Once upon a time King Paul was sitting in the Butter Palace
counting votes for who was to succeed Queen Nancy. He loved Prince Hārūn ibn
ʿImrān best although he playfully called him Goneril this was because Hārūn
always clapped the loudest whenever Queen Nancy spoke. So much so that he had
been nicknamed in the Secession Normally Possible
movement as the Clap. It may also have had something to do with what he
gave his first wife after he decided to take a second wife, without actually
telling the first one that it was allowed according to the book that she had
signed up to. But that was a tightly guarded secret.
Princess Regan was going to get the second half of the
kingdom, the bit south of the border because she grew up there, but Princess Regan
though wanting to partition the kingdom only wanted north Albion, known also as
Albania as this was the bit that former King Alan of Alba wanted, and Princess
Regan did what Alan wanted as if he were her father. Some said that he was.
Princess Cordelia had offended both King Paul and
Queen Nancy by refusing to flatter them and even described their rule as
mediocre. She had been banished and left no part of the kingdom, not even A’
Chuimrigh., which no one wanted because of the excess of daffodils that grew
there at this time of year.
But this was King Paul’s problem. Despite everyone in
the Secession Normally Possible movement saying that Cordelia should be ignored
and ostracised because she told the truth and did not bow down to Queen Nancy.
She was more popular in the kingdom than either Gonorrhoea Hārūn or Regan.
Cordelia may have been wee but she was also free in
telling Paul that he couldn’t marry Hārūn not just because he might catch
something unpleasant, but more importantly because Hārūn had been married twice
already and despite sometimes being Paula it didn’t really mean he was a woman.
Cordelia told Paul. Girls who fancy girls should be
from Lesbos, they shouldn’t try to be boys. Boys who fancy boys can be Nancy,
but it didn’t mean they were girls.
Both Nancy/Nathan and Paul/Paula were furious and
every time they saw a vote for Cordelia, they put it in a special pile called
recycling after all it was necessary to keep the Green Canadian Moose happy.
But Princess Regan and Princess Cordelia found out that
the counting in the counting house was less than fair and demanded Queen Nancy
cease eating bread and honey and stop King Paul only counting votes that had
the Clap. This was not least a matter of public hygiene. No one wanted the
Butter in Butter Palace to become tainted with too much applause.
The Chief Herald of the Secession Normally Possible
movement Moray Piedmont called on King Paul and Queen Nancy and told them that
they really had to release the result of the census. We all agreed to hold it a
year later than the wicked people from Sasainn, but how could we know how many
votes were going to each prince or princess if we didn’t know how many voters
there were?
Piedmont, who was actually from Elgin rather than
Italy demanded he see all of the votes in the counting house, but when he saw
that all of those for Regan and Cordelia had been given a barcode that meant
that they were returned to the bottle bank, he told both King Paul and Queen
Nancy that they were clapped out and resigned.
Later Jan Swineflu, Gussie MacRaibeart, Sapho Dubh,
and Ivan àth dubh arrived as the men and woman in tartan suits. They brought
with them a bottle of Glenfinished and a pistol. Unfortunately the pistol only
fired water, so King Alan chose abdication instead of getting his hair wet to
no purpose.
What next for the Secession Normally Possible movement?
Could they continue the election after not only Regan and Cordelia had
suggested it was fixed, but King Paul had resigned because no one trusted his
ability to count rather than recycle.
Where were King Paul and Queen Nancy to go? Could
Queen Nancy still expect an important position with the Evangelical Utopia (EU)
or the Unverifiable Notions (UN). If ex-King Paul could not be trusted to count
and who could imagine it wasn’t because of she who must be obeyed, then could
Nancy be trusted have anything more than the dregs of the horn.
Only a few months ago Nancy had been able to heal the
sick and cure the lame just by speaking every day to her people. Paul stayed in
the Wings and didn’t even have a walk on part, but he pulled all the strings in
the Secession Normally Possible puppet theatre.
But anyone who now was close to either Nancy or Paul
must be tainted, not merely with Gonorrhoea, but with failure to tell what they
knew when they knew it. How could Hārūn lead when he was the continuity prince?
But how many others knew about the secrets that now might be open to scrutiny
now that neither Paul, nor Nancy nor Hārūn were there to keep them hidden?
Princess Regan was part of the problem rather than a
solution because of her close relationship with former King Alan who had
lubricated the Butter Palace so copiously that the stench of rancidness could
still be smelt when the wind was in certain directions.
But this just left Cordelia, who could hardly lead a
party when every single senior courtier did their very best to stop her and
could well have suggested that the best way to do so was by means of a returning
ballot papers scheme costing 20 p a time.
Secession Normally Possible movement was now finished.
Left merely with a free wee against any wall it chose. No one was left untainted
by the clapping. No one could stop the secrets so carefully guarded from the
time of King Alan to the abdication of King Paul finally coming out.
As flies to wanton boys
are we to th' gods.
They kill us for their
sport.
Said Nancy to Paul as she remembered the moments when
wee lassies had screamed devotion at her as if she were the Bay City Rollers
rolled into one. We were so close. I could almost touch it. I felt almost like
a god myself. Who could touch me? Who could stop me winning? But now what is
left?
I had lived a blessed
time; for from this instant,
There 's nothing serious
in mortality.
All is but toys; renown
and grace is dead.
The wine of life is
drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to
brag of.
Said Nancy
Exeunt.
