Chapter 12
Now Solomon’s son Rehoboam went to Hutland, the land of huts; for all the wayfarers of the caravan were gathered there to elect him president. (They chose to hold the election in Hutland because it’s the place where the patriarch Jacob settled after reconciling with his brother Esau, whom he had cheated; it’s also where Jacob’s daughter Dinah met Sheila: so the happiest marriage in the Bible occurred in Hutland.)
As we learned in the previous chapter, the caravan would soon be fractured: one president would govern the northern 85 percent, corresponding to six colors of the rainbow, Red Orange Yellow Blue Indigo Violent, whose initials spell ROY-BIV (the seventh color’s absence being indicated by a dash in the acronym), while an alternate president would govern the remaining 15 percent of the caravan, the southern region, corresponding to the middle color missing from the abovementioned collection of rainbow stripes: Lime Green.
What the present chapter will try to explain is how an ex-slave named Jeroboam became Roy-Biv Prez of the North 85, while Solomon’s son Rehoboam was the Lime-Green Prez of the South 15.
Recall that Jeroboam was one of the workers from President Solomon’s forced-labor project. Solomon promoted Jeroboam to the position of overseer; but then, when Jeroboam delivered the prophecy that Solomon’s heir would suffer a severe reduction in power as the caravan was divided, Solomon stopped favoring Jeroboam and started hating him: so much that the president was determined to assassinate Jeroboam. Therefore, Jeroboam ran for his life and hid in Egypt.
Now, from Egypt, Jeroboam heard the news that Solomon had died, and that the caravan was preparing to gather in Hutland to elect Solomon’s son Rehoboam as its new president. Jeroboam’s comrades from the caravan sent to him, asking him to come join them.
So Jeroboam went to Hutland, and he gathered with the rest of the congregation. His comrades then urged him to confront Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the president-elect, and to relay their collective concerns. So Jeroboam lifted his voice and addressed President Rehoboam, saying: “Your father President Solomon ruined our lives; he took away our freedom and compelled us to do hard labor. Therefore, lighten our workload, and we will serve you willingly.”
Then President Rehoboam the son of Solomon said to the workforce: “Let us adjourn for three days. That will give me time to think about how I should reply. We shall resume the present meeting after the recess.” So all the multitudes departed.
During the interim, Rehoboam consulted with the moguls of his advisory board. They were the same committee that counseled his father Solomon. He said to the elderly oligarchs: “How shall I answer?” And they spoke to President Rehoboam as follows: “Pretend that you will appease the workers; speak in accord with their views, adopt their stance, proclaim their philosophy: in short, say whatever they desire to hear. Then the workforce will be like putty in your hands: a group of supporters, malleable and compliant. You just need to get yourself elected. It matters not what you say to gain the office, but only what you do once you have obtained power.”
Rehoboam, however, forsook the counsel of those moguls; instead, he consulted with another group of nouveau-riche investors, which were his campaign’s biggest donors. Rehoboam said to them: “You heard the population beg me, saying: ‘Lighten this heavy yoke that your father put upon us,’ referring to the forced labor that President Solomon implemented. How do you say I should answer them?”
And the nouveau-riche investors who were his campaign’s biggest donors said to President Rehoboam: “Here’s what you shall tell those dirty commies who cry ‘O please be reasonable and lighten our burdens, O please stop abusing us, O please show us some mercy.’ Say to them: ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins: as Solomon made your burden heavy, I Rehoboam will make it a hundredfold heavier. For you are all idle and lazy. You have been spoiled, and now you act entitled. Instead of laboring, you wish to lean and loafe at your ease. But I will make this earth a living hell for you scum. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
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Once three days had passed, Jeroboam and his comrades in the workforce returned and met again with President Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. And Rehoboam answered the caravan with harsh words; he did not follow the counsel of the moguls on his advisory board, but rather spoke how the nouveau-riche donors instructed him, saying: “As my father made your burden heavy, I will make it a hundredfold heavier.”
So when the people of the caravan saw that the president did not listen to them, they said: “We do not belong to the nation that Rehoboam rules: we have no care for the Lime-Green stripe of the caravan; let the son of Solomon be president over the fifteen percent who are willing to swallow his ruthlessness, but let the rest of us hard workers return unto our homes.”
Yet as for the wayfarers who dwelt in the southern regions, which were traditionally the pro-David faction; those areas around the Black Lodge in the Chaos Buffer Zone: President Rehoboam reigned over them.
Then President Rehoboam sent a new overseer to the workforce in the caravan’s northern majority that had deserted him. And Rehoboam waited in his chariot, at a safe distance away, while he sent the overseer forth to strongarm the people: but the people all threw stones at the overseer until he died. Therefore, President Rehoboam hastened to flee in his chariot back to the Black Lodge.
So the caravan rejected the house of David unto this day.
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And it came to pass, when all the wayfarers of the caravan heard that Jeroboam, their comrade from the forced labor projects, had returned from hiding, they sent and called him before the congregation, and anointed him president over all the caravansary. President Jeroboam enjoyed the vast majority’s approval; only a small percentage followed President Rehoboam of the house of David and Solomon.
Now when Rehoboam the minority Lime-Green Prez came into Eldorado, he assembled an army of one hundred and eighty thousand thugs to fight against the ROY-BIV majority Prez Jeroboam. But as President Rehoboam was leading his shock troops toward the latter’s workforce, behold, he saw in the sky a cross of light, tilted to make an “X,” and, in a dream accompanying this vision, the Volcano instructed Rehoboam, saying: “Do not do this.” President Rehoboam and his troops therefore turned around and marched back home.
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Now President Jeroboam of the ROY-BIV northern 85% of the caravan rebuilt Hutland with extra fortifications in the mountain of the Parisians, and he dwelt therein; then he went out from thence, and rebuilt and fortified God Camp, by the Black House, over the Potomac. And President Jeroboam said in his heart: “The population is liable to lean toward supporting the Lime-Green Prez, my Davidic rival from the southern 15% of the caravan, if all the people go up and feast to the Volcano in Eldorado, where Solomon built that new Perma-Tent: their hearts shall turn toward Rehoboam, the creditors’ darling, and they shall kill me.” Therefore, President Jeroboam fashioned two extra liberty statues of Yahweh, after the likeness and image of the golden idol installed on the lid of the ark (which King Bryan sculpted for the people in the wilderness, back in the days of Moses); and Jeroboam addressed the workforce of the caravan, saying: “Behold your elohim, O my fellow laborers. Remember how the Volcano freed our forerunners from being slaves in the Empire.” And President Jeroboam set one liberty statue in Hutland, in the Temple of the Hairy One, and the other liberty statue he put in the Himalayan Mountains between the Land of Oz and Las Vegas. For there was a God House (Beth-el) there. And he said to the populace: “It is too hard for you all to keep making the trip to Solomon’s Perma-Tent, way over in that ritzy section of Eldorado; instead, stay closer to home and feast to the Volcano at these two new convenient locations: in Hutland and the Himalayas.”
And President Jeroboam threw many feasts at both these places; he grilled steaks continuously, and the whole workforce was always invited. This idea ended up boosting his popularity, which was already high. And good luck followed him.
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