Fiction LNE
Fiction Friday


My Fool is a Crock

by: J.M. Hoffman

What with all the war and crises that effect a country a ruler needs someone to make him laugh, to make him smile and to shine his bald little head. I have an extraordinary person to do this work for me. Or perhaps as some would put it, special. He has an array of humorous quotes but he always seems to screw them up. Even the ones that aren't supposed to be humorous. He'll be making a speech to talk about how good and just my rule is and then just completely forget what he was talking about or substitute one word for another so that nothing he says makes any sense.

And my does he ever help to make me feel better. I'll return from a hard day of governing the country from my secret bunker twenty floors below sea level and he's there. Behind my desk, pretending as if he's me. He makes prank calls to other leaders and tells them that they're about to be invaded, he randomly makes alliances with other countries and on occasionhe'll even try to mess around in domestic affairs. His domestic policy seems to be the worst as the on ly idea he can think of is to quit spending money to support the orphanage and the retired knights home. Of course his overall spending policy is just as hilarious. He invents new numbers almost every day and doles out gold, denominated in these numbers, to whatever country or part of the government he pleases. Some of my advisors claimed he would bankrupt our nation but I think it's just too funny to stop him.

And of course there's his affinity for drilling wells. He believes digging large holes in the ground is the key to wealth and happiness so he does this at every possible chance. Once I walked out of the palace to find him digging a hole in the courtyard as the guards stood by laughing. Another time we took a trip into the king's forest to hunt pheasant and again he tried to dig a large hole, although the nobles restrained him before he could get too into it. He especially loves to dig in neighboring countries. He sends messangers to every kingdom nearby demanding the right to dig on their soil. If they don't humor him he tries to invade them. Needless to say the days he plays king can be troublesome but they're also hillarious and all of the problems caused by his mistakes only seem to effect the peasants so noone much minds.

Once when I had the king of France over for dinner my jester simply walked in, called him a "chocolate making wussy" and then walked out. He was wearing a cowboy hat at the time. The visiting ruler was offended but couldn't help but laugh. Once a tribe of nomadic heathens came from the east trying to sack our castle. Everyone was terrified and I hid in the highest tower but my fool, in his typical style, was up on the walls dancing around and comically yelling at them to come fight him. Ah, could there ever be another like him?

And who could forget his speeches, his glorious speeches which I've already mentioned but not in nearly enough detail. He bumbles almost every line he says for my amusement. Some of my favorites include when he was adressing the trade guild and said "If you don't stand for anything, you don't stand for anything!" As if this isn't enough evidence of his comic brilliance there's more. "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." He quipped once at a state dinner. And then while speaking to the Queen of england he cried out from behind her "It's going to require numerous IRA agents!" much to her surprise. When I asked him why he had done it he gave me this little chestnut. "I think if you know what you believe it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question."

Once I asked him what he thought I should do. He told me to look into our economy, specifically our imports. He claimed that a suspicious amount of the goods we imported came from overseas. I couldn't stop laughing. The vizier of Finland once came to eat dinner. Naturaly I served fish as I thought this would be a good food to share with him. However in came the joker hopped onto the table and yelled "I believe that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully!" Putting an end to our quiet meal. Another time when my advisors and I were making up a budget he burst in and asked what it was. We showed the paper to him and he sagely commented. "It's clearly a budget, it's got a lot of numbers in it!" I once sent him to cheer up some homeless peasants and cheer them he did with the one liner "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."

Then there was the fight he had with someone else who wanted to be a fool. Actually this person was more of a wooden puppet. I think it was some sort of ventriliquist act but the whole thing seemed very stiff and soulless and un-funny. And so I'm sure you can understand that my fool, George, is a crock. Of course he requests to be called Dubya and we all delight in the nom de guerre and this only adds to the enjoyment he brings to my court. Now if only this war in Iraq would end I could go back to getting my head waxed and enslaving Colin Powell as all the heralds of the land sing the praises of King Cheney!

Bush quotes courtesy of www.Bushisms.com