Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Once there was a middle aged Regent of a Kingdom.  A Regent, for those who might be wondering, is like Denethor in Lord Of The Rings.  Anyway, this Regent was troubling the line of succession, so the Monarch said to him, get me back my former colony, the best one, the one that got away, and I will see to it that you become King.  Now, the Regent never thought that his Monarch might be sending him on a wild goose chase.  However, she said that because she thought it would be impossible and then as it turns out, she really did want her colony back in her imagination.  

So the Regent identified the Kingmaker of the former colony and it was a woman, so he began to seduce the woman.  She was not so easily plied, however, and she did object to the seduction on the grounds that the Regent is married, to a brave feminist woman, no less.  So she played the same trick again and sent the Regent on a wild goose chase that was the antidote to all colonization for the rest of all time.  And she also never promised him anything because then, she would not have to break her word.

The Regent saw the justice of the Kingmaker and he did acknowledge that perhaps he did not want to spend the rest of his life overthrowing the line of succession of his Monarch’s Kingdom.  He also happened to be a scientist and he had discovered an infinitely interesting realm of scientific knowledge, some of it was history that had been suppressed while other of it was new knowledge that could be utilized as the foundation of an equitable, ecologically balanced human society that he did not even know was possible in his dreams until he had gone on his wild goose chase.

He decided, as a traditionalist in biological marriage, not to get divorced, but to live as an expatriate on an experimental permaculture farm, like Baudolino.  (Umberto Eco is such a wonderful author, isn’t he?)

As it turns out, by doing so he gained many wonderful and kind friends who added so much to his life that he became very, very happy.  And as for his wife, she is a feminist, and she has to make up her own mind about what she wants.  And they all lived happily ever after until the end of their days.