The Legend of Wise King Solomon

A reddening sun was casting mountainous silhouettes to the west when Vizier Asmodeus brought in two crying and bedraggled women. “Ugh,” thought the boy King, “it’s gonna be a late night after all.” Solomon sunk back into his throne.

People were always coming to Solomon with their problems, the irksome result of his burgeoning reputation as a fair-minded mediator. Granted, such renown wasn’t hard to come by, considering how abhorrent his peers were. The Canaanite lands to the east were ruled by Scott the Odious, while nothing more than a thin river thirty leagues to the south protected travelers from Ricky the Tormentor.

Presented with such an insignificant case — they were women after all, not slaveholders — Solomon’s inclination was to imprison them both until someone broke. Which one mattered not — his favorite centurion was on Celebrity Gladiator tonight and he didn’t want to miss it.

But as he gazed into the anguished faces of the two women before him, and their supplicant eyes back at his, suddenly an oil lamp flickered above his head.

“Bring the baby before me!”

Inspecting the little cherub for any sign, any line, spot or marking, he squinted like a jeweler at each of the purported mothers — one white, one black.

“Yeah, I got nuthin’,” said Solomon the Wise. “Let’s split the baby.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” erupted the courtroom.

“What? What the fuck?” asked Solomon. He re-examined the woman on the left. She seemed to be the right age for childbearing, maybe thirteen. The other was much too old; he’d say sixteen if she was a day.

The King known from high plain to coastline for his jurisprudence retreated into his mind while the audience watched in reverend silence. Solomon turned it over and decided, in his wisdom, to determine the outcome using a tried-and-true formula, one that had rarely disappointed him.

“Each of you claims to be this boy’s mother, is this so?”

They agreed as one.

“Sayeth the Lord, no mother spends that which is given freely in the service of her children. Verily, any who would sacrifice for a child shall receive Elohim’s blessing a hundred fold. Although you exude the simplicity of two scant tumbleweeds, I must ask: are these illustrious words familiar to you?”

They nodded. Excellent.

“Which of you…” he eyed them with a grin, “is prepared…” he paused for effect, “to blow me?”

“Come on!” said the Vizier as the court erupted.

“What?” said the King, “Was that not cool?”

The women sobbed.

This was turning into a real nightmare for Sol, who figured he could at least get them to make out with each other. Exasperated, he asked his Vizier for a giant scimitar, “Bring me the one for infants. It’s got a kitty on the handle.”

Asmodeus couldn’t contain himself, “For crying out loud, what’s going on with you? This’ll be the fifth one you’ve chopped this week.”

“Really?” thought the King. Like beheadings, Solomon hadn’t given them much thought when he ordered them, but hearing the number out loud was eye-opening.

Five seemed excessive; then again, he could imagine numbers much larger. Once, he counted all the way to twenty-seven, a record at the time which earned him a standing ovation. So he asked, “You have a better idea?”

The Vizier led him out of earshot, then answered, “Were I in your sandals, wise King — and mind you, I would never dare trade places — I would spare the child, and threaten the mother.”

“I’m listening.”

“We don’t know which of the two young women out there is the deceiver, but we do know she’s so indecent and immoral that she’s stolen a child from the other.”

“Indecent and immoral — yes, I’m paying close attention.”

“That’s why every time you threaten to split the baby in half, both women recant. The real mother renounces her claim to save her child’s life, while the impostor forfeits her claim to save her own life.”

“How does she save her own life?”

“By mimicking the actions of the legitimate mother, she renders the court unable to distinguish between the two.”

Only now was the King realizing why this idea had failed repeatedly.

“Remind me again why we do it this way?”

“It’s in the Bible,” said the Vizier flatly. He went on, “But watch what happens when you threaten the women themselves: the real mother would sacrifice herself in a heartbeat to save her child, even if it meant he’d be raised by the stranger standing beside her.”

“And what of the fake?”

“A fraud would never submit to the executioner solely to preserve the illusion of her innocence. All she gains through her death is letting the child be raised by its actual mother — something she could’ve accomplished by not stealing the baby in the first place.”

The Vizier folded his arms with certitude, while the King chewed over these lessons like wet grass. Although he’d been nodding attentively while his lifelong counselor handcrafted morsels of sagacity, for some reason it all translated into his head as, “blowjob.” Weird, that.

By now the first stars had begun flickering on the great quilt overhead. It was time to act.

While there was nothing dishonorable about being a legendarily just King, Solomon didn’t care to wear the title for a legendarily short time. Among the traits shared by the great Kings is paranoia, for it keeps them enthroned.

Back in front of the entire court, King Solomon proclaimed, “My beloved childhood confidante, Vizier Asmodeus, has just informed me that he would never choose to trade places with me.” He looked at the grandfatherly old turnip and continued, “Who goes out of his way to volunteer such a thing except the very man plotting to overthrow me?”

“Huh?” Asmodeus stumbled backward, trying to keep his feet. Nervous energy gripped the audience.

“Asmodeus, you are hereby banished from my Kingdom effective at sunrise. You have always been closer to me than my own family — which is why I let you stay after exiling them — and will, of course, provide you with a tablet of recommendation upon request.

“As for the two petitioners before me, I have rendered a decision. While you ladies might be a Tel Aviv 10, you’re a Jerusalem 5 and this court has lost interest. Let it be decreed that you both shall remain jailed until such time that the boychild has grown of sufficient age to return and testify before me which of you is true.

“Finally, and this is the last thing I’ll say tonight, upon penalty of death everyone present must swear an oath — let’s call it a loyalty oath — promising to portray me as a smart and decent King. I want people two thousands years from now to remember me as a wise ruler,” and here there was anxious tittering, “who trusted his advisors and treated women with respect.”

And with that, as the young women and ex-Vizier were frog marched out in chains, Sol wheeled to the Coliseum in a gilded chariot, where he would enjoy a relaxing evening watching brown men bash their brains in.