Recently, the King of our small humble village came to ask for my hand in marriage. He brought with him lots of gifts and promises. I wanted to tell him that I am not a rabbit so I dont base my happiness on dangled carrots.
See, he is a powerful King. He made our tiny fishing village rather prosperous, and provided most of us a decent living. The roads were clean, the streets were safe, the people cared about each other even though religions, cultures, languages, dialects and races may differ.
He ruled with an iron hand and ran a tight ship. Respect was commanded Hitler-style - by imposing fear and penalties. We were a very fine village indeed, and we enjoyed the monarchy because, well, he did play his part and now instead of our house on stilts, we have houses on pillars.
His hobbies was wide and varied; and the personal favorite being games of chess. He won every chess game! The useless pawns were removed sooner than they could snap their fingers; the useful pawns were kept to dance his dance. I loved watching him play chess so brilliantly - his rulership was reflected in his chess style - the players moved so brilliantly across the black and white tiles that sometimes all I saw were gray swirls.
He encouraged freedom of speech and more participation from us, his people. He wanted our feedback and this freedom is named "democracy" on one of our folk songs. We sang it every morning in the village, believing every word of it - until we started seeing more and more villagers cast behind bars for expressing their views honestly. It is really brilliant - how could these villagers be so tactless and shoot off their mouths before they thought? Our King taught them how to be a better speaker by giving them time off work behind bars, and they had plenty of opportunities to reflect and think.
He was so brilliant that he kept all the villagers' diligent harvests and catches (most of us farmed, reared cattles or fished for a living) so that his panel of hard-working paper-pushers were very well fed and too contented with their rewards to think of changing jobs.
Our harvests and catches were also set aside for us so that when we grew old, we could still self-sustain without relying on anyone. He thought very highly of us, and wished us to live to ripe old ages, that was why he pushed back the retirement age. He had the foresight to predict that when we retire at close to 70 years old, we still had our meager ration (from they harvests and catches they set aside for us) to depend on.
He even managed to convert our transport system, telephone system, mail services into profits-generating outfits. This is something no one in the world should be able to do - especially when our transport (boats, in this case) are usually over-crowded, and comes once every half an hour. How brilliant is that!
Medical costs and school fees are on the rise because of this thing called inflation. Wages and all forms of earnings remain quite stagnant, which is why most of us now have a full time harvesting or fishing job and we moonlight or try to invest in barter trades. Haha, see how brilliant the King is? He pushes his people to work hard and start businesses of their own, moving us all out of our comfort zones.
Recently, he even takes integration one step further by giving free education to students from other islands. He makes us and our children very noble because many of us had to give up education in our prestigious Fishing college and Farming college so that these foreign students have the chance to learn not just Fishing and Farming, but also our local language. We in turn, either forget about prestigious education here, or travel overseas to explore academic opportunities - see isnt this brilliant yet again? Like an exchange program!
Sigh. This King has more than one wife and years of experience taking care of his family. Perhaps he is getting old and too rich, his eyesight seems to fail him. He allows fun fairs to be built, and when he doesnt put on hearing aids, is unable to hear his people's protests. Security has been compromised on many fronts, and foreign farmers or fishermen are invited to join the competition for fishes and maize in our humble land.
I fear. This King may have been powerful, but his success has seemed to make him complacent and uncaring. If I marry him, and I say the wrong thing at dinnertime, will I be thrown behind bars or will my jewelry be confiscated?
But the other men asking for my hand in marriage - many of them have had no experience taking care of families. If I marry them, what kind of future will I have? What kind of lifestyle will I get to enjoy?
Oh well, I dont know. But, I guess, after being under the rulership of this King for so many years, having something different for the next five years may not really be that bad, right?
p.s. vote wisely, research extensively, do not be influenced by your peers or older generations :)
Disclaimer: No part of this may be republished without the writer's permission. Copyright © Thearcticstar. All rights reserved.
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