It was at the fringes of the 1st Global Conference on Human Migration (a.k.a. the Refugees Conference) called in the wake of escalating dislocation of human beings as a result of economic, religious and political upheavals in many third world countries.
It was there that the President of a troubled third world nation met the Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff) of the biggest religious group on earth. After the initial greetings, both men and their coterie of aides settled down to engage in bilateral discussions.
The President of the third world nation, was a man renowned for his narrowness of mind in spite of his numerous foreign travels.
“If this man is truly a man of God and a pious man as the adherents of his faith claim him to be, he would not have granted audience to those ‘Bia-furu (come and see)’ separatists from my country the other day in his capital city,” the President said to himself as he sized up the Pontifex Maximus at close quarters.
“He ought to have recognized those Bia-furu separatists for what they truly are – fraudsters, imposters and nihilists – and shunned all contact whatsoever with them as is my own official policy. No, he cannot be a man of God. Never. Shikena.”
As if reading the President’s mind, the portly Pontifex Maximus, known unofficially in religious circles as the ‘Pontiff of Kindness’ responded in a mild and kindly manner.
“May I call you Momo, all protocols observed?” he began using an endearing, colloquial diminutive of the President’s name.
“Momo, let me tell you a short story. There was once a great king who was well beloved by all of his subjects, young and old, rich and poor, great and small alike, for his wisdom, kindness, uprightness and impartiality. Under his reign his kingdom had made unprecedented progress in all facets of human endeavor.”
“Now this kind king developed a strange disease which manifested in the form of a large painful growth on his leg. Many doctors and surgeons were consulted, but none of them could properly diagnose his ailment not to talk of effecting a lasting cure.”
“By tradition, the official doctors-in-chief treating the king were customarily chosen by the people themselves, one at a time, for a fixed tenure of medical service, renewable only once.”
“Some of the chief doctors who attended to the king in the past, chose to excise the tumor, but after each excision, the tumor returned and became larger than before.”
“But there was one particular doctor who kept on insisting forcefully that he had the cure to the King’s ailment. Each time a doctor-in-chief was to be selected for the King, this particular doctor was always somehow overlooked and he always reacted rather angrily.”
“Now the penultimate doctor-in-chief to the king was rather naive. Unlike his predecessors who tried in futility to excise the tumor, the penultimate doctor-in-chief did nothing of such. Instead his approach was to conceal the tumor with bandages and pretend as if it was not there.”
“Strangely the King felt better initially, with his tumor tightly bound beyond sight. Indeed he seemed to recover ever so slightly and resumed his normal official duties to the joy and delight of a majority of his citizens. But their joy was short-lived.”
“After a while it seemed that the growth of the tumor could no longer be constrained mechanically and its contours became clearly visible under the thick swathe of bandages. It became clearly apparent that the penultimate doctor’s approach was failing and failing very quickly too.”
“Around this time, the king’s subjects were statutorily compelled to either renew the tenure of the penultimate doctor or select another doctor. Having run out of options and against the background of the insistent and unceasing agitation of the hitherto ignored doctor that he be given a chance to effect a cure, a simple majority of the king’s distraught subjects elected that his prayers be granted.”
”And so the overlooked one became the incumbent doctor-in-chief.”
“The first thing noticed by all was his self-assurance and strange choice of methods and tools. Whereas the former doctors-in-chief had attempted to excise the incision using surgeon’s scalpels, the excision instrument of choice of the new incumbent doctor-in-chief was a common butcher’s knife. “
“On sighting this the alarmed subjects cried out in alarm at his choice of tool, but the incumbent doctor-in-chief angrily retorted that he knew what he was doing. He said the tumor was no more an ordinary tumor having been criminally ignored in the immediate past and negligently allowed to grow beyond the capacity of a mere scalpel.”
“He brushed off all remonstrations and defiantly refused to entertain any advice. In excising the tumor from the King’s leg, the incumbent doctor-in-chief chose not to administer any anesthetics even while adopting the indiscreet tactics of a butcher as against the precise skills of a trained surgeon.”
“It is true that he excised the tumor cleanly, but in the process he severed all the nerves linking the King’s leg with his brain. When he was queried by interested parties, he angrily retorted that he stood by his methods and explained that he purposefully severed the nerve links so that the King would no longer feel any more pain.”
“He was correct strictly speaking, but the most unfortunate aspect about the whole thing was that although the King could feel no pain, he also completely lost the use of that leg while it became increasingly evident that the excised tumor was regenerating anew.”
“Shortly thereafter the King’s subjects began to regret that they had made a great error of judgement in selecting this doctor-in-chief in the very first place. They said to themselves that while in the past they had only a tumor on the King’s leg to contend with, now they have not only a re-energized and re-emergent tumor but also a paralyzed leg to deal with.”
“Now Momo, if you were in a position to advice the King’s distraught subjects, what would be your recommendation?”
The President was beside himself and stood up angrily discarding all demands of protocol.
“Dear Pontifex Maximus,” he declared in rage, “if I was to advice the King’s subjects I would tell them to seize that useless doctor, bind him and cast him into a dark dungeon for the rest of his miserable life or at least until they determine his faith according to their own laws and customs.”
“I am restraining myself dear Pontifex Maximus because I see that you are truly a gentle man of peace. To tell you the bitter truth,” he continued visibly enraged and demonstrating by using the side of his forefinger to trace a line across his own neck, “left to me I would put the very same butcher’s knife to that quack doctor’s own neck without much ado. There is no need to hesitate by following due process in this open and shut case.”
“Pontifex Maximus,” the President continued, bitterly agitated, “It is clear that due to his hasty carelessness this quack doctor severed the connection between the King’s leg and the command and control center located inside the King’s brain.”
“To make matters worse the tumor re-emerged in spite of that quack’s brutal intervention thereby rendering the whole exercise worse than useless. No punishment imaginable to man is too much for that criminal,” he concluded with finality.
Regaining control of his emotions as well as his seat, the President added, “Pontifex Maximus, I would further advice the King’s subjects to carry out detailed research including wide consultation with all experts within and without the Kingdom in order to establish the root cause of the King’s tumor so as to treat his condition holistically instead of relying solely on excision.”
The Pontifex Maximus smiled and replied. “Momo, if only the King’s subjects and the incumbent doctor had access to your last wise counsel, before the fact, their King would not be paralyzed today and it is possible that a cure may have been found for his tumescence.”
“Although it is just for the quack to suffer some corrective punishment,” the Pontifex Maximus continued, “I would not advocate for his decapitation as you earlier suggested. You see we have to be patient with others just as God is patient with us.” “God gives us a long rope to make amends and atone for our actions against his commandments and we should do the same to those around us.”
“I particularly like your counsel about researching and consulting widely. You see no one on earth knows everything. We have to acknowledge this fact and remain humble in all that we do. In taking decisions we have to allow for the much greater things that we don’t know.”
“Only God knows everything, yet God is patient with us mere mortals. In his own mind, the quack was convinced that only his way was the right way. But then at the end he was proven wrong. If only he had been humble enough to also seek the opinion of others, perhaps things would have turned out differently.”
“But he was so sure of himself and so quick to disregard other people’s counsel with such terrible consequences to the King’s health.”
“Indeed it always serves everyone well to have an open mind and never to judge a book based solely on its cover,” the Pontifex Maximus concluded.
The President said to himself, “Hmmm, this Pontifex Maximus is wiser than I thought. Hmmm, he might be a holy man after all.”
With that the official dialogue commenced.
Later that evening when they were alone, the Pontifex Maximus’s aides enquired about the meaning of the parable. The Pontifex Maximus smiled and said to them “You mean that even you too, do not know the meaning of this parable? Well its meaning has been hidden from outsiders but to you it will be revealed.”
And with that he began: “The King with the tumor represents a certain bla, bla, bla you see, while the tumor itself represents bla, bla, bla……..”
And the rest as they say is now history.
- THE END –
Disclaimer: This short sketch and parable and the characters within both are purely figments of this writer’s creative imagination and are not intended to ridicule nor do they bear any link or resemblance to any person, living or dead or to any incident, past or present. Any resemblance is purely coincidental and solely the deduction of the reader’s feverish imagination for which the writer accepts no liability.