A Stranger Saves the World

by whispering the truth to its King

Once upon a time, a King sat on a throne.

He was wealthy beyond compare. He owned a very sizable chunk of planetary real estate. Pretty much everything. Along the way, he had managed to indulge himself in every conceivable way.

Together, all this made him understandably self-centered, as befitting his importance. It was certainly not unreasonable to expect the world to shake if he had a whim. At least that’s how he felt about it.

The irritability of the privileged

Each morning he would slink into The Throne Room, irritated, making snide remarks from the moment his Royal Slippers touched the Royal Rugs. Unsurprisingly, his staff hated him. But they scurried about, dutifully attending to his whims out of fear of losing their jobs… or maybe their heads.

On one particular very specific day, His Royal Selfishness was sitting on his throne as usual. Bored to tears, picking at his fingernails, and complaining about what he’d been served for dinner last night. All the while, wondering what dreadful boredom today’s dreariness would bring.

And on this same day, as usual his Kingdom was suffering. Suffering because business was being ignored. Because to him, The Great Magnificent One, the virtues of responsibility, respect and appreciation were petty annoyances. Something for the little people to attend. Such things he viewed, today as everyday, as incredibly unnecessary intrusions. Things like people starving and suffering, corruption, declining morals, and the decaying of the land and its resources.

All on this one, particular very specific day.

And this had been going on for so long, and had become so blatantly obvious, that many people throughout the land wondered — privately for the most part — how it was possible that one so privileged could be so contemptuous, arrogant and selfish. They wondered how much better they themselves could do if only they had but one percent of his wealth. Just a measly one percent. Divided among all of them.

But then again, all this was normal. One really rich King with nearly all the wealth, stacked up next to everyone else on the planet.

Then ‘it’ happened

And so, on that particular day, it seemed it was business as usual. Except.

Except that a fellow came wandering into the Kingdom. No one really knew who he was or where he came from. He just popped in with the clothes on his back and a full set of empty pockets.

It started with a full set of empty pockets.

That’s how it started. Just some nobody, sliding in from nowhere in particular.

The first sign

The first sign occurred at the potter’s house.

The wife of the village potter had an apple tree. And the stranger, who happened to be walking by, looked at her and greeted her.

She, somehow sensing he was a polite sort of fellow, greeted him in return and offered him an apple.

“I’m sorry that it’s not all that good,” she said as she handed it to him. “This tree has never really put out a good apple. I’ve been trying for 34 years.”

“Well, thanks. I’ll enjoy it all the same. I really appreciate your kindness.”

Squinting in the bright sun, he looked over at her tree. She watched him walk over, and swear by all the holy virgins and cross my heart, she was pretty sure she saw him touch it and talk to it. And then, just like that, with a small nod and a smile, he was off. Strange, she thought.

But even stranger was a week later. Because that’s when the potter had scheduled a sale for his wares. And the expected crowd had shown up. And while they were all busy sifting through his cups, bowls and plates, something unusual was going on over under the apple tree. The potter’s wife was selling apples faster than she could take her next breath.

“For 34 years, it’s been a scrawny little tree putting out wrinkled little apples. But now look!”

But the crowd had already looked. Because in one week’s time, the tree had shot up 10 feet, spread out 20 feet, and was producing the sweetest, juiciest apples anyone had ever tasted.

The second and third signs

Meanwhile, the stranger had moved on.

His first night in the kingdom had been spent in the village blacksmith’s barn. That’s where the friar kept his horse, which had always been lame. A lame horse was the best the poor friar could afford. But the next morning, when the friar showed up to load his horse up for a supply run to one of the local missions, the horse was no longer lame.

And then this. The blacksmith’s son had a chance encounter with the stranger the next morning. The lad was supposed to be in school but had snuck home. Running at full speed to avoid being spotted by his father, the boy ran smack into the stranger. After picking the truant student up off the ground and helping him dust off his clothes, ‘it’ began to happen again. Instead of secretly hiding away in his home, the blacksmith’s son turned, walked straight into the barn and started picking up tools, cleaning up the shop and splitting firewood for the forge. Before his speechless father could manage a sound, the kid skipped into the family cottage and began preparing dinner for his parents.

Of course, people were noticing these changes, and many were seen shaking their heads. But no one connected any of this to the anonymous stranger.

A dishwasher makes a dent

When a guy has empty pockets, even someone who might be some kind of miracle worker, well, pretty soon he’s got to find a way to scrape together some income. So, it wasn’t too long before the stranger was working in the King’s kitchen as a dishwasher. And, unsurprisingly, things started to happen.

The kitchen began to sparkle like it never had before. But the real sparkle was in the eyes of the kitchen staff, who were suddenly cheerful and motivated.

The palace staff was understandably confused over this, since it had become standard practice for anyone working for the King to scurry about full of resentment, constantly conveying how depressed or pissed off they were at life.

More signs and wonders

Then it happened again. Before you know it, the cuisine took a notable jump up in quality. The food began tasting a lot better. And it wasn’t long before the King Himself noticed that he wasn’t getting the vapors anymore. Gas.

“What’s going on?” the King angrily demanded! “Where’s my gas?”

Very quickly the order came down to the kitchen that the King was making inquiries. He wanted to know who or what was responsible for this sudden change in the food.

What with all the commotion, the stranger kept his face down and hands buried in his sinks, hoping to not draw attention. But the kitchen staff had a sense of things, and before the dishwater had time to get cool, the stranger had been escorted into the presence of His Eminence the Gassy One.

“What are you doing to my food?” demanded the King.

The King, being quite used to being angry and habitually irritated, found it completely normal to be utterly furious that his food had improved and that he’d been cured of his gases.

“I apologize, Sir,” replied the stranger. “I’m only trying to help make your food taste better. Honestly, that’s all there is to it.”

The King, ever vigilant for impertinence, and Royally determined to get to the bottom of all this, quickly ordered his guards to secure the room, to send everyone else out of the chambers and to bolt all the doors.

“You are in MY Kingdom,” he shouted. “And I give you a Royal Order to tell the Truth. Talk or die. Tell me. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY FOOD?!?”

“Your Highness. First, I acknowledge that I am in your Kingdom. And I acknowledge that as a guest here, I have a responsibility to honor you. But if you want to know the truth, the actual truth, then I must ask permission to approach the Throne. For I fear that if I speak the truth out loud, that those listening at the doors will hear. And I respectfully suggest to Your Royal Highness that what I have to reveal is for Your Royal Ears only.”

His Royal Highness, swelled up with the stranger’s knowledge of his undeniably profound superiority, sniffed. And with a slight wave of his Royal Hankie, motioned the lowly stranger to approach the Royal Seat.

Sometimes it’s beyond words

What happened next occurred so quickly that people witnessing it argued for years over what really took place. The keyholes had ears to them, but the Royal Chambers also l had secret portholes everywhere, so there were many sets of eyes witnessing the event.

As the story goes, the stranger had strolled up to the King, and quickly whispered the truth in the King’s ear. Instantly, the King froze. His eyes froze, his skin froze, his emotions froze, his breath froze. Everything froze. You could have heard a pin drop.

The Court went into a panic. The Royal Physicians were summoned, who were shocked and dismayed to find that the King’s heart had frozen as well. It had stopped.

The King was dead. Or, at least he appeared to be dead. But nothing decayed, so if he wasn’t dead, he was somehow stuck between being alive and being dead. Almost like he’d been vacuum packed. Which just might be a story for a different day.

Meanwhile the stranger had quietly moved to the rear of the Throne Room during all the fuss and confusion. When the doors were thrust open for the Royal Physicians to storm in, he had inconspicuously slipped out of the palace. And out of the Kingdom. His work was done.

Of course, the Kingdom, upon the freezing of His Royal Smugness, immediately started improving. Dramatically so.

And with the freezing of the man who owned 99% of everything, everything quickly became normal, just and proper. Once again.

Balance had been restored.

Editor’s Note: I wrote this over 20 years ago, a few months before relocating back to Virginia. We’d been living in New York for 10 years, and before that in Dallas for almost 10 years. The story was part of an essay I submitted while I was working on my second degree black belt requirements. The essay focused on the principles of the second degree, and the story was included as a way to illustrate the essay. The story has been recently edited for clarity.

Credits: Picture of me done with Microsoft Face Swap app. Very fun. Dr. Who has been my hero since Tom Baker. The two sketches are my own, both done freehand on my iPhone.

Copyright, Mark Walter, March 26, 1997