His Most Excellent Majesty King Magnifica, absolute ruler of
Nohopia, had a great liking for neatness and order. This applied, in
particular, to the means by which his subjects conducted their official and
business affairs. Having noted that everyone got paid on the last working day
of the month, which is an arrangement that is typical of many countries other
than Nohopia, he did not see why the same rule should not be extended in many
other directions.
In Nohopia, therefore, contracts could only be agreed and
signed on the last day of the month. Postal deliveries were only made once a
month, on the final day, and the same applied to collections. In effect, that
meant that if you wanted to post a letter, or pay a bill by post, you had a
wait a whole month between posting it and its arrival at its destination.
Shops and banks only opened on the last day of the month,
which led to enormous queues. The same applied to railway and bus stations,
although trains and buses were allowed to run on other days as long as they did
not carry any passengers.
Nohopia had some excellent newspapers, although they only
appeared on the last day of the month, and this was also true for TV and radio
broadcasters who had to cram all their programming into a single day.
King Magnifica was especially proud of his policy as it
applied to schools and colleges. Having not been all that good a school pupil
himself, he was sure that everyone being educated would welcome having a whole
month in which to do their homework and assignments, due to the establishments
being closed on all days other than the last of the month.
Weddings and funerals all had to be delayed until the month
was nearly over. King Magnifica was known to be working on a plan that ensured
that babies were only born on the last day of the month, but this was proving
difficult to arrange. There are some things that even kings have problems with,
and this was one of them.
Everyone other than His Most Excellent Majesty was fully
aware that this arrangement, despite its outwardly tidy appearance, presented
huge problems to the social and economic life of Nohopia.
It therefore came as a surprise to nobody, with one prominent
exception, when the economy of the country came to a crashing halt.
Another of King Magnifica’s obsessions was the construction
of huge statues of himself all over the country. Of course, he did not make these
statues himself, but around half the working population of Nohopia was involved
in the statue-building business in one capacity or another. This was never
going to be an activity that contributed to the wealth of the nation, as no
other country was ever likely to want to import a statue of His Most Excellent
Majesty, so the wages paid to vast numbers of people could be nothing other
than a huge drain on the economy.
On the 30th day of May, the King’s private
secretary felt compelled to tell him that all was not well.
“Your Most Excellent Majesty, it’s pay day tomorrow, the
31st”, she said, “and there’s no money left in the Treasury to pay the workers.
What are we going to do?”
King Magnifica thought for a moment and then came up with
the perfect solution, as he saw it.
“We only pay the workers on the last day of the month. Am I
correct?”
“Indeed you are, Your Most Excellent Majesty. You are always
correct about everything.”
“Exactly so.”, said the King, “In that case, we will declare
that tomorrow is not the last day of the month. The day after tomorrow, which
would have been the 1st of June, will therefore be the 32nd
of May, and therefore the last day. Is that not a most excellent idea?”
“Of course it is, Your Most Excellent Majesty. Your ideas
cannot be other than most excellent, as all your subjects know.”
So that is what happened. Unfortunately, no money flowed
into the state coffers on either the 31st or the 32nd, so
the following day had to be the 33rd, followed by the 34th,
35th, and so on. It could not have been otherwise, given that no
important decisions or business dealings could be concluded on any day other
than the last of the month, and if that day was not allowed to arrive, then the
situation could not possibly have been resolved.
This state of affairs was clearly completely crazy, and
everybody realized this, apart, of course, from His Most Excellent Majesty King
Magnifica, whose statues continued to be built despite the workers having to
wait even longer to be paid.
There is no knowing how long this situation would have
continued had not King Magnifica fallen ill. It was on the 142nd day
of the month that he took to his bed and the 145th when he suffered
a heart attack.
His private secretary was summoned to his bedside, where His
Most Excellent Majesty was propped up on pillows and looking decidedly groggy.
“I don’t understand it,” said the King. “My doctors assured
me that if I kept taking my medicine I would keep my blood pressure low and
avoid any possibility of a heart attack. Can you explain it?”
“I think I can, Your Most Excellent Majesty. You see, your
prescription could not be renewed, due to their being no end of the month, so
when your pills ran out you were given a substitute.”
“A substitute? And do you mean that these other pills didn’t
keep my blood pressure down?”
“Indeed so, Your Most Excellent Majesty”, said the private
secretary. “For several weeks now you have been given sugar pills that look
exactly like the real ones but have no medicinal content at all. The doctors
say that another heart attack is likely to occur at any time, and when it does
you will almost certainly die.”
“But I’m the King!” yelled King Magnifica. “I deserve the
best treatment, because I’m always right and make the best decisions for the
country!”
“Maybe not always, Your Most Abysmal Majesty”.
“What did you say?” shouted King Magnifica, going very red
in the face.
“I’ll repeat it”, said the private secretary. “You are a
terrible King who has the stupidest ideas, and when your next heart attack
arrives, which will probably be within the next five minutes, we will get a new
King who might just possibly do a far better job than you. Of course, if
insanity runs in the family, we might not be so lucky.”
The private secretary was not quite correct, in that the
fatal heart attack arrived well within the five minutes she had estimated, but
it certainly signaled the beginning of a new era in Nohopia.
The day of King Magnifica’s death was immediately declared,
by his successor, to be the last day of the month.
©John Welford
::applause::
ReplyDelete(Not ironic. I enjoyed reading that.)