The Empire of Gun and Sword: Creation

Once upon a time, there was an average man who aspired to become rich and powerful. He was not a bright man but had inherited thousands of guns and swords from his father who had been a warrior all his life.  Day and night, instead of reading by the fire, or listening to the stories of earth, wind, and the far sea, he would sit in his little tent and think of how he could lure others into using his weapons.

One day, he decided to learn how to create a special potion that would throw people into a trance to make them suggestible to his immoral commands. He went to the tribe's medicine man and begged him to reveal the secrets of how to invent such a potion. Since, the medicine man was doing research on human nature, he agreed to reveal the secrets of the potion so he to could study the effects that it would produce on ordinary people.

Elated, one night the average man invited many of his tribe's men to his home where he poured a little potion into each man’s drink. Little by little, as they fell into an inevitable trance, the men began to chant and sing incantations. As the mesmerized men were becoming completely absorbed by the incantations, he gave each one of them a gun and a sword. They started walking towards their own tents where their wives and children were sleeping. Each one took out his sword from its scabbard and cut the heads off of his sleeping wife and children. As the soil beneath their feet was turning red, the lurid men set their own tents on fire, burning all their written stories, drawings, and codes of tribal peace and wisdom.

Feeling empowered and invincible, the average man filled the valleys and mountains with his sinister laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed for he now had many followers whom unquestionably would commit themselves to his wishes. He laughed and laughed and laughed until the whole earth became red with his laughter...

This is how the empire of gun and sword was created.

The Empire of Prison and Poetry: The Imprisonment

Once upon a time, there were simple people living on a simple land.  Since their great prophet had told them that their world would crumble if there were no poems being created, every now and then, they would celebrate the birth of a poet. Poems were the words of angels and the pillars that held up the earth in the galaxy. Everyone knew poetry by heart, even the small children. Their homes smelled of poetry, and their walls were adorned by verses about wine and beauty.

Unfortunately, the simple people’s land had many infinite wells that ended in utter blackness. Each poet, who was born into the tribe, would inevitably fall into one of them. The simple people would cry and pray to their God that one day these abysses would be filled with soil so that no one would plunge into their abyss. The old men of the tribe called the wells human ignorance. The question was how would human ignorance be cured or avoided? There was not an easy answer for such a question.

It was not that the simple people were bad people. It was that, due to their lack of better understanding, they would always follow their kings instead of their poets. No matter how many warnings their poets would give them, they would always feel the strange loyalty to obey their sovereigns.

One day, everything took a turn for the worse when the kings ordered the simple people to build small rooms without windows that had chains and locks inside. Without questioning the purpose, they started erecting walls, placing chains in the tiny rooms.

After everything was built, the kings ordered the simple people to put all the poets into the rooms and chain them to the walls. The simple people did so; then, the kings named the small rooms Prison. Thereafter, all the poets lived in Prison, and all the kings continued living in their palaces.

And what happened to the simple people?

They started falling into the wells, one by one.

The Empire of Flower and Dream: The Liberation

I have never seen the empire of flower and dream, but my mother tells me it exists. She tells me it exists when her hands run through my hair, and I imagine other places where she will fly to before I do. She says the empire of flower and dream was created by a man who dreamed he was a flower or by a flower who dreamed of a man (I always get which one confused).

I say to her, "Tell me more when you get there."

Then I fall asleep.