1 He had an iron peg for a nose; his future wife, named Kciroy, she was a toothless dwarf and thus, they would soon marry, and that in itself is a long story, that I shall try to make short in a jiffy. 2 She was the morbid princess of Oxas, a puzzled little kingdom in the high mountains of Bulgaria, during the early Dark Ages. 3 The king upon his daughter’s wedding day, gave his son-in-law Ailepho, double golden nose-plugs, to plug those hug nostrils of his, likened to a hogs snout, without a snout—just deep rooted holes. 4 They smelt worse than rotten game, skunk-holes you could call them, even worse than, devils-breath. 5 To be honest, there are no words in those far-off vocabularies that would have described such a stink. 6 Ailepho was in his middle years, whereas his wife, half his age, and the father, twice the age of Ailepho. 7 Soon after they had married, Kciroy gave birth to a hermaphrodite; the Princess Dwarf went absolute into rage over the sight of the child, and Ailepho, likewise. 8 As for the king, he took it no different than he had when his wife—now deceased, gave birth to Kciroy, that is to say: his daughter and when he allowed his daughter to marry Ailepho, now his son-in-law: —like to like, same to same, simply taking it as a human tragedy in sum. 9 But to go back to why the king allowed Kciroy to marry Ailepho: to be put in a nutshell, it was as this: he got rid of all the rats, with that cursed smell of his throughout the kingdom. 10 No more said on the subject that was the deal, lock-stock-and barrel: “Get rid of the rates, the rats the rates!” 11 Well, now seven years had passed, and the old king was still alive—eighty-seven to be exact, and the child was no more a child, he was a youngster of formal reasoning. 12 Thus, out of bitterness, he was called ‘it’ not by the grandfather of course, but rather the mother and father: out of repugnance.
13 Now before I go on with this story it must be explained, if only for the sake of psychology, or insight, what started as a good omen, or out of good will, as often it does, ends up in a state of ill-will. 14 A child knows at the age of six months, the nature of his mother and father, hence the child has to adjust, for the purpose of survival, smile when the child doesn’t want to. 15 Cry the child will, when the child knows s/he can get out of that cry whatever he or she wants. 16 On another note before we go on, evil knows evil, as well as a fool knows the mind of a fool, as much as a thief knows the heart of another thief. 17 And let it be said, a king knows how much his people will take before they rebel, he knows what they mostly need, that will settle them down. 18 With this in mind I continue with the story.
19 Back to the poor child: was ‘it’ more male than female? 20 Or vice versa? 21 This of course was gossip among the inhabitants of the kingdom. 22 Who is to say? 23 I mean, does it really matter, and on the other hand, some things may never be known, and for the better, and less gossip. 24 The prince and princess never loved this child, and that was the thorn, and the child and Grandfather knew this—in particularly the child. 25 It was obvious; such things cannot be kept in secret forever. 26 And the child remembered when it was just three years old, one evening, his mother had left the bedroom window open, hoping the crows and the hawks and the ravens, and even perhaps the great owls would pick out the eyes, and pluck out the guts and eat the child alive, little by little unto its death, and low and behold, profess it was an accident. 27 But the child was smart, he unplugged his father’s golden nose plugs that night, and slept under his bed, thus, he had saved himself, and in the morning, put the plugs back into his nostrils, and rushed back into his bed, with the windows open, this seemed to its parents to be an omen of some sort, that is to say, leave well enough alone. 28 Well, the child may have been a hermaphrodite, but it had a memory like an elephant. 29 At seven years old, the age of formal reason, this event came to haunt him (I shall now call him, him, because I really don’t like the name ‘it’, respectfully). 30 And to say the least, the child was getting tired of watching so carefully, his mother and father, lest he stop and they poison him, or push him off the tower wall, who’s to say what goes on in a morbid mind.
31 It happened on the boy’s seventh birthday; he snuck into his father and mother’s bedroom, pulled the golden pegs out of the father’s noise, and it stunk up the whole kingdom, to kingdom-come, you might say, and no one could find the golden pegs, especially made with two shutoff valves to be put deep into those big hole like nostrils. 32 In addition, he pulled off (softly) the iron nose, his grandfather had made for Ailepho, causing even a more deadly sticky and suffocating uproar. 33 Oh it was terrible; everyone in the kingdom wore masks. 34 Day after day, they could not find those pegs, nor was the goldsmith around to make him new ones—where he was, only the child knew, and played dumb, he had paid him well, to take along trip to China or somewhere, that same distance: again, who’s to say. 35 In any case, the persistence in these pestilential gusts from his nostrils was so disgusting, that they curled man and beast’s eyelashes. 36 Well what could the king do? 37 What started as a good omen, turned out to be an evil one, rebellion was emanating throughout the kingdom; consequently, he had them both beheaded, in lack of a crime, he called it, causing rebellion. 38 And yes, ‘it’ took its rightful place as King and Queen of Oxas in due time.
39 And perhaps it is better said, in this case anyhow: if one dares to beat out resistance or existence of another they breed in hatred, and mayhem, if not dark dreams and revenge. 40 Such as it is, in this case, where like to like, was not liked: the hunted becomes the hunter.
#985 (1-1-2013)
