(Cont.)
And the wild man said to Moses: “Go seek an appointment with the King, and tell him: ‘The volcano of potential has a message for you, O King: Release my workers, so that they may come and spend the weekend at my hillside. And if you refuse to grant this request, look: I will cram your whole country with frogs. That river that I recently turned to blood will now be instructed to vomit up its amphibians. “Increase and multiply,” I will command them; “for I will make your seed as abundant as the sands upon the shore, or as the stars in the sky.” Verily, I will sign a contract with them, and these frogs shall breed till they burst your borders. Your country will suddenly become Frog Mecca. It will be like Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds (1963), except with frogs. Just picture it: Frogs shall hop up and come into your house, and into your bedchamber, and onto your bed, and into the shelters of your servants, and upon your people, and into your ovens and your kneading-troughs and privy rooms. You will go to look inside your fridge, and frogs will fly out. Open your microwave: Ew, frogs! And they won’t keep their distance: they will not abide by humankind’s rules of politeness to respect your personal space: no, the frogs shall come up both onto you, and onto your people, and onto your maidservants. Many a fine lady shall find that frogs have hopped into her décolletage; and some will get their legs trapped in the cleavage. This will not be a pleasant experience.”
And the wild man said to Moses: “Tell Bryan to wave your wand over the streams, the rivers, the ponds, and the lakes, so that frogs come out and overrun the land.”
And Bryan waved his hands over all the waters, and frogs came out and covered the entire landscape.
But the King summoned the psychoanalysts from his intelligentsia, and they used their hypnotic spells of mesmerism to bring frogs up onto the land as well.
Then the King invited Moses and Bryan to the palace. And when they entered the royal throne room, the King said to them: “Look: my guys were able to do the same trick as you. It doesn’t take a Master of the Universe to cause frogs to come out of the water and become a nuisance. Now go back and petition your familiar spirit: ask that he take his frogs away from me and my people. And, for our part, I’ll have my guys clean up the frogs that we added. If you do this, I will tell the workers that they can attend the weekend meeting with their representative that you have been bothering me about.”
And Moses answered the King and said: “I’ll allow you this one victory over me. We will destroy all the frogs except the ones in the river – when exactly do you want this done by?”
And the King said: “Tomorrow.”
And Moses replied: “So be it. Now, when that time comes, and you look out and see that everything has been cleaned up just as you requested, I hope that then you realize how awesome and formidable our Volcano is. For the frogs will be gone from all your people’s houses and the land, and they will only remain in the waters.”
And Moses and Bryan left the King’s palace and went back to the fiery vortex on the side of the hill, outside the country; and Moses cried to the wild man with the overlong hair, because of the frogs that he employed to abuse the King.
And the wild man obeyed the voice of Moses, and he followed his instructions, so all the frogs died out of the houses, villages, and fields.
And they swept the dead frogs into heaps, and the whole country stank.
But when the King saw that everything had calmed down, and the emergency was over, he hardened his heart and would no longer listen to Moses and Bryan, just like the wild man predicted.
And the wild man with the goat eyes said to Moses: “Say to Bryan: ‘Wave your wand and strike the dust of the land, so that all the particles of dust become lice.’”
And Bryan reached out with the wand in his hand and struck the dust of the earth, and all the dust at once turned into lice and infested all the people and animals. Every particle came alive, and lice swarmed all over the country.
Then all the King’s wizards and sorcerers and necromancers and psychoanalysts recited spells and employed enchantments: they used every miracle of modern science, but none of the subgroups of the intelligentsia could figure out how to bring forth lice. So there were lice on all the people and the animals.
And the intelligentsia said to the King: “This has all the hallmarks of a divine curse. We conclude that the Creator of All the Worlds is responsible. A plague of lice? That’s god-level depravity. Yes, this could only have been performed by the finger of the Demiurge.”
But the King’s heart was hardened, so he was not convinced. It was just as the wild man predicted.
And the wild man from the vortex now instructed Moses, saying: “Get up early in the morning and go and wait in the area outside the royal palace where the King usually bathes. Confront him when he’s vulnerable. As he takes off his robe and prepares to dip into the water, stand before him and proclaim: ‘The Volcano asks you to release the working class, so that they can meet with him in the outlands.’ And then deliver this ultimatum – say, ‘If you refuse to give my workers a break, then look: I will send swarms of flies all over your people and your country. Swarms of flies, swarming everywhere. Except for the southern metropolitan areas of Eagan, Burnsville, Rosemount, and Apple Valley, where my workers all live – in those places, there shall be no flies. There will only be flies were YOU live, in Edina, and places like that. You and your ruling-class elites. I will swarm you with flies. That’s how you’ll know that I am the Volcano, filled with potential and possibility surging up from the midst of the planet. And I will segregate my workers from all your owners, overseers, and administrators. This will happen tomorrow. Be there.’”
And the wild man did as he promised. There buzzed a revolting swarm of flies straight into the King’s royal palace, and into the residences of the professional managerial class. And flies swarmed all over the country. And life in those places became incredibly annoying, because of all the flies; and there was a sharp drop in tourism.
So the King made an appointment with Moses and Bryan, and when they appeared in his throne room, he said to them: “Why don’t you have your weekend worker’s get-together right here? I’ll let you use one of my buildings in Edina. You don’t need to cross the border and leave the country.”
And Moses answered: “That is not a viable option, O King. For what we plan on saying and doing at our Volcano Labor Festival will offend the rentiers and creditors in your country. And if they hear and see us partaking in these things that we intend to say and do, they will react the way that you owners always react: they will destroy us. Bryan and I will get assassinated, and then you will use everything from subtle poisons to brute violence on the rest of the workforce, until they’re all dispatched as well. You will simply kill everyone who is troublesome. Murder is your modus operandi. It always has been. You slaughtered the prophets, as Jesus said. You’re cold-blooded vipers. So, no, we need to be able to go on a journey at least three days outside of the country, to meet with our frontman in the remote areas. He lives on a hill.”
And the King said: “Fine, I will allow the workers to go outside the country, on a leave of absence, for a three-day weekend. But just don’t go too far away. And require your Volcano to get rid of all these flies.”
And Moses answered: “Look, we’re leaving now; I’ll ask the Volcano to remove the flies from your land, so that their swarms no longer infest your palace and all the houses of your elite friends. I’ll see if we can have them gone by tomorrow. But you have got to stop dealing so dishonestly with us, about this matter of releasing the workers for a holiday.”
And Moses left the King and went to deliver his request to the wild man.
And the wild man performed everything that Moses asked of him: he removed the swarms of flies from the King and from the land. There remained not one.
But the King hardened his heart after this, as well; neither would he grant the workers their holiday.
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