The empire of gun and sword
Once upon a time, there was an average man who aspired to become rich and powerful. He was not a bright man at all, but had inherited thousands of guns and swords from his father who had been a warrior all his life. Day and night, instead of reading by the fire, or listening to the stories of earth, wind, and the far sea, he would sit in his little tent and think of how he could lure others into using his weapons.
One day, he decided to learn how to make a special potion which would throw people into trance and make them suggestible to his immoral commands. He went to the tribe's medicine man and begged him to reveal to him the secrets of making such a potion. Since, the medicine man was doing research on human nature, he accepted to reveal the secrets of the potion because he wanted to see the effects it would produce on ordinary people.
The average man, elated, invited many of his tribe's men to his home one night and poured a little potion into every one's drink. Little by little, as they fell into an inevitable trance, the man started chanting and singing incantations. As the hypnotized men were becoming completely absorbed by the incantations, the man gave each one of them a gun and a sword.
The mesmerized men started walking towards their own tents where their wives and children were sleeping. Each one took out his sword from its cover and slayed his wife and children in sleep. As the soil beneath their feet were turning red, the lured men set their own tents on fire and burned all their written stories, drawings, and codes of tribal peace and wisdom.
The average man, feeling empowered and invincible, filled the valleys and mountains with his own sinister laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed, he now had many many followers whom without a thought, would commit to his wishes. He laughed and laughed and laughed till the whole earth became red with his laughter… The empire of gun and sword was created.
The empire of cry and poetry
Once upon a time, there were simple people living on a simple land. Every now and then, they would celebrate the birth of a poet, since their great prophet had told them that their world would crumble down if there were no poems being created. Poems were the words of angels. Every one knew poetry by heart, even small children. Even their homes smelled of poetry. The walls were adorned by verses about wine and beauty.
Unfortunately, their land had many many wells, many infinite wells, which ended in utter blackness. Each poet, who was born into their tribe, would eventually fall into one of these wells after a while. The simple people would cry and pray to their God that one day these wells would be filled with soil so that no one would plunge into their abyss. The old men of the tribe would call these wells “human ignorance”. The question was how would “human ignorance” be cured? Well, there was no an easy answer for such a question.
It was not that the simple people were bad people, but due to lack of better understanding; they would always follow their kings instead of their poets. No matter how much warning their poets would give them, they would always feel the strange loyalty to obey their kings.
One day, everything took a turn for the worse, that was the day when the kings ordered building small rooms without windows that had chains and locks inside. The simple people without questioning the purpose, started erecting walls and pulling chains into the tiny rooms they were creating. Then after everything was built, the kings ordered the simple people to recruit all the poets and bring them into the small rooms and chain them to the walls. The simple people did so; then, the kings named the small rooms “prison”. Thereafter, all the poets lived in prison and all the kings continued living in their castles.
And what happened to the simple people? They started falling into the wells, one by one.
The empire of flower and dream
I have never seen the empire of flower and dream, but my mother tells me it exists. She tells me it exists when her hands run through my hair and I imagine other places where she will fly to before me, perhaps. She says the empire of flower and dream was created by a man who dreamed he was a flower or by a flower who dreamed of a man (I always get confused).
I say to her: “Tell me more when you get there,” and fall asleep.
