14/04/2022
Once upon a time, and in a land far, far away, there lived a beautiful princess. She was as wise as she was fair, and her loyal subjects were almost perfectly content. Her parents, the king and queen, were now very old and for some while seemed to have lost the plot. They were always getting the wrong end of the stick in an uncomprehending and often comical way. So, the princess had picked up the reins, and reigned on their behalf.
Life in the realm was idyllic. Temperatures were always ambient, and the light, luminous. The night had been carefully crafted to be as short as possible so as to maximise the opportunity for unbridled joy during the long day. And as for the loyal subjects; they were an eclectic, yet homogenized, mix of pixies, goblins and fairies.
“Lies” and “Deceit” were words which did not feature in the land’s dictionaries. Even the philosophers had great difficulty in explaining such abstruse concepts in their clever and well-wrought, explanatory parables.
Nobody knew where their food came from. Nobody had to; safe in the knowledge that it was wholesome and delicious.
All was well in the world.
As each carefree and cloudless day followed the next, people began to wonder whether time was running backwards.
It started as a rumour but quickly divided the realm into two factions. There were those who were seriously worried about the problem of temporal precedence, and the rest who simply dismissed the issue as arising from the use of a lax and ill-thought-through grammatical expression. The two schools of thought were irreconcilable.
The land had never known such a dispute. The horological problem, as it came to be known, could not be discussed without hackles being raised, insults traded, and the two camps winding each other up.
The princess was horrified and wasn’t really sure what she should do about this completely unprecedented situation.
Her parents, of course, were hopeless.
The princess consulted her administrative team but all they could suggest was that boys are sometimes better than girls at resolving issues of this sort, and maybe she should consider seeking outside assistance.
Well, as if by magic, such assistance was knocking on the castle portcullis the very next day. The princess was immediately struck by this person’s cleverness and the clarity with which he expressed his ideas, so she took him on as her advisor.
The advisor came from a distant part of the kingdom and rather shunned the limelight so this, in concert with his natural introspection, made him something of a shadowy figure. To her loyal subjects it looked like the princess was suddenly coming up with bright ideas all by herself.
The advisor took the view that the horological problem was a complex one, but that it was probably something to do with the goblins.
Although they should still be regarded as our friends, neighbours and colleagues maybe we should trust them a little less. Perhaps hold them at arm’s length. And maybe then each carefree and cloudless day would follow the previous.
Although dubious, the princess put these ideas to her people.
This had the effect of dividing the kingdom into not two but three camps. Those who thought that there had always been something dodgy about the goblins; those who still regarded the goblins as part of the family; and the goblins.
Pretty soon the goblins packed up all their little baker shops and went to live on the other side of the mountains.
Some of the loyal subjects now began to smell a rat. The absence of croissants, apple strudels and other delicious pastries was making them irritable.
And it was looking like each carefree and cloudless day was still following the next.
They demanded an explanation from the princess.
After some delay, the princess admitted that she had acted on the instruction of an outside advisor. But that on closer examination it was beginning to look like he had been planted by the evil count who lives far away over the sea. And, anyway, who cares whether time runs backwards or forwards?
The loyal subjects, obviously, didn’t understand the concept of “Evil” but, nonetheless, were happy to hear that the advisor had been sacked, and banished from the land.
The goblins received an apology, absolution, and were welcomed back into the community with open arms.
But some of the magic had been lost.
The nights grew longer, and sometimes there were clouds in the sky.
The failure in trust had somehow tainted their idyll.
The subjects, every now and again, felt less inclined to be loyal.
But the pastries were still delicious.