There is a beautiful yet sad place called Senipilihp where the gods have long abandoned in favor of little mortals who rule over simple tiny mortals called Onipilifs in a chaotically unchanging atmosphere. The top ruler in this land is called a big-man chief, and he lives in a big white house beside a large bout foul-smelling river in the biggest village of the entire land.
Everyone in Senippilihp breathes a type of oxygen called democracy, which those living there think allows them to do anything they want.
At night, while most of the Sonipilifs living in this changeless, chaotic place snore to their heaven’s content, certain of their little mortals go about selling a kind of powder said to make those who possess and sniff them feel like they lived in a different world and had no cares to worry about. The only catch was that those who sniff this white powder get possessed by it and, if they keep on sniffing it, eventually lose their mind. Many a family in this sad place lost a father, a brother, a sister or even a bunch of siblings or both parents to this evil possession.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to exorcise this white-powdered demon out of the minds of those who are possessed. Part of the problem is the way this place has been run since, well, time immemorial.
At the top of this dark but humid place are little chiefs called strutting peacocks whose routine is to enter a large hall and wait for people to ask for their help. They go about strutting their feathers as peacocks do as if they too were not tiny mortal Onipilifs before they got to their lofty place by those same tiny mortals in an event called elections that are held from time to time.
They are able to strut about because they are on top of a food chain supported by what is called a bureaucracy whose main function is to ensure that the tiny mortals follow the rules while they are being extracted toll in the form of money as they go about eking a living. Of course, because these many of these strutting peacocks do not follow the rules and even steal money from the village coffers, many Onilipifs also disregard even the simplest of rules while going about their work, riding a contraption with four black round thingamajigs.
For the last 70 years since the great white gods gave Senippilihp some freedoms to do what they want, these peacocks have taken turns one after the other, generation after the next, in ruling over their small kingdoms within this enchanting but utterly changeless land.
In the latest round, rumors had it that an incentive program involving the distribution of money to the tiniest of these tiny mortals was held in abeyance by a cabal of these politicians to ensure that this would be released in time for elections and thus ensure their victory.
What they did not foresee was that the tiny mortal Onipilifs were finally getting tired of being run roughshod by these strutting peacocks, who used part of their toll in sinister means to be able to remain in their positions. From out of their ranks emerged a challenger who promised to rid this fairy-tale land of this white powder and run after those who make and sell them.
This has certainly ruffled the feathers of those who have, for years, lived out comfortable lives, unmindful of this dangerous powder in their midst as long as they were not possessed by it.
At the same time, this challenger who now sits in the white house of this changeless land has promised sweeping changes throughout the land. Of course, many of those strutting peacocks who used to mouth the words of the previous big-man chief simply flew to the white house of this new big-man chief and prostrated themselves before him barely a month after they attacked him and lambasted him all over the land as the selection for big-man chief approached.
Clearly this changeless and sad land is full of peacocks who have no conscience and whose only interest is to ensure that they do not lose their strutting privileges and continue to raid the big village coffers.
Even as the big-man chief has started to carry out sweeping changes, much still needs to be undone. Imagine changing a land that has been changeless for the last 70 years.
And so, as I go back to sleep to continue this nightmare about this sad place called Senippilihp, I hope that the change that this big-man chief has started doing will not be derailed and that he stays the course.
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