The year is 4199. The English language has evolved past recognition of the 21st century mind, and the country of ‘America’ is part of a strange past known only through strange ‘metallic manuscripts’, and physical archaeology. Every year at the start of winter, the tradition of the ‘turnip festival’ takes place. Children paint a grumpy face onto a turnip (or its future equivalent) and set it outside. It is traditional for the children to write a list of ‘crimes’, of which the turnip is accused, and pin it nearby. Usually the list consists of naughty things the children themselves have done in the year past. After midnight, older children dressed in traditional red and black, with amusing wigs, march around neighbourhoods to ‘postpone punishment to the new year’ by tearing down the lists of children’s crimes, and leaving candy in their place. Afterwards the adults get very drunk. Nobody remembers the origin of this tradition, but historians theorise it could be related to an unpopular leader thousands of years ago known as ‘the turnip king’ who famously evaded justice through his corrupt legal system and connections to powerful oligarchs of the time.