The Seven Kingdoms (4)
The Third Kingdom – Part II
Reading time: 9 minutes
Image: ColdSmiling
The darkness in which Andy was left could turn the black of the men’s suits to shame, and in the silence which followed the slamming door, it was almost as if his thoughts provided light. Then a voice sliced the silence like a butchers knife through a tender veil.
“Hello again mister Hoover! I hope the journey over here wasn’t all too uncomfortable.”
All of a sudden the room bathed in a warm, glowing light. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, but what he then saw then exceeded all expectations, for he found himself in the middle of a life-sized, circular library. The soft item he was placed upon turned out to be a roundabout Chesterfield sofa, placed in a sunken, circular pit in the middle of the space. He looked straight at the ground floor of the library which was at eye level, and then up into the rows and rows of books which encircled him on all sides. But the biggest surprise was the planetarium right above him, which resembled our star system with the Sun in the middle, and the planets all turning around it in their elliptical orbits. With eyes and mouth open wide, Andy looked up and around him, and the King, emerging from behind, couldn’t help but laugh as the astonishment dripped off of Andy’s face like a drizzle.
“I’m glad you enjoy my humble study,” the King proclaimed joyfully. “And excuse me for not having properly introduced myself yet, but I am known as King Manipura. Brandy?” As he walked towards a hidden cellaret which looked like books, but actually turned out to be a small door.
“Um, sure?” he half answered, half asked, failing to understand what exactly was going on yet taking hold of every opportunity to numb his roller coaster called feelings. The King poured two cognac glasses, walked towards Andy, offered him one and then sat down beside him on the royal circular sofa.
“Cheers!” and immediately he took a large gulp of the honey-coloured liquor. “And now, let us converse, because it has been a million years since I heard somebody talk about my lovely Queen Svadhisthana. Dancing, eh?” He winked mischievously at Andy while saying that last word, at which the tomato-red face immediately re-emerged, to which the King laughed heartily.
“But please enlighten me, mister Hoover, how did you end up at her place? That’s hardly a place one finds without knowing the way.”
Andy told him everything from the beginning, from his meaningless IT-job, Phil’s advice to read the holiday flyer, the travel to Nepal, losing Talu, being taken to King Muladhara’s kingdom, waking up next to the Queen, and then in the King’s bed.
“Ah,” the King exclaimed joyfully, “so you’ve been to that scoundrel Muladhara as well eh?” He smiled amiably as his gaze stared into nothing particular for a moment.
“Anyhow, now that we have clarity about the ‘how’, there is one answer you still owe me regarding the ‘why’. Why did you go on this journey which led you to these realms?”
“Well, the flyer promised to provide my life with meaning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The flyer promised to provide my life with meaning.”
“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. But what is that supposed to mean?”
A big sigh escaped Andy’s mouth.
“Well, I had gotten to a point that life seemed meaningless to me, that there was no purpose for me to be alive. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore and I was happy to have conversations with a seemingly immortal moth, for crying out loud. So when the moth encouraged me to book a holiday with a travel agency which was actually nowhere to be found, for some strange reason that made sense to me.”
“I see. And, have you found it?”
“What?”
“Meaning, of course. Have you found meaning?”
“I thought I did.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Mr. Hoover, the only reason why you are now here in reasonable comfortable circumstances is because your appearance in my bedroom posed two interesting riddles to which I intend to find the answers: how did you get there, and why. The first one, which you have satisfactorily answered, is by far the least interesting one for me. The second one, however, I am very keen to find the answer to. May I therefore urge you to start giving clear answers quickly, or would you rather have some more time in your most recent living quarters to think them over?”
Beads of sweat emerged on Andy’s forehead at the mere idea of having to spend more time alone with his thoughts, and the words exited his mouth before his brain had a chance to even form them.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. At first I thought it to be food, but then the Queen convinced me it was sex. But now it feels I don’t know anything for certain anymore.”
Tears were building up behind Andy’s eyeballs while his stomach felt to have been pulled into a Celtic knot, and his despair didn’t pass the King unnoticed.
“There, there, calm down Mr. Hoover, no need for all that.” He patted Andy on the back and urged him to take a sip of his brandy. Then he crossed one leg over the other, warmed his cognac glass in both hands while taking on the leisurely position of someone about to tell a story.
“Let me tell you a story. People always follow the will of their leaders, whether they want to or not, and whether they consciously know it or not. In Muladhara’s philosophy, everything exists through food, starts as food, eats food, and eventually returns to being food. Therefore he makes food into the highest deity, to be worshipped by everyone in his kingdom. Yet despite food representing the highest meaning of life for him personally, it doesn’t mean that others necessarily share the same view.
“Equally in Svadhisthana’s philosophy, everything exists through sex, starts with sex, becomes sex, and eventually returns into sex. Therefore she makes sex into the highest deity, to be worshipped by everyone in her queendom. Yet despite sex representing the highest meaning of life for her personally, it doesn’t mean that others necessarily share the same view.
“Now unlike them, I’ve kept my philosophy to myself. Because, you see, in my philosophy everything exists through power, starts with power, becomes power, and eventually returns to power. With power inevitably comes wealth, which can be useful but has no meaning for me personally. So power is my highest deity, but the less people are concerned with it, the better is it for me. You see?”
Andy’s puzzled face made a verbal answer unnecessary but the King was not in the least annoyed. Having warmed the brandy in his hands, a sip disappeared in the King’s throat before he merrily proceeded.
“As much as food and sex are prerequisites for life to exist, without proper management it will terminate before it has even begun. You see Mr. Hoover, if everyone only ate, very soon we would die out as a species, and if everyone only had sex, the exact same thing would happen. Therefore, as is obvious, if everyone would merely be engaged in what their leaders are engaged in, pretty soon there would be no one left for me to rule over or to enjoy all the pleasures the world has to offer. Yes, it appears you have a question?”
The question mark above Andy’s head splashed apart like a soap bubble.
“Well, eh, yes, Your Majesty. Earlier you said that people always follow their leaders, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then how can you prevent them from being engaged with power, if that is your overt deity?”
“Ah, you have a knack for listening Mr. Hoover. As much as I appreciate that, I do urge you to pay closer attention when I speak. For I also said that I keep my philosophy to myself, meaning that my deity is covert instead of overt. My people believe my philosophy to consist of justice, fair play, and brotherhood, because in public I proclaim those values to be the cornerstones of our society. Yet covertly I guess I’m a bit of a tyrant in the sense that I don’t like to be told what to do, therefore I need absolute power so I can tell others what to do. Wealth, being a sort of inevitable afterbirth of power, is of very little interest to me personally.
“However, as much as justice, fair play, and brotherhood, might be overtly praised and worshipped in this kingdom, wealth appears to be for most people a much higher and more desirable deity, for they do everything in their power to obtain it – by all legal and illegal means they can think of. So for me it is important to give them enough means to satisfy their cravings, but not so much that they begin to think for themselves and question the institutions of authority, which are of course completely pointless by nature. As long as most are well clothed and fed, no one will want to rock the boat.”
A cuckoo clock gave five shrieks, but Andy didn’t know if that meant early morning or late afternoon. He felt a dizziness coming up and was happy to be sitting down. Then a thought emerged.
“Your Majesty, if power is your main goal and deity, why are you spending so much time on someone as insignificant as me?”
“I wondered how long it would take you to ask that question,” the King answered while a brief twinkle emerged in the corner of his eyes. “And my answer consists of two parts.”
“First of all, knowledge is power and every unexpected encounter or situation harbours an opportunity to learn something I didn’t know before, thereby increasing my knowledge and subsequently my power. Your inexplicable appearance in my bed was an unexpected situation if there ever was one, and gave me an opportunity to see which of my security advisors have been doing their jobs, and which ones got clammy hands by your sudden materialization. Furthermore, if there had been actual gaps in the palace security systems, naturally I needed to know about them. Moreover, by getting to know your motivations for going on this journey, I get insight in your psyche, which is an invaluable tool for every tyrant.”
Feeling as if he’d been caught cheating during an exam, Andy looked at his feet. Then, reluctantly, he asked:
“And what’s the second part?”
“I wish to offer you a job.”
Except for his eyes, which turned upward in a split second to face the King, the rest of Andy didn’t move.
“What?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Andy’s eyes quickly moved downward to coincide with the rest of him.
“Sorry, Your Majesty. I meant: What, Your Majesty?”
“Yes, Mr. Hoover. You are looking for meaning in your life, and I am generous enough to give it to you. I am offering you a job that’s right up your alley. Our Museum of Fine Arts harbours some of the finest art treasures in the kingdom, and, not surprisingly, these represent a big amount of wealth. Needless to say, a lot of individuals and groups wouldn’t mind gaining possession of them by illegal means. That would, however, clash with justice and fair play, two of the three pillars of our society. Therefore it is in my interest, and that of the kingdom, to make sure those treasures remain safely in the museum.”
With a look of triumph the King looked expectantly at Andy, a look that quickly transformed into mild disappointment when no reaction came.
“As you probably understand by now,” the King went on, “meaning is to be found when one is engaged in meaningful activities. Since IT is obviously a knack of yours, your job will be to design, develop, build, and maintain a top-notch security system for our Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally you will have to do this mainly by yourself, because I can’t have the populace engaging with one who ought to be in jail because he was found in the King’s bed. Nevertheless, you will have all the state-of-the-art tools, gadgets, gizmos and money at your disposal to do your job properly, and you will regularly report to me. Well, what do you say Mr. Hoover? Ready to find that meaning you’ve been craving?”
Flashbacks of Phil and Goldman Flex infested Andy’s mind at the prospect of accepting the Kings offer.
“And what if I refuse, Your Majesty?”
“I am a firm believer in free choice Mr. Hoover. If you are to refuse my job offer, you will be escorted back to your most recent living quarters where you can converse with the lice until you stop breathing.”
“That’s hardly a choice,” Andy pouted.
“Ah, I wholeheartedly disagree with you there, Mr. Hoover! It is indeed a choice, and nobody else but you is allowed to make it. It might not seem like a choice to you because you have rigid thoughts about the outcomes of both options, and therefore you get anxious. But, I say, both options harbour opportunities you can momentarily not imagine, for you lack the luxury of a crystal ball telling you the future. Now, Mr. Hoover, make your choice!”
What will Andy choose? Find out in The Seven Kingdoms part 5.
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
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