There is a kingdom by the sea that subsists on rains, sunshine, and lies.
When May comes, they wait for the first rains to fall. The ancient lore speaks of the rain falling on the first day of May as the auspicious sign, the marker of good harvest and better life.
But in this kingdom, truth is basically…hmmm….relative. There is no truth unless there is power behind the speaker of truth. True enough, the most powerful men—and some women—have a monopoly of truth or truths. To extend that principle, there is no brain unless there is brawn behind the mind or the ideas.
So on the Year of Fools, in the month of May, the rains scatter themselves across the archipelago. It rains the evening of the first day, the wetness extending up to the past midnight. This puzzles the old men who start to question the date. Is this the first day or the second?
In this kingdom by the sea, citizens love to quibble over small things. They have a passion for debate on topics like what is the best color for a beauty queen to be declared the symbol of the universe? They are ready to die on issues like who is the greatest thespian in the land. They write poems on all topics and themes—on the passion of the groin, the sensuality of armpits, the sanity of other writers.
And so they quarrel among themselves because no one could decide if there is, technically an Agua de Mayo, and whether the priests of temples are able to gather enough rainwater to purify the entrances to ritual sites. Not to have enough supply of water that is necessary for religion to persist is disaster. It spells doomsday.
The oldest of the seers and diviners gather in the main temple of the palace by the river. They consult their maps and look intently in the cracks and the light emanating from them around the crystal ball. What do we do? Where do we get sacred water to cleanse ourselves?
As true of seers and diviners, they speak in languages that are difficult to decipher. These seers and diviners are in fact the same persons who read the laws and interpret them. They know that laws or rules are meant to be seen in different lights. Everything depends on who is articulating the law.
As this goes on, neighboring island-kingdoms are occupying the outlying territories of this kingdom by the sea, this land abandoned by the fate of Agua de Mayo.
By the time two younger seers related to the king have forced the group to accept the fact that, no, the Agua de Mayo has not yet arrived in our land, the kingdom by the sea has lost considerably their wealthiest islands.
Immediately, the king gathers everyone. They would decide on a strategy. Do they send emissaries to the neighboring kingdoms or do they declare all-out wars across seas and straits and channels? Or, do they talk about it?
Now, here is a problem: all these events are taking place in the Year of Fools. No one knows presently anymore what that means. Some people think it is a celebration of the year the kingdom was fooled into surrendering their land to a white invader who sailed from the other side of the globe. Some believe the word “fool” is a shorthand for innocence and purity. Only the blind bard knows the meaning of the Year of Fools. It means that fools would gain upper-hand, that those who are good in twisting facts would reign supreme, and that lies would be acceptable as truths in themselves.
In this kingdom by the sea, there lives also a band of righteous men and women who save their meat and subsist on porridge. This is a pathetic group because while they are pure of heart, their words and actions are naïve and unattractive. They, however, know that there is magic in the Year of Fools. This comes in the form of a curse that would condemn the king or any ruler of the land to lose control of his faculty and admit directly his wrong doing. The righteous men and women ecstatically wait for the right moment when their repugnant king would soon accept all his crimes and misdemeanors.
Comes that day: The king gathers everyone and, while standing at the balcony of the palace, he raises his hand and half-shouting and half-hissing, he says: “All my promises of good life are lies!” An eerie quiet follows, first, then a deafening applause. The righteous men and women look at each other and wonder what is happening.
Of course, they have forgotten that in this kingdom by the sea, truths become lies and lies become truths. And when TRUTHS, in big letters, are spelled out for the people, the land is always ready to twist them, make sense of them by making them senseless or, worse, spend eternities debating the concept of truth.
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