One December afternoon, while walking along the ruined battlements of the Old City, I asked the Teacher how we could have avoided the great Dissolution that tore the country apart in the early years of the last century. The Teacher remained silent for a long time. All around us, the gardeners kept on hunting through the bramble for leaves that could still be saved. Each leaf they found they carefully enclosed in a glass bubble attached to a long plastic tube that led to a gas-exchange port that stuck up out of the ground at regular intervals. We were truly getting desperate, I thought, if we had to re-cycle oxygen from weeds.
The the Teacher spoke:
“Have you heard of the story of Damocles?” the Teacher wheezed, his voice just barely audible through the re-breather that covered half his face.
“Who has not?” I replied. “Damocles was a wise king who kept a sword dangling by a horsehair over his head, as he sat on his throne.”
“And what for?”
“To remind him that the hair might at any time and extinguish his life. This made him mindful of all his decision as every decision might be his last.”
“Very good,” the Teacher said. “That is how the Dissolution could have been prevented.”
I must have looked confused, because the Teacher went on to explain what he clearly felt needed no further explanation.
“In those days,” the Teacher said, “once the reign of the King ended, he expected to be allowed to go his way and do whatever he pleased. This did not sit well with those who came after him; especially those who felt that he had abused the powers of his monarchy. In any case, the laws of the land could easily be used to frustrate attempts to hold the former King to account.”
“Ah. SO you mean the laws had to be changed.”
“Yes and no,” the Teacher said. “No, the laws protecting the innocent should not be changed. Whether citizen or sovereign should matter little to rules of innocence. However, we must never forget that despite both being entitled to the same fundamental right to be presumed guiltless, there exists a vast difference in the estates of ordinary citizens and former Kings. Therefore, yes, some laws must be changed, but only with regard to monarchs.”
“I think I see…”
By that time, we had come to the far end of the battlements where the Teacher liked to sit and speak with his other students. And today, there were many. It was not often that the sun came out behind the clouds of volcanic ash anymore, and a good number of citizens had taken advantage of the anemic sunlight to see the world outdoors. I retreated behind the Teacher and contented myself with listening to him telling the story of how, in the not too distant past, a volcano erupted from beneath the tomb of Jose Rizal.
It was, after all, a good story.
The volcanic landscape is from HERE.