also not allowed to work!

Not that it, or anyone else, wanted to work of course but an enby’s gotta eat ya’know.

Al sighed to itself once again as it stuffed the two contrary notes into its jeans pocket. It took a second to brace itself against the cold winter and pulled open the door to the outside world with a sharp crack of poorly maintained woodwork. Maybe Sai would know what to do.

Sai lived “next door”, if next door was even a concept which applied to a street suspended between realities. Indeed, it took Al several attempts before arriving at the correct door despite the number of times it had walked the self-same path. With little thought it knocked on the painted wood, its knuckles brushing across planks twisted by years of exposure to the street.

Al shuddered at the thought and opened its eyes to see Sai stood in the now open doorway. Their freckled brown skin displaying bold dimples, a tell for the desperate battle with the amused grin under their attempted scowl.

With a sudden fluid movement Sai surrendered to the impulse, grinning widely at their unexpected guest, as they launch into a well-practiced diatribe of sing song tones.

“Meditating outside my door again eh Al? You are right of course, such beauty to be seen in this dingey street, this doorway!”

They swung their arm in a wide flamboyant arc posturing before the cracked woodwork. “The greatest doorway, nay the only doorway that remains of the greatest French colony the world ever saw. This beloved, mangled wooden thing the last relic of my homeland of Britania!”

Sai stood arms outstretched, leg raised in a contorted parody of welcome for a single moment before Al pushed past them into the house, a crash of long spindly limbs echoing from the street outside as they lose their balance and fall sideways into the gutter. Al looked back briefly and having confirm its melodramatic friend was not actually injured sweep its free arm across the desk in the hallway. A half dozen loose papers and an empty coffee cup wedged themselves precariously between the desk and the wall as Al unfurled the two letters on the scarred wooden surface.

“Oooh what have we got here? More letters from the queens’ agents? What do they have to say this time?” Their eyes darted back and forth devouring the pages of blunt lettering in a matter of seconds. They didn’t say anything for a moment, musing to themselves as they extracted the mug from its precarious position and strolled towards the door. Al watched silently as Sai moved with deliberate slowness into the kitchen, considering as it had so often if it was worth attempting to talk to Sai as they brewed their coffee.

It continued watching them through the doorway as they flicked the kettle on, the loud rush of burning gas ending the possibility of further conversation as Al is left to itself and the letters on the desk. A few minutes later Sai returned, a cup of steaming black coffee in each hand. Al took the proffered cup and leaned back in its chair drumming its fingers against the desk as Sai reread the documents between careful sips of the steaming liquid.

After perhaps ten minutes of careful study Sai addressed the fidgeting Al.

“Okay so, first things first. Looking at the type face, the alignment, and the ink colour these are both from the same Britain. Not only that but based on previous letters I am ninety nine percent sure that they are also from that Britain”.

Al nodded comprehension dawning as the feylight of caffeine brightened the cloudy blue eyes beneath its messy silver eyeshadow. “So, we can... modify these letters and trick them into accepting my Citizenship?”

Sai grinned and shook their head, “Not quite! We don’t even NEED to modify the letters, you see here?”

They indicated an alphanumeric code at the top of the letter demanding payment. “It looks like you already are somewhat a citizen, so if we simply draft a letter from the point of view that this is just an error then I would hazard a guess that whoever deals with those problems might well just fix it without checking if you are.”

Al smiled vacantly as the scheme gradually clicked into place in its brain. “So, we just send a letter pretending I’m already a citizen and hope they just agree?”

“Exactly! Though, we’ll probably want to send more than one with how the post office is and all! So, let’s get to work eh!”

All in all, the process took the pair almost an hour, and after a mandatory goodbye hug, Al left through the same warped wooden doorway it had entered through to find itself at the top of a set of marble stairs which the house had not previously been attached to.

Undeterred Al looked up at the sky getting its bearings from the shadowy outline of the buildings of that Britain. Everyone on the street had their own way of navigating, their own “North star” to follow, for Al that “North star” was the shadowy outline of Blackpool tower, its tip aglow with flickering green light as it brushed against the shimmering bubble of energy that surrounded the street. Satisfied with the sky’s position Al meandered down the street, its feet following the contradictory path of twisted turns and steep inclines that lead to the streets “Post Office”.

Gravity had started drifting lightly by the time Al arrived, the subtle fluctuating currents catching and pulling at its clothing with escalating aggression as the sky threatened a deluge of drift. Al pulled the letters from its back pocket as it approached, face lit by the swirling iridescent tear which passed as the “Post Office” of the street.

Best to make this quick.

And yet, Al paused at the brink, its eyes drawn deeper into the eery, geometric shape embedded in the air before it. The shape know as the portal, the wormhole, the doorway, or any of the dozen other terms Al’s friends used to describe the mysterious phenomenon. People always had theories, but no one really knew what these things were.

What the thing did however was obvious; As evidenced by the scorched letters, parcels and drifts of papery ash which dropped through it three times a day, the thing took mail from the royal mail office in that Britain's version of north London and delivered it, somewhat intact, to the street.

Ever curious the residents of the street had taken to throwing parcels and letters back through it, objects which to everyone’s delight and surprise seemed to find their way to the addresses in that London and thus the “Post Office” was born.

The “Post Office” was an enigma that Al was criminally under qualified to unpack, and yet one that it found transfixing. As the light lit its face, Al's mind zoned out, stuck in the iridescent purple of the void, its mind empty of everything save the warping iridescence of the purple.

Al could have stood and stared for hours, transfixed as it had so many times before, but this time the street had other ideas, and a gust of drift lifted it from its feet and the moment of sudden tranquillity was shattered as its trainers re-joined tarmac. Al shuddered shaken by the sudden return to alertness, and quicky fed the thirteen identical letters into the swirling violet energy.

For a second the letters hung there suspended by the forces that pulled against them, and then abruptly they are gone.

Vanished with nothing but the faint after images of white and green burning in the purple as each letter was ripped violently into that London. Violent, but expected and Al smiled as it began to walk home.

As it followed the crackling glow of the tower, it mused on the letters spinning unseen through the burning purple energy and wondered to itself if any of them would survive their journey through the void.

After all, it would be nice to have its taxes in order.