Of Queens and Consorts

By Emmanuelle

The following tale and its characters may be true. Definitely, it is not entirely false.  Meteors from heaven, ang tamaan ay huwag sanang magka-bukol. Nagmamarunong lamang po ang may kaunti at ang wala talagang . . . alam. We are the world! We are the baba bebe bibi bobo bubuwit from the other side. Translated roughly – from lower than the equator, the hot babes, the suckling ducklings, the da-da-dumb, the little nice mice.

Keep your fingers crossed. Knock on plastic wood.

Once upon a time, there was this floating kingdom of hundreds of islands. How it manages to float and to even soar at the stock exchange is a miracle of advertising and magic of sorts. Its main exports are its citizens disguised as maids, nurses, builders, tillers of the soil and of seagoing vessels. They heal the sick and they enrich the cities, not of the land of their birth but of that which expands their girth.  Eow. Woe.  

When one mentions islands, one imagines seas. And when one imagines seas, one thinks of water. And when one thinks of water, one thinks of swimming. And drowning. And sinking.

A wise man once said: It is not only on or in water that one swims. And drowns. And sinks. One begins to swim in amniotic fluid. And philosophy takes care of the rest. Unless a disclaimer starts by claiming one actually begins with the sticky situations couples find themselves in after, or even before, the wedding. 

Author’s Note: This is fun! I can end this story swiftly just by using a lot of AND. Start each sentence with an And, and shower here and there and everywhere with lots of and before ending with a dot.  Grammatically incorrect, but graphically effective! Imagine what I can do later with the butt of the BUT!

To go back on track, there was this kingdom of islands, where the favorite activity was swimming. Swimming with or against the tide.  One morning, the Queen wakes up on the wrong side of the royal bed. And it is not because she laid her head on that wrong side when she went to sleep last night, but because she woke up with her husband the King not on his proper side. In fact, he was not ON the royal bed at all.  That was why the Queen rolled all the way to the other side, which was the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROYAL BED. O, clear na? Hmp.

  The Queen stomps her feet all the way to breakfast. She plops her royal bottom on her royal high-chair.  Munching on a green ah-pple, she  stretches her neck to elevate her eyes above the level of the table so she may catch a full glimpse of her giant of a husband the King at the other end who was  sipping his coffee and turning the pages of a  newspaper, a feat which was hard to do simultaneously because, you see, unlike the crabby people ranked lower in hierarchy who kept bowing and clawing all over the palace, he had only two hands and with the cup on one hand and the news on the other hand, who was propping the prop of a paper to avoid a royal confrontation, uhm, conversation with the very royal queen? O di ba? That sentence was a royal long-ness, your plural highnessesses. 

So, who was propping the prop of a paper to avoid a royal confrontation, uhm conversation with the very royal queen? A scandal of a cabbage, straight from the book Of Kings and Cabbages.

Queen: I can’t believe you said _ _ck off.

King: How can I say that to you, my queen? I am your most loyal royal consort!

Queen: I mean, did you really say __ck off! to the son of the _th heir to this throne?

King: I meant to say Back, I might step on your toes while passing through. Anyway, the son of the _th heir to the throne must have more delicadeza than to attempt to do business with the said throne.

Queen:  Careful, my King. They will say the same of you.

King shrugs:  The ministers of the court will swear to high heavens I am a soft-spoken person. If ever I said Back! it was without the “off!” and it was said softly and most royally so.

Queen guffaws throatily: You and your royal roughness. You may be the end of us all.

And she doesn’t mean it lightly, of course. 

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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