Friday 20 April 2012

Friday Flash Fiction - The Stranger with the Pygmy Elephant

It was a summer afternoon when the stranger in red and gold rode into our village on his pygmy elephant. He stood in front of us and unrolled a piece of paper that told him what to say, so he must have been very stupid. He said he had come to collect taxes for our king, which was strange, because the king lives two huts away from me, and he was standing on the other side of the stranger. He looked just as confused as the rest of us.

When we told him the king was just over there, he said no, that is not the real king. The real king, he said, lives far away, and is in charge of all of these lands, from one ocean to the other. Our village belongs to this faraway king, he said, and we must pay him taxes. None of us knew what an "ocean" was, but that didn't seem to matter to the stranger. He stood up as tall as he could and pointed at the ground saying you will pay your taxes right now.

No other strangers in red and gold have come after this little man, and it has been a very long time. A few people say it is because the faraway king was not real. Some others say it is because we sent his pygmy elephant away. Personally, I think it is because we tied the little man's bones to the saddle he used for his elephant when we sent it away, and the faraway king decided one little village was too much trouble if they were just going to eat his servants.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Politics feels like that to me, sometimes. Remote and weird, but without the cannibalism.
PPS - I do pay my taxes, though.

2 comments:

pcj said...

Hi John, I don't really want to hijack your blog but I couldn't find any other contact info and wanted to reach out to the old SQ regulars and make sure they were aware of some really cool news - the Two Guys are back! And they're making a new game. Check it out at http://guysfromandromeda.com

Also, if you feel inspired, we're talking about reviving the community over at the SQN forums - http://forum.spacequest.net - drop in and say hi if you're interested!

Thank you sir.

John said...

Thanks, pcj, good news indeed! Doesn't look like they're too far along with their new game, but it will be interesting to see when it's done.