His Royal Majesty,
King of the South, descendant of Herod the Great, Grand Son of Emperor Nero.
I hear the virus has led you to the reeds at the waters of the nile river. That was where a crying baby Moses was picked up by the daughter of Pharaoh. Many years later, the plagues came. Pharaoh, proud and feeling invincible jeered and thumbed his nose at couriers of a divine message. Then he was hit and he kissed the scorched soil of his land, his first son lay frozen in a casket made of reeds.
Not too long after, a sand ball picked up by a desert storm rolled down the hill and dissolved into the elements of the roiling bowel of the Red Sea along with the mighty Chariots of Pharaoh.
His body was never found, never buried in the glorious tomb he had prepared for himself.
Do you remember that story? Not likely. You can’t read, briefs, let alone the benevolent bulky leaves of history. But that story is in that big black book that you, theatrically, some say clownishly held up in front of the Baptist Church a few feet left of your royal fortress.
They say history repeats itself. Not true. Those who defy history replicate it and bear the brunt of the odium and scar that it leaves behind.
What else is there to say about you? That you are like your forebear, Herod the Great? Bellicose, vengeful, cruel with a life built on pinocchios and manipulations? A category 5 hurricane that leave mayhem, destruction and death in its trail?
What else is there to say about you? That you are like your grandfather, Emperor Nero, who fiddled and went on a jolly ride across the world competing for honours and adoration while the Romans gnashed their teeth in want and agony?
What else is there to say about you? That your plume is inoculated against scandals? That you can conjour pullets out of maggots? That the earth wobbles as you spin everything around you? That you are a merchant of noise, smoke and mirrors? A percussionist of disinformation? A debunker extraordinaire? Lead performer in a bizarre circus? An oligarch at war with one and all?
What else? That you are in a strange romantic affair with your chief rivalry, King of the North who has taken an oath not to eat or drink until your land is trampled upon?
I hear you are back at the palace strutting in a hanging garden like Nebuchadnezzar. I hope you will not trip and share dinner with the beasts of the earth.
Whatever happens, you are one king the world will not forget in a hurry. But eventually, you will be consigned to the archives of history like your ancestors.
Nevertheless, a stone has been hewned from a mountain. It is on its way to your kingdom and all other kingdoms. Set to pulverize all human principalities and blow them away. Thereafter, peace will reign on earth for ever and ever.
