THE FADED PURPLE ROBES

An Introduction to THE FADED PURPLE ROBES

The Faded Purple Robes is an attempt at fiction, and in my case a maiden voyage into the wild and cruel unknown. This of course does not include the crazy attempt at a novel during the nanowrimo of 2006 which I had to leave halfway.

Anyway, before I put it up here as I had said I would in reply to two comments in an earlier post I would like to state the following:
1. The story is ridiculous.
2. It was a attempt at satire (but got lost somewhere in between)
3. It is also an attempt in comedy, because I dig comedy
4. Please note the emphasis on the word ATTEMPT
5. Honest feedback is most welcome. If it is lousy or you fell asleep reading it, please say so.
6. If you think you've seen it somewhere before, then it means you have seen it here as I put up the introduction on this blog a few months before

THE FADED PURPLE ROBES

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities with places, people or incidents, dead or alive, existent or not in the past, present or future is purely co-incidental.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
The old frail king sat back on his comfortable leather sofa, his head hung to the side. A crown, merely for decorative purposes was perched on his somewhat knobby right knee. His left leg was stretched out with his foot precariously close to a bowl with a lonesome goldfish which picked up its pace and wrinkled its nose ( Not that it had a nose, per se, but instead of having a peaceful look usually associated with goldfish, it kind of had the look of someone who was constipated) at the smell.
He mused about the bloody war that he had just lost and was aiming to put the blame on someone else (It could be anyone but him. The people, the TV, the neighbour’s cat, hell; even the big old royal palm behind his grandmother’s house would do) He tried to recall how he ever ended up in this predicament and could only think of the incidents that all too well began about five years before. He tried thinking of his vehement denial pertaining to certain issues and was thankful that the people were clueless regarding that. Now, he couldn’t be too sure. He needed to think. And the goldfish swam in circles in its little bowl wondering why the smell still remained.
In another place about a five hour drive away (that is if you took the shortest route ever possible through mountains and jungles, and provided that the carnivorous goats didn’t eat you, or horned ducks didn’t puncture your vehicle first) another old, but not so frail king shook his own hand in the privacy of his ‘thinking room’ congratulating himself over a recent achievement that he believed had happened thanks to the war that had recently ended.

PART 2: IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A PROLOGUE
There was a time when quaggas still existed in the plains with zebras, running gracefully as their stripes were the perfect camouflage. The incidents that follow however are in a time many years after the very last quagga ran. In a land not too far away (it is after all an imagined land, therefore no one is really sure where it is or was located, hence the description of it being not too far away) there lived a king (the old but not so frail one – we’ll call him Moz) whose powers (administrative, not magical) were bound by another king.
This other king was best known for being a power-crazed lunatic who could somehow see the future even without a crystal ball. Let’s call the power-crazed king Rhim. After a few decades of ruling, and hair thinned considerably, Rhim planned for his retirement, but not before he carefully handpicked his successor, a yes-man to the core, mildly narcoleptic and slightly blur. This was the old and frail king, and he is fondly known as Bax.
It had been 5 years since Bax was given the mandate to rule the land, but his narcolepsy kept getting in the way. He missed important information that his cohorts and subordinates failed to pass on. He lived in a world of fast cars, highflying jets and was in constant company of a talking monkey that everyone hated. It was only too soon before something somewhat of a disaster happened!
Bax and his dictatorship had almost fallen to the hands of the poor suffering people during the recent war (they were not exactly poor in terms of money, but more of deprived of freedom regarding things that were deemed basic in other planets). However, through some secret manipulation (that the rumour that is going around), he managed to survive and remained a dictator, but lost whatever credibility he had.
Now, on the average, people tend to think all the time, but sometimes, they just don’t think about the right things. Then something happens and people start thinking about the same stuff but on deeper levels, and then things really begin to happen. After the war, quite a number of people started thinking, “What if we challenge the dictatorship?” Like dominoes falling one by one due to an accidental knock, people started taking action.
The first person to step up to some sort of action was Moz (the not so frail old king)

PART 3: WHERE RHIM DOES NOT GET ANY MENTION

Moz stood in front of his full-length mirror curling his slightly grey moustache, which he thought made him look terribly handsome. Little did he know that he was terribly wrong, because even his wife couldn’t bear to tell him the truth lest it broke his heart. Nevertheless, at the state of elation he was in at that moment, he might have even smiled and thanked anyone who dared tell him. Nothing on the planet could bring him down.
A few days before that, the dictator Bax had sent a proclamation (which had doodles of cute little sunflowers on it) asking the old frail king to pick a man that went by the name Kronk as the knight who would be in charge of chopping people’s heads off if they dared to do anything outside the norm. Besides that, the knight was also in charge of managing certain affairs, which involved the moving of many conch shells, which coincidentally happened to be their currency at that time. Now, Kronk, as silly as his name sounds, was actually wonderfully efficient in his job as a head chopper. He often made a clean job, and he claimed that it was almost painless for the victims. Unfortunately, none of the victims could vouch for that! Other than that, he was also as equally efficient in making illegal conch shells using the profits that he gained illegally by the illegal sales of bat guano, which Bax most probably didn’t know of due to his narcolepsy. The talking money kept quiet on several occasions.
Now the old not so frail king, despite being not so old and frail (and actually is called Moz, but not many people remember it), knew about Kronk’s actions in the past few years. Nevertheless, he liked his head too much (and the moustache as well) that he never said a thing earlier. However, the recent war got the gears in his brain moving at speeds he never knew existed and he thought… “No, I don’t want Kronk this time, I think I’ll pick Dent” And he sat down, and got someone (whom none of us know) to type a letter of appointment for Dent.
On the day that Dent was supposed to take the job after an elaborate ceremony by Moz. Kronk and his gang of ruthless supporters decided that they were going to walkout on the event. It wasn’t such a big secret and Moz found out about it and was furious because he had given extra curling to his moustache in the last few days or so and was afraid that less attention would be paid to his moustache and more to the scumbags that he never liked. What even made him angrier was the fact that Bax had said that it is all right if Kronk and gang did such a thing during the event because he thought that Dent who is supposedly in the same league as Kronk should have rejected the offer as a sign of loyalty to his team.

PART 4: DENT
To describe Dent in one word, you’d have to use the word “rebel”. To describe him in two words, it would be “wannabe rebel” It is as simple as that. Dent’s ancestors had always been loyal to Kronk’s ancestors. That is how their world went, and no one had fought against it until now. Of course, deep in their hearts, they thought it a load of crap, but tradition was paramount. Nevertheless, common sense dictates that loyalty should be earned through deeds and not because your parents think it is important. Therefore, when the letter of appointment arrived for Dent, he was ecstatic. Unfortunately, after a message to his parents who lived on the other side of town, he was crestfallen. His happiness doused by the cold words of his parents requesting him to not bring shame to the family.
After giving it some thought, he decided to go against everything he had been taught and decided that it was time to live his life his own way, even if he ended up without a head . Dent was 45.

PART 5: THE WALKOUT
Moz woke up early that day. Sleep had been good, and the smell of breakfast wafted through the open windows calling to him. Despite being a king, he preferred serving himself food instead of having a dozen people fussing over him. It was his way of having some quiet quality time. As he was sipping his dark black coffee, he recalled that he was supposed to be annoyed. The conversation he had with Kronk the previous night came to mind.

Moz: So, I heard of your plan tomorrow
Kronk: So?
Moz: It would be nicer if you didn’t do it
Kronk: And you casting me aside and picking Dent is the nice thing to do?
Moz; At least I’m open about it
Kronk: And so am I…

He immediately put on a grumpy countenance, sipped his coffee, and read his notes.
Donned in purple robes (badly faded due to the usage of the spin dry function and a bad detergent in his washing machine), Moz welcomed his guests into his palace. Someone important got up and requested Dent to come forward to receive his ceremonial robe. Moz himself got up, adjusted his robe and took out a short blunt Keris, the ceremonial sword that he would place in the belt of Dent’s robe after the proclamation. As Dent moved forward slowly as it was the custom, Kronk and bunch of others moved around noisily and stomped out (because no one was paying them any attention)
Moz glared at them from the corner of his eyes, but didn’t say anything because most of those who stayed behind were looking at him and his moustache (or so he thought)

PART 6: WAR WITHOUT BLOOD
People remember wars for generations for various reasons. Here, people remember the war because it brought positive change after . For one, the dictator’s words were not heeded and he couldn’t do anything about it. Instead he nursed his sorrows by killing and burying the goldfish that always swam peacefully in its little glass bowl. The goldfish fan club members lashed out at him for his public display of cruelty to pets. After consulting his companion, the talking monkey, he took a long break in an island far, far away where he went skinny dipping with his wife.
Secondly, Moz gained numerous respect from the downtrodden people (although they still made jokes about his moustache) His action made the people realize that dictators can be brought down, albeit slowly. This holds especially true for the lousy kind of dictators who suffer from narcolepsy. Although the dictators do not altogether stop bossing you around, they are slowly beginning to accept how fragile things around them are and that nothing is permanent.
Kronk finally accepted the fact that he had been replaced successfully. He put away his head cutting tools for good by auctioning them on o-bay and started concentrating on the bat guano trade. Dent stayed in office because he thought it was cool, and has decided that head cutting may not be a necessary course of action anymore. Instead, he and a few others decided to give democracy a chance.

THE END