Fall and Rise of the House of Salim
A covel nomedy, a camel dromedary, or some such.
Dédicacé à Wayne Stewarte
A Note
Some people may find this offensive to whatever religion they practice, especially Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and the Jews. I'm sorry I didn't have time to mix up the other religions, but they have a way of making themselves ridiculous too. Get used to it, because if there is one thing that's common, it's too profane what is sacred or to sanctify that which is profane.
1
Salim's Birth, and Childhood
This is the house. This is the house, in which lives Salim. This is the house that Salim was born in. This is the house Salim was married in. This is the house Salim was married in. This is the house Salim was married in. This is the house Salim was married in. I do not repeat myself, because Salim as a member of the faithful had four wives. He did not love one more than the others, but it is not clear exactly what Salim's love means, because at times it seemed that what this meant was that he did not love any of them at all, but that is later. This is the house Salim hoped to die in.
So how did this come about? And who is Salim?
God is good. God is great. Let me tell you how this was.
In this House in a small city of five million in the state of Udder Prudish, Salim was born, to the first wife of a wealthy merchant. His father had been born under the Raj, and prospered by trading with the Raj. He sold grain to farmers, and coal to miners. He sold sand to Arabs. He sold women to brothels. Now, do you understand how he became rich? Because at the start of every year farmers need grain to plant, having sold all of theirs, and in famine, they need grain to feed themselves. Because miners, when they start mining again, need coal to start their pumps and trains, having sold all of the old coal. The sand in much of the Arab lands, praise be Allah, is too poor to blow glass. And of course, brothels always need more women to restock themselves. His father would always remember that his fortune was others misfortune and that the wrong thing to do, was the right thing to do.
May peace be upon you if you understand this.
So when Salim was a boy, he was a very naughty boy. He pissed in the sand, he shat on the floor and rolled it in grain to hide it, he would hit the women, and he would pound the coal into dust. And so he was sent away to the countryside to learn better manners from the third wife of his grandfather.
God is good. God is great. There is no other God than God. But God is a gangster. Remember this.
So when Salim was away, his grandmother would neglect him, and punish him by making him wear girl's clothes. Salim was ashamed and always stayed inside. So staying inside, he learned to read and read the Koran every day. In this way, he came to know every verse, without exception. His Lord was kind to him - because he gave Salim a bad memory. So Salim would have to begin again at the beginning after finishing.
In this way, when a mob came to rob the house, they found Salim wearing only a loincloth, reading the Koran. Look! At 12! Already a holy man! So the left the house alone and burned down the house next door. Which belonged to a pain maker, so they all perished in the flames. This saved the town from much more destruction, and Salim was put on a chair and paraded through town, and flowers were thrown on him.
Back in town, his father sold the sand without telling, and months later the Arabs came back, and the father was afraid because he knew that these Arabs were the ones who he had sold the pissed sand too. They came to him and said:
“Oh mighty merchant, we have rushed back here, because when this sand was made into glass.”
“Yes?”
The father said trembling “How do you know it was my sand?”
“We know. We want more, because it stained the most delicate shade of green, and our sheik wants more. Do you have any?”
“I know where I can get some, come back in a week and I will have some.”
“Wondrous! God is good! God is great!”
And God likes Green.
Then the next day his second wife came to him and said, “You know the grain that we threw out because Salim shat in it?”
“Sat in it?”
“No, shat in it.”
“Ah yes. So?”
“Well it turns out the grain was with rot and poisoned, and the house next door lost two children from eating it.”
“How did Salim know? He could not have known?”
“But he did, a little first, and this made him sick. That is why he fouled the floor and needed to hide the mess.”
God is good. God is great. But God sometimes poisons the grain.
The next day after this the owner of the brothel came back and asked Salim's father.
“The girls you sold me...”
“Yes?” said the father, trembling, “How do you know they were mine?”
“Because they were the ones who had been hit.”
“So?”
“Well, we thought they were ruined because now they would hit back.”
“And so? What do you want?”
“We want more because many of the soldiers like to be hit. In fact, there is a general who likes to be hit more than have intercourse. Can you train more girls like this?”
“I could, but it will take me some time.”
God is good. God is great. But God can be a goon.
The next day a man in dark masks came to him and said.
“Are you the merchant who sells coal?”
“Yes, but now I have only coal dust.”
“Wonderful! I need to make fireworks by tomorrow for a birthday party celebration. It is for a rich Chinese merchant and he demanded it. If you have coal dust, I will take all you have, because there is none to be found, what with all the rebellions.”
So the father sold all the coal dust at a trebled price. He sent for Salim to come home from the countryside so that he could piss in more sand, roll grain in shit, hit girls and pound coal.
But when he sold the sand to Arabs, they came back and beat him, because it did not turn green as promised.
And his son did not get sick, so he rolled no more grain.
And his son would not hit girls; because having worn girl's clothes, he knew how embarrassing it was to be a girl.
And his son powdered the coal, but the fireworks maker came back and tried to sue the father because the fireworks had exploded, killing the rich Chinese merchant's wife.
So the father murmured. “Not only is the wrong thing to do the right thing to do, but the right thing to do is the wrong thing to do.”
So he summoned Salim. And he said:
“Salim, I have four things to tell you.”
“What is the first father?”
“Your fortune is other's misfortune.”
“Yes father, but how am I not to do unto others as I would not have them do unto me and follow these words?”
“You will find out.”
“And what is the second thing?”
“The right thing to do, is the wrong thing to do.”
“Yes, father. But why would God punish the good?”
“Because if he were to reward the good, they would become wicked.”
“Yes, father. So what is the third thing?”
“The wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
“Why is this father, should we not do the right thing?”
“Well, my son. Who knows what is good.”
“Why God knows good.”
“And is there any god other than God?”
“No father. There is no god but God.”
“So does anyone other than God know good?”
“No, they must not.”
“And does God want you presuming on his work?”
“No, that would be too proud.”
“So do the wrong thing, or God will know you want to try and trick him.”
“Yes, Father. And what is the last thing?”
“As long as I live, never come back to this house.”
And he sent Salim away, with tears in his eyes. By this, I mean both the father and the son were crying, because to dangle a modifier is a sin before the eyes of editor, and reader.
But that very week, a horrible plague struck the town, and all in the house Salim had been born in would perish. It seemed the grain had been poisoned. So Salim was sent back to town, as he was now head of the family.
When he got to the doorstep, a solicitor was there. The solicitor said to Salim, “Here is the money from the Chinese merchant. He has married a new and pretty wife, and could never have done so as long as the old and ugly one lived. He gives your father this in token of gratitude.”
Salim took the money.
God is good! God is great! There is no God but God! So, concluded Salim, best not to play God.
The next day the Madame came back, and asked if there were girls who had been trained as she had asked. Salim was so angry that he hit her over and over again, until she cried.
“Why did you do this to me?”
“If you want me to hit women, so I hit you. I do unto others as they do unto others.”
The Madame was startled and reached enlightenment.
“What is your name?”
“My name is Salim, and I am now the man of this house, what my father owned, I own.”
“So Salim, you will need to marry.”
“Yes, I will.”
“So Salim, let me be your marriage broker. I will find you four wives. Just name what you want.”
Salim did not know what wives are for. He knew from the farm that bulls studded heifers, and he knew that hogs humped sows. He knew that roosters rubbed chickens. And this was important because they had children. But at the farm, people ate all the children. He didn't want to eat his children. But being afraid, he did not say anything.
“Come back in a year, and I will choose my first wife.”
“God wills it! God is good! God is Great! There is no God but God!”
But God has big gonads, if he wants all of the faithful to have wives, and some to have four.
And so Salim came into possession of the house, and he promised, that unlike his father, he would always try to do the right thing, because he thought that the right thing to do is the right thing to do.
The next day the Arabs came back, and demanded more of the first sand. Salim was puzzled, and so the Arabs told him how they had acquired the very last sand his father had had, and it had turned green when blow. They wanted that sand.
Salim thought and remembered that when he had pissed in the sand, the piss had been green. He remembered that he had been so sick, that he shat on the floor. The shit had been green. So he guessed that the way to make the special sand, had to be to buy bad grain.
“I will work on it, come back in a week.”
So Salim went and bought a little grain from everyplace that sold grain. He was almost done, but he went to the wharf. There was grain that was green and smelled foul. It was the grain that was supposed to go to charity, for feeding the poor. The city fathers knew that anyone eating the grain would get sick, and so they hoped it would reduce the number of poor. He could not buy it, not any or all of it. So he broke in that night, and stole it. He only ate a little, only enough to make himself sick. He pissed green, he staggered, and he shat green. So he pissed in the sand, and when the Arabs came back, they bought it.
But he felt guilty and so he donated the good grain in the place of the bad grain.
Later, a letter arrived:
“Allah be praised! This is the green sand! We can come back every month to buy more!”
And so this is how the young Salim made his money. Every month he would go down, steal the bad grain, and then donate good grain in its place. What this meant was that the poor became healthy, and other poor flocked to the town. The city fathers were outraged. “Who did the right thing?” They put a reward out on anyone who fed the poor.
This will be important later, because God is good. God is great. And so God hates the ungrateful.
This went on for 11 months. But of course, then came Ramadan, and he had to write the Arabs that there would be no special sand this month. They never came back.
Salim was puzzled. The Prophet had said that God wants what is easy from you. What is easier than pissing for your living? The Prophet had said that God demands that you fast during the Holy Month. What could be clearer? And yet, because he had followed the commandment of Ramadan, he had lost his easy livelihood. Perhaps the right thing to do was the wrong thing to do. Or perhaps he had angered God in some other way.
And so he decided that next Ramadan, he should make the Hajj, and cleanse himself before the black rock. He had enough money to do this.
God is Good. God is Great. But remember, God is in on the gag.
The next day a man was caught breaking into the charity house, with sacks of grain. He was a well-known thief, and before he was even brought to trial a confession was beaten out of him. He said he had noticed that someone was stealing the bad grain, and returning good grain, so he wanted to get there first, and sell the bad grain to whoever was buying it. He accused Salim.
Now the town fathers thought, “If he did it once, why not all the other times?” They didn't mind feeding the poor; it was keeping the poor alive, that was the problem. So they told the judge that confession notwithstanding, the thief was to be hung.
Salim heard of this, and he was terribly afraid, so he did not come forward. The thief was sentenced to be hung, and Salim was grateful that he had not come forward. On the day that the hanging was supposed to happen, an inspector of the new government came through. The new government was of the Congress Party, and so wanted to get rid of superstition, corruption, and unjust persecution. He asked who was supposed to be hung, and was told it was a thief of a lower caste. When he asked about the crime, he was told that it was for breaking into the poor house to give grain. This angered the inspector greatly, who ordered the man be let go, reasoning that even if he had stolen grain, it was out of need.
He interviewed the thief, and was told about how the poison grain disappeared, and the good grain appeared. So the inspector had the town fathers investigated, and replaced with more humane officials. The word of this got around, and the poor flocked to the town, and soon the town was clogged with poor, utterly clogged with them. No one could go to the center to buy or sell anything, and the business was nearly choked off.
So it was, when snap elections were called, that the Congress Party lost the state since every shop owner turned out to prevent the spread of charity and justice.
So it came to happen that soon the poor were being fed poisoned grain again, and the streets were clear. But it was better than before, because the poor got sick and the wells were fouled as well, and even many of the poor who had houses died. This was even better still, for there was a huge boom in work for gravediggers and others who dispose of the dead, so the working poor were astonished at their turn of fortune. So they too supported the new government.
The new government took credit for this and promptly lost the next national election, because word had gotten around about their Utter Prudish Miracle, and the poor turned out in droves to prevent such a miracle from happening in all of India.
God is good! God is Great! But remember the next time you vote, that God is Just.
Trust me.
This because once the boom was over, there was not to be found a laborer anywhere. No houses could be built, because there was no one to carry the sand or the stones, no fields were tilled or harvested, no garbage picked up. After the next harvest failed, there was another terrible famine in Udder Prudish. The rest of India blamed the Congress Party for allowing the people of Udder Prudish to be in such a state, and demanded action. So the Congress Party shipped grain from every other state to save Udder Prudish.
However, it was always the poison grain, and there was even more misery. This made matters worse, and just when it seemed that the government was about to fall, a new factory was opened by a group of Arabs. They were making the most marvelous green stained glass, and selling it for a very high price. The money that flooded into Udder Prudish was enough to buy grain from other places and save the remaining people. The Prime Minister personally said that this was proof of how there were free-market solutions to all problems, for this he would be appointed to the head of the International Monetary Fund after he left office, preaching a message that Destruction is Creation, Regulation is Risk, and The Invisible Hand is Slapping You. He became very rich helping the poor in this way.
If there was a lesson, Salim did not heed it, because he remained guilty about not coming forward for the rest of his life. And the thief? I should not say too much about him, because he became a distinguished minister in the government, but not for the Congress Party.
So this is the story of the fall and rise of the House of Salim, who then was in the unfortunate position of not knowing how to make a living. He was still a little person, and thought that work was ennobling.
God is Good. God is Great. But remember, God writes his own gags.
2
The Story of Salim's First Two Wives.
After a year had passed, Salim was making preparations to go on the Hajj, just as all was in order, the Madame from the brothel arrived with his new bride. Salim questioned how you could find a virgin in a brothel, and the Madame assured him that she was a virgin. She did not say that she was a virgin only in her right ear, but there was still virgin territory in her, and so it wasn't completely a lie.
Salim was concerned; he had made a promise, and did not want to refuse a gift. But it was wrong to marry a prostitute; it would bring shame upon his honorable house, what with its businesses in grain, sand, and hospitality. However, in the end, he realized that since the Prophet tells us that God wants us to marry, he took her to wife.
Now the first night, he did not know what to do. She didn't look like a cat, dog, cow, pig, hen, or anything else he had seen mate. She was upset, because having worked in a brothel, she was used to men being in and done, so she didn't have to be conjugal for long. Finally, she turned her ass at him, and farted, and Salim passed out.
When he awoke, he had forgotten what happened and all he saw were her two round brown hips, staring at him like a vast giant moon rising above the sea. He did not see his wife any place, so he asked the ass what it had done with his wife, and where she was. His wife guffawed into the pillow silently, and just wiggled her hips at him. Salim saw the two hips shake and shimmy, like two ripe fruits, and for the first time he was excited, this looked like things he knew, horses, cows, cats, dogs, and pigs. But he again shouted.
“Where is my wife?”
His wife just wiggled her hips at him.
At last, he grew so angry that he smacked the ass. There was a heavy pleasing “whop!” His wife jolted forward, and remembered how Salim used to hit her, and how she thought when she was a girl that this meant he liked her. It often was with boys. So she wiggled her hips again. And Salim spanked her again.
It went on like this until Salim was so hard, and she was so wet, that neither could resist being very very conjugal, and they consummated the marriage. Repeatedly. So every afterward this is how they would conjugate: wiggle, spank, and rut.
The next day, she asked Salim how the household finances were, and he bemoaned that for his first year, he had pissed away for a living. Now the wife, having been in the house in the old days, remembered that the father had been a successful seller of grain to farmers, sand to Arabs, and women to brothels. She knew that with the poor multiplying that soon there would be a demand for poison grain, so that it could be donated to the poor. She went to a client of hers, who was a member of Parliament, and through him arranged to buy bad grain all over Longwindia. So when it came to pass that, the famine I mentioned before finally happened, there was not a bit of bad grain to be found anywhere in Longwindia. The wealthy bought the bad grain at high prices, and shipped it to Udder Prudish, this made a huge profit for them.
God is good. God is great. God is long poison grain.
She also heard about the Arabs, and decided that the obvious thing was that they had figured out some connection between the bad grain and the green glass. So she bought up the glass-making factory with the profits of the poison grain deal. Sure enough, a group of wealthy Arabs came in, and offered to buy it. With people dying all over from the poison grain, there was plenty of the special sand for making green glass.
God is good. God is great. God pisses poison into green glass.
With the profits from this, she then went to another former client of hers, and after fucking him in several ways that I don't even know the way to describe them, he sold her the city's sewage system. There ever afterward, a bit of the bad grain was recycled back into the water, to the point where the joke became that the Ganges was the sacred river of Longwindia, but the Gangrene was the profitable one.
God is good. God is great. God, however, can give you gas as he pisses poison into green glass.
Finally, she then advertised to the newly rich of Longwindia that there was a spa that would reduce weight and clear the bowels, and within a month upper caste women from successful households flocked there to partake of the waters. On entering, they were sworn to secrecy about what would happen, and allowed only to show their's before and after pictures. They drank the green water, ate the poison grain, in a special salad with rare olive oil, and fragrant balsamic vinegar in an emulsion with saffron. And they became wickedly sick. They were urgently expelling from front and back, and lost weight at the rate of a kilo a day. After two weeks, they would come out, vivid and lovely, and smiling.
God is good. God is great. God's grain green glass gas is his solution for troublesome weight gain.
Between the grain, the glass, the Gangrene, and the glow, money rolled in.
During this time, Salim tried his hand at many things. He wanted to sell things people wanted, and he wanted to make people happier. But every time, just as he started to get going, someone else would come in and sell the same thing a few rupees cheaper than Salim could match, so he would leave the business. Then, of course, his former competitor would triple the price, and halve the quality, and become rich. This is the Free Market at work.
So almost as fast as Salim's wife made money, he lost it.
This went on for almost a year.
God is good. God is great. And he is not always opposed to gold. Just so long as it isn't made into a statue. It's not like he's a socialist or something.
At this point, the first wife went to the Madame and talked with her. She lamented how she had made Salim rich doing all the wrong things, and he was making them broke doing all the right things. They both agreed that he had too much time on his hands and that he needed a second wife. So the Madame agreed to procure a new wife for Salim, if she would find a way to get some of the high caste women from the spa to work the brothel.
But first, she had another problem. It turned out that Salim had decided that spanking was impure and that he should not do it. They tried having conjugal the other way, but it was bad for both of them. By this point, Salim's first wife had realized that he had a very poor memory and that he read the Koran cover to cover over and over. She finally noticed that on the day he read certain verses from the Koran, that he would refuse sex, and then the next day he would be guilty, and then he would be fine the day after that. So she found the verses, and deciding that if the verses were preventing Salim from doing his duty as a husband, then they had to be Satanic Verses. So she used a razor blade and cut them out of his Koran.
This had two miraculous effects. The first was that Salim never was guilty about giving her a good spanking again, and the second was that the more they fornicated, the less time he spent on business, and the less money he lost. This doubly convinced her to recruit three more wives, one at a time, so that there would be one who could sate Salim, one who could observe which verses caused him trouble and expunge them, and two to run the business of the house.
The next morning, as they ate breakfast, she asked Salim what would make him happy. He said that he wanted to go on the Hajj, as the faithful should do, he wanted to buy a car dealership, so that he could have a car, which would be very honorable, and he wanted a new Koran. Salim's first wife was horrified. No one could tell how much trouble he would get into going on the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. She was well aware that he could lose enormous sums in the automobile business, because there wasn't a single petrol station in all of the small city of five million. And on no account was she going to allow him to have a new copy of the Koran, until such time, at least, as she was sure she had expunged all the Satanic Verses from the copy he had, and could afford to have a special one printed with only the approved parts for Salim.
God is Good. God is Great. But even God sometimes needs an editor. It isn't as if he is an immortal author like Stephen King, Thomas Friedman, Dan Brown, or the like.
So she began thinking quickly. To the first she said:
“Oh dear and faithful husband, it is a marvel of marvels that you are so devoted that the first thing you would wish for in all the world is to make the pilgrimage to the Holy City. However, this small wife begs you to remember that without your cunning and acumen, she would never be able to run the affairs of the house. She begs you to wait until our future is secure, and we can journey together, leaving the business to our children.”
“But we haven't any children, my dearest wife.”
“That can be fixed.” She winked at him and wiggled her ass in the chair.
“Oh, dear and faithful husband. I am truly astounded at your far-reaching foresight in wanting to bring modern conveniences to our backward small city of five million. But she begs you to consider that if you do this, you would want to drive your car to Mecca, and then everyone would look down, and whisper that you could not have done it properly.”
“I had not thought of it that way.” Said Salim.
“Oh, dear and faithful husband. I am truly humbled by your piety in wanting a new Koran, permit me to have one hand copied for you, in the most ornate and privileged style. In this way, many holy scholars can be kept employed, and it will be an heirloom for our children.”
“That is a wonderful and holy idea, my dearest wife. So what do you think I should have?”
“I think that your bountiful manhood is so much, too much, for one woman to possess. I feel ashamed of having all of it to myself. The only way to unburden my soul would be to have you distribute your blessings on a second wife.”
Salim was confused. He is very good at this, but was filled with a boundless love for a woman who could admit that he deserved a second wife.
“I cannot refuse your happiness. So I will agree that we delay the Hajj until we can go without danger to the house. I cannot refuse your piety, so yes, have a Koran made for me, and take as long as you need to have it done. I cannot refuse your devotion, so I ask you and the Madame to select a second wife for me, but I do ask that she be very different from you, so that I can love both of you as much, but very differently.”
Sly Salim's first wife agreed to all of his terms.
God is good. God is great. But God doesn't have a wife to contend with.
Meanwhile, the Madame had other problems, the local police were bothering her, so she went back to Salim's first wife and explained how the police were giving them difficulties. It was at this point that the wife hit upon a plan.
“Tell the police to be waiting at the gates of the salon. Tell them to arrest the wives for lewdness, but very quietly, and make it clear that if the women work in the brothel for a week, then all will be forgiven, and hand out passes to the police.”
“Won't this ruin the salon?”
“You underestimate how many wives are dissatisfied with their husbands. I will make sure word gets around that there is something going around that means getting around at the salon, and business will go up. Eventually, we can make sure that the women who want a holiday from their marriage will be ticketed. The ones that decide they don't like it will pay a small fine, and then keep it quiet, lest they be humiliated.”
And so it was done, and indeed many of the women were upset, but were also flattered, because now they were thing and beautiful enough to be desired as prostitutes, and several others took the week in the brothel and emerged refreshed and rosy, because of course, the Madame treated them only to the most exclusive customers, and not like the common girls who took ten or twelve men a day. Except that now and then some high official’s wife would entertain that many, saying “I am married to a prostitute, why not be one for a while?”
Letters would shower in from grateful husbands about the new outlook on marriage that they had since their wives visited the spa.
God is good. God is great. And God gaveth someone the wit to invent the G-string.
But the time was at hand to choose a second wife, and the first wife and the Madame were at their wit's end. They had almost no idea what to do.
Finally, they realized that they had access to a pool of women larger than any that could be imagined, the daughters of the women visiting the salon. Several were always complaining about how their daughters these days had no idea how to be married, and were confused about basic cultural values, like arranged marriages.
The first wife would select candidates, and the Madame would go and find them. The first wife's main criterion was that the second wife prefers women to men, because in that way she would always have a hold on Salim. The third wife would be welcome as a concubinal grace to the house, but wife number two? Oh no. All business.
And so they found the right one, who had the looks to capture Salim's eyes, because of course, he could see better than he could think, and who spent all day with the Madame, and without any clothes. The Madame wrote back breathlessly about the gymnastics of the interview, in a very shaky hand.
So it was that Salim came to be married for the second time.
Remembering the trouble with the first wedding night, the first wife had a talk with the second wife. The second wife suggested that they just castrate him, and then run the house together. But the first wife pointed out that there were no heirs yet. The second wife then suggested that the two of them have sex in front of Salim, who probably would tire himself out just watching. But the first wife said that no, she wasn't interested in having to do this every time, though maybe from time to time, as she had done in the brothel. The second wife finally asked, “Well what about I treat him as the woman, and use a long ivory shaft?” The first wife, recalling that the old grandmother had dressed Salim in girl's clothes thought for a while and then formulated a plan. They would get Salim very, very drunk at the wedding, and then when he awoke, he would find himself shaved and in women's attire, and then the second wife would the make a woman out of him.
After all, the first wife agreed, he's already my bitch.
The second wife nodded.
The plan worked very well, Salim had no trouble getting drunk, and the next morning pretended he had been drunk all the time. The first two wives would sometimes lie together while he watched, or they would all play dice to see who would penetrate who. It worked very well; for the next year, Salim spent all his time participating in all of the combinations, and very little time losing money at business.
The House of Salim prospered, and the fame of the Spa grew.
God is good, God is great. God had noticed that a few more verses were sliced out of Salim's Koran.
3
A Visit
So they began to hunt for a third wife. The first two wives knew they could run the business empire better than Salim, so what they really wanted out of the third wife is that she would keep Salim busy in bed, and therefore out of trouble. When they asked Salim what he wanted, he merely made a gesture cupping his hands in front of his chest.
“Oh,” said the first wife, “he wants a wife who is prominent.”
“That's not so bad,” commented the second wife.
Salim, for his part, felt very empty. Yes, he was very grateful to God for giving him two such devoted wives, and a thriving house with many business ventures, but he was, still, empty. This was because he could never see how anything he had done right had resulted in good, and he could not see how any of his prayers had ever come true because of the prayer.
On the other hand, he found that he could read the Koran cover to cover faster and faster all the time, and it made him proud how when it was a boy it took him a whole month to do it, and now he could do it in just 25 days. This, he decided, was a miracle.
God is good. God is Great. Peace be upon you those that understand the mysteries of God.
The first wife looked at her handiwork, and she was well pleased.
So Salim decided he was going to take a trip to see his last remaining grandmother, who he remembered kindly, despite having humiliated him when he was a child. He was caught with another child – because he was going to show him something wonderful that the carriage driver had shown him during his lunch hour.
He had learned that if one placed one's shoes in the proper direction, some wicked man would turn them back to the way that one came on, and away from the path, one was going towards. He would not make this same mistake, which was legendary and the land that stories came from. But how was he to go about it? Because he rolled around, and even without a mischievous imp, he would not know which direction he was going. Since there was no sign of any significance to orient yourself towards – all were flat. But he hit upon a solution, taking a stick from off the ground he plunged it into the earth, sure that this would be better than a compass – which he did not have, because at the time it was too expensive.
But when he woke up, he did not remember the direction which he was going – and the stick had been moved around and around. It was at this point that he hit upon a solution – keep walking in one direction, and ask someone which way it was to his grandmother – but then take the opposite direction, that way if he met imp, he would outsmart him by going the reverse way.
So he did this, but after a little while realized that if he met someone who was honest, he would be back where he started from. There had to be a way to get an answer which was false from the imp, but true from an honest man. So he sat and thought, and then realized they reverse was also true – get an answer that was false from an honest man, and true from the imp. What he needed to do, therefore, was to answer a false problem from the amp, and a true problem from the honest.
Of course, there had to be a solution – but he thought how could this be?
And then a man came up to him, and asked: “You seem very puzzled, what is wrong?” at which point Salim answered that he had to find a question which an imp wood answer truthfully, and an honest man would answer falsely. He then realized it was near dark, for he had been sitting all day pondering this exact question.
The man said: “Why do not you ask the same question: what would a person ask if he were the opposite?”
It was an honest response, though it took Salim a long time to figure what he meant. Then he realized, what would on a span answer to an amp would be a double false answer, while the truthful man would answer honestly for an imp. But he had to answer this in English, because in his native tongue, a double falls answer would mean something different then the English answer did: in English, a double negative is a positive, but in his own native language a double negative would be strongly negative. So it needs to be in the right language, as well as the right logic. So he sat, to phrase the question very carefully. He did not realize that that man had left when he finally had a good reply.
So it had to be the right language, in the right logic, thought through in the right rhetoric. So many complexities for a simple question to be answered simply.
It seemed that he would have to sleep again, but when he woke up after dawn, there were only women walking up the road. At 1st he would not ask a woman, because women were more devious than even impish men were. But finally, he gave in, and asked them the question. However, the 1st woman that he asked was confused – why did he ask something which was inordinately complex if he just wanted to know where to go to find his grandmother? So she decided to play a trick on this man, and instead of answering all one way, she mixed it up.
Which is how he came back to the place he had been sleeping before because the woman was partially amp and partially honest. It was getting late, so he decided to sleep one more time and only ask men because women were to smart to get caught up with the spirit of the question.
The next day near dawn, he finally spied a man walking up the road. And he again asked his complicated question. The man was also confused, but in a different way – so the man asked him to repeat the question so that he would answer honestly.
So Salim asked the question again. At which point the man asked: “Is it your grandmother or my grandmother that you are interested in finding?” at which point Salim retorted: “ I do not even know if you have a grandmother, it is obviously my grandmother that I am interested in.”
“Well it is good to know that you have a grandmother, I did not know that before. So please ask a 3rd time, as now I know that it is your grandmother, not mine.”
Being a little bit annoyed, Salim asked the question again.
At this point, the man fiddled with the answer before setting him on the wrong course – but that is all right because Salim knew it was the wrong course and immediately set off to go to his grandmother in the reverse direction. And finally, reach the old home.
When he finally reached home, his grandmother was as talkative as ever – though she flitted about through many topics. But there was one topic above all – he needed to take more wives, and she had a few in mind. This went on to the evening, but finally, everything was arranged – he would have one new wife to manage his relationships, and one new wife to keep him happy. After all, each wife had her place in the order of the home. And at least one should be for him, it was only fair because the others were for other purposes – the husband was only there for show. She also had to remind him, that the girl that you sleep with, is not the same girl who bears your children.
Once this was done, Salim and his 2 new wives set off for his home to get formally married– and if anyone talked about the progression – 0 makes 1, 1 and 1 are 2, 1 and 2 are 3, 2 and 3 are 5 – no one mentioned it either in the grandmothers village or in the bustling town. Because before the visit, no one had left the bustling town for the small village – then Salim decided to visit his grandmother – but was lost at 1st. Then he was with his grandmother until he decided that he would marry. Then there were 5 in his household: Salim and his 4 wives.
But a rabbit giggled as if he told a fib. God is good, God is great, but do not let him start with mathematical puns – because only God can know the absolute meaning of the pun, we only can guess – and often wrongly.
4
The Miracle of Utter Rubbish
After five years, Salim was only 17, but already, because of the tireless efforts of his wives, he had managed not to become the poorest man in the small city of now six millions, and so was by default one of the richest men in the small city of now six millions. It seemed appropriate that Salim become more involved in the affairs of the town, and despite his youth, because of his rapidly growing wealth, he had a reputation for brilliance. All anyone knew is that he constantly entered businesses and left them, and each time turned out to be richer and more influential than the time before.
So, since he was so rich, he had to be smart.
There was a hunger upon the city, and so the new city elders, the ones that replaced the ones that had disliked Salim so much, came to Salim, and asked him what he had helped accomplish the last time. He told them that if you tried to help the poor things would get better before they got worse, but if you tried to hurt the poor, things would better before they got worse.
The city elders were very confused about this, and asked Salim for an example. So he told them: “Once they took the bad grain, and they fed it to the poor.”
“Oh, this is terrible, how inhumane!”
'The poor got sick and died, and the city was free of poor.”
“That is brilliant!” They exclaimed, “Why didn't we think of that!”
“What is more,” he went on, “burying all the dead was very profitable for a while; so many grew rich."
“That is amazing!” said the town fathers, almost pissing themselves in eagerness to enact this plan
.
“But then no work got done, because, without the very poor to do everything that no one wanted to do, there was no one to do everything that everyone wanted to be done, but no one wanted to do. So when the last poor person died, who was there to pay 10 rupees to bury the poor, and charge 100 rupees from the pauper's burial fund, or to beg for it from other people?”
“But,” the town fathers asked, “aren't there always poorer? Won't more just come here?”
“No,” he said, “because the poor attract the poor.”
“So what about the other way?”
“Well if you feed the poor, there will be poorer.”
“Ah, so it is inhuman to be humane.”
“So it seems.”
“So how do you resolve this?”
“I have thought long and hard. My blessed father told me that the right thing to do, is the wrong thing to do.”
“That seems strange.”
“Stranger than you might think.” Said Salim.
“How so?” The town fathers asked.
“Consider. If you do the right thing hoping for a reward, does not the holy Koran say that it will be the wrong thing?”
“Well if you are Muslim.”
“So I am. Is it so?”
“It is so.”
“Very well then. If you do the wrong thing, it is also the wrong thing.”
“Yes.”
“So if you do the right thing, and hope for gain, it is the wrong thing. So you should do the right thing, so it becomes the wrong thing. And so the right thing to do is the right thing to do because it is the wrong thing to do. So you shouldn't do it.”
“That is terrible. And if we do the wrong thing, does it become the right thing?”
“Yes, but then it is the wrong thing because you hoped to do the wrong thing.”
“Such a quandary!”
“Yes, but I have found an answer.”
“Tell us, O wise, rich Salim.” But they repeated themselves.
“God wants what is easy, not what is hard.”
“Yes, so it says.”
“So the easy thing to do is to do nothing about it.”
“Yes.”
“So do whatever is easiest, and don't think about the consequences, because then, if it is the right thing to do, it is virtuous and will be rewarded, because you did not hope for a benefit. And if it is the wrong thing to do, you will gain because the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do.”
“How brilliant!” And so the scribes copied it down, and the sermons repeated it, and the town father's had it written on the city gates: “The right thing to do, is the wrong thing to do.”
And it became the motto of Udder Prudish. The official policy of the government was to take the easy way out of any problem.
Soon the industry was booming and there were no problems with the poor, because the air was so polluted that people died quickly. This also balanced the state's pension fund, because with people dying so quickly, they cost less in pensions. Because the prognosis was so poor, they saved money on the state health insurance system, because treatments were declared to be “not cost effective.” The more this happened, the more money the state saved. The next step was to take the garbage from all of the other parts of Longwindia, because Salim told them how he had made money on shitty glass. So soon the dumps of the state were bulging with needles, and thorium sludge and everything everyone else would not take. When the garbage dump exploded, they gave honors to the plant manager for his saving millions of rupees in health expenses, pension expenses, aid to the poor, and school education expenses. The town fathers remarked that it was amazing how cheap government could be if you didn't have any people.
Soon the state was being written about in the Economist as the model for the “Boom in Shitty Longwindia.” There was even a vote to change the name from “Udder Prudish” to “Utter Rubbish.” It passed overwhelmingly, but the Super's said "No." By 5 to 4, of course, with one conservative setting with four liberals.
All of this even rated a chapter in the new edition of “The World is Fat.”
God is good. God is great. And garbage is his profit.
Salim was a minor celebrity; he was interviewed by television stations, and even a producer came from Holeywood, in America, to see if this life story would make a good movie. The producer sat down with Salim, and asked him about his life. Salim spared no detail, including having four wives, and how he had gotten success by poison grain, loose sewage, and prostitution. The producer wrote all of this down and called his executive producer, who listened intently and said that all that sex would never do to keep an “R” rating, and asked if they could change it to Salim popping his wives' eyes out to keep it down to a "PG-13."
The producer asked, but Salim said that he couldn't imagine such a thing.
The producer called his executive producer back, and they tried asking about amputations with chainsaws, peeling the skin off with scalpels, burning the hair off with gasoline, and dunking them in acid. All, they assured Salim, would be rated "PG-13" or less in America, and so a big box office smash.
They were very disappointed when Salim said “No.” Imagine, though the producer, a film about a man having sex with his wives. It would cause western civilization to collapse if people saw such heinous acts on screen.
But never fear, a producer from Mumblebuy, came, and a Follywood movie was made, only all the names were changed, and the women were all better singers and lighter skinned than Salim's wives. It did very well, especially in Africa. So a studio bought the rights to this, and turned it into a slasher film, proclaiming it “based on a true story!” It made a great deal of money around the world, especially in America. After all, all you need is love.
God is good! God is great! But God is no longer rated G.
There were so much savings in government, that the bond rating of the state of the nicknamed Utter Rubbish was slashed, and the interest rates they had to pay went up. The Wall Street Journal said that this was because of the high corporate tax rate of 1%. So the government lowered taxes to −10% on corporations, paying 10 rupees for every 100 rupees that a company made, since how could people be expected to invest in the state which was called Utter Rubbish, unless it was rated AAA by Standard and Poors.
Begrudgingly, the rating was raised back, but they were warned, that now that revenues had gone down, they needed to cut services to match revenues. So the government scratched their head. “Our people don't have clean water, most don't have electricity, and only a few have telephones. How can we cut services?”
They needed more revenue, so they came to Salim. He said that the government of the state should find a way to get at all the freeloaders who the state buried, taking up precious land resources. He also said that high death taxes should be cut, because, of course, high death taxes would discourage people from dying. So they ended inheritance taxes and went on by imposing a “Final Destination Fee” for dying inside of Utter Rubbish. After all, why should people slack off by such a dodge by dying?
But even this wasn't enough, so they came to Salim. He said that the government of the state should sell the water rights, because of all the success he had had in sewage. So they sold the water rights. People were arrested for walking out in the rain because they were stopping water from getting to its rightful owner. There were disturbances, but they were put down harshly. Even the old Marxists came out and declared that there was never an excuse for violence. Except when there was, like when Christopher Hitchens pissed his pants over something.
But even this was not enough, so they came to Salim. He said that the government of the state should remove all laws on guns. First, he said that if you never did anything wrong, you would never have anything to fear, and then pointing out that every death was a saving against the spiraling pension costs, and every shooting created work in taking care of injuries. They could also cut the police, and the court costs as well. So that is what was done, and the government launched the program under the slogan: “Kill People, not Jobs.” And “In the long run, you are all dead.”
But even this wasn't enough, so they came to Salim. He pointed out that people always needed to breathe, but that clean air was very costly for all the businesses that created jobs. And so the public air rights were sold. People had to buy private air licenses from meters, and any time the wind died, the state of Utter Rubbish had to pay an abatement fee to the private company for compensatory damages. People started to hold their breath as they ran from building to building. When the managers of the air rights realized this, they started putting televisions tuned to Fox News on every street corner, and so many people burst out laughing, and gulping down air, that it more than made up for those who could ignore the screens.
But even this wasn't enough, so they came to Salim. He pointed out that it was terrible the people would cast their shade on the creative people. There was only so much sunlight, and it had to be allocated in the most efficient way possible. Who knows what great idea would be inspired by a lovely sunset, that would be ruined with other people in the way. So they sold the sun rights in Utter Rubbish to a foreign private equity firm, because, after all, the free market can do anything better, and who knows if the sun will go out if there aren't people with a property interest in keeping it going. Of course, astronomers might say that there is enough hydrogen to keep the sun going for billions of years. But who knows if that is true, after all, the sun has gotten colder and hotter over time. After all, policy should never be made being influenced by a cabal of junk scientists.
God is good. God is great. And god is definitely in gilts these days.
With all of this, the economy of Utter Rubbish virtually collapsed, and investors happily bought up bonds because of the model policies they were pursuing. They were sure that the confidence faeries would be stepping in to buy at any time. The governor of Utter Rubbish cut the state pension system again, saying that “the demand for cat food will lead our recovery.”
Salim's First wife followed all of this carefully, and she took a razor blade to many, many verses of the Koran. Salim was pleasantly surprised when he found out that it took him only 15 days now to read the Koran from cover to cover. He was becoming a holier man all the time.
However, not everyone was so happy with all of the savings going on. Specifically, the people who were being saved were not so happy. Soon they were marching on the cities of Utter Rubbish, once called Udder Prudish, but there was a great deal of confusion. Soon there were two warring factions. One wanted to tax all people born on odd days to pay for the benefits of people born on even days, these were called the “Evens,” and the other faction demanded that people born on even days be taxed to pay for people born on odd days. These were called the “Odds.”
There was a huge rally one day. From one side of the city, there were huge banners for the evens. They proclaimed, “We are getting even, while they are getting odd.” The main speakers all proclaimed that it was perfectly fair to have the people born on odd days pay for the people born on even days. Their plan was to bring about change by doing all of the wrong things.
From the other side of the city, there were banners for the Odds. They proclaimed, “You'll never get even, if you are already odd.” These speakers proclaimed the injustice that people who were so foolish as to be born on an even day should have a free ride on the backs of people who were born on an odd day. They presented a comprehensive plan to bring about change by doing none of the right things.
They met in the middle, and there was a horrible clash. But finally, they compromised, and agreed to do all of the wrong things, and none of the right things.
So unified, they began to terrorize the town, telling everyone if the other party won, there would be horrible consequences. “If our party wins, we will compromise with them. But if their party wins, they will compromise with us!”
And so the partisans of both sides, when they weren't screaming at each other, were screaming at everyone else.
Seeing all of this, Salim told his wives that it was time to prepare, in case something happened. But they were all happy with how things were and did not listen. Salim, however, hid a small box of money in the old grandmother's house, and made sure that his copy of the Koran was in a safe place in the house, it being the one thing that he felt was truly his.
There were desperate negotiations, and finally their leaders came up with a compromise, and all were joined together in one front, though of course, they would run as two parties, so that there would be no third choice, which both agreed that the only thing worse than having two parties to choose from, was having two parties to choose from. The united front was called “Socially Progressive Austere Majority.” They proposed an immediate program of raising taxes on the young, and raising services for the old. Satisfied that they had finally found a compromise for the clash between evens and odds, they were immediately dubbed the “Olds".
They objected to this, and insisted on being called the “Betters.” The Olds rioted in favor of their platform, and threw in jail as many young people as they could for not paying their school loans, house loans, job loans, water loans, and air loans. “We were here first!” Was their rallying cry.
God is good. God is great. God smiles on those who peacefully hire other people to beat other people to death.
But finally all of this boiled over, and the olds began smashing into buildings. They reached Salim's house, and smashed everything. They looked for Salim, but he was not there.
You might think that a young man with four wives who has money and time would be at home being happy. But not Salim. He was not at home. Instead, he was at a brothel on the corner of town. You might think that a man with four lovely wives, hand-picked by a Madame, would be paying for sex only with a woman more beautiful than any of the others. But not Salim.
Instead, he was having sex with a fat woman. A truly almost morbidly obese woman in fact. Total tub of lard, such as might come from Mississippi. He was fascinated by how here large floppy breasts bounced up and down and smacked her shoulders and then her round belly, and how her hips shook up and down. It was like watching a mountain fornicate.
Salim heard the noise and the confusion, and when the mob broke in, his young face was fortunately smashed between her hips while his tongue was seeking her spring of moisture. The mob assumed he had to be old, and left him alone.
Salim was terrified, and he grabbed women's clothes off a hook, and covered his face, and raced around the city. He passed by his home, and saw it already had been looted, and that his wives were already gone. Heartbroken, he went to all of the businesses, and found that they had all been looted as well. Finally, he found that even the sewage plant had been broken into. In a panic, he only had time to grab his personal copy of the Koran, and then he ran out of the city, still wearing women's clothes, and out into the countryside.
That night, the new leaders of the town held a meeting, and determined that the only way to save their children and have a future, was to kill all the young people. They couldn't afford all the costs of them.
God is good. God is great. And God is very old.
And so it was done. For the children of course. All for the children. But for Salim's most of all.
5
Salim becomes Salome
Salim, still dressed in women's clothes ran away from the city as fast as he could, which was quite fast, since he was young, thin, and got lots of exercises. He ran past the decaying bridges, he ran past the crumbling schools. He ran past the over age libraries. But the police stations were all shiny and new.
He ran out to the countryside as night fell, but still, he kept running. In the dark, he stumbled into a camp and tripped over a tent and fell forward. They looked at this person, who they saw in women's clothes and stood him up. It was clear that he was a man in women's clothes. He looked around, most of the people he saw were also in women's clothing, and most were clearly men, and most of the rest were not clearly women.
Then a wiry old man pointed at the newcomer and said.
“Look, a new Hijra come to join us!”
They all clapped and applauded.
Soon several were clustered around him, very very close, but not touching. Then finally one began to stroke Salim's face, which was just developing a ragged beard. Other reached out and twirled a finger in his hair, which was still short, and another touched the hem of his clothes, which was worn. Then, as if by signal they descended upon him, cleaning his nails, shaving his face, scenting his hair, putting on makeup. Salim was too terrified to move.
They continued to tease the hair, they pasted false fingernails on, and false eyelashes, they rouged his cheeks again, they pushed him into high wedge shoes, they put a red dot on his forehead, and they dropped large sunglasses on his face, round with turtle shell rims.
God is good. God is great, but even God can go gaga.
When they were done, there stood a glowing apparition, which, if it could not have possibly been taken for a woman, was clearly no longer presenting as a man. Salim was speechless as they rolled up a mirror, but not in a good way.
His knees knocked together, he was terrified, he knew no more about being a Hijra, really, than he knew about anything. However, this was refuge of a sort, and if he could simply slip away at some point, he could collect the money and valuables that he had hidden in his grandmother's house, and be free, after a fashion, to find his wives, and somehow bounce back from this most recent reverse.
For once, he really was not in any difficulty as to knowing the wrong thing to do, he was sure that hiding like this as a coward, while who knows what was done to his wives and his children, was the wrong thing to do.
God is good. God is great. Particularly great at providing those painful moments of unforgettable clarity.
At this point, they took him before the guru, who leered a lecherous leer at him, but made no motion towards him physically. Salim felt his bones turn to yogurt, and his meat become as flaccid as chicken cooked in a clay pot, almost ready to fall apart at the slightest touch.
The guru clapped his hands together three times.
“Wonderful! Since we have weddings soon, the new she must be taught how to dance!” There was noise and clapping and shaking of bells and small cymbals.
“Now tell me, what was your name in your old life?”
Salim did not like the sound of that, but in a quavering voice he said: “Salim.”
“Wonderful, you are half way to a new life.”
There was noise and clapping and shaking of bells and small cymbals.
“Your new name, is Salome.”
There was noise and clapping and shaking of bells and small cymbals.
“Do you have anything to say, Salome?”
Salim had nothing to say, but he found that Salome had a good deal to say.
“I am not sure I am really meant for this,” and then remembering some ghost of the manners he was taught, quickly changed course,
“Attention and care. You are all too kind, and I am positively unworthy.”
“So, you, Salome, think you are not really cut out for this?”
“Well, yes.” Said Salome. Or Salim. Both, either. It really was a duet in one voice on and on.
“Wonderful!”
There were noise and clapping and the shaking of bells and small cymbals.
“So, Salome, we will make the final cut on you in a week, and then you will truly feel cut out for this.”
Salome wasn't sure about this, and Salim was positively horrified.
God is good. God is great. God gives you want you to deserve to get.
So they took Salome away and began teaching her the dances and chants and gestures that made up their wedding dance. Sadly, neither Salim nor Salome had any rhythm what-so-ever, and had no voice at all. In part, this was because every moment he was quaking with dread about what was to happen, and partly because, well he had no talent at all. Whenever he was to turn left, she went right, whenever he was supposed to go towards the audience, she went away, whenever he was supposed to spin right, she spun left.
But this worked, since everyone quickly learned that Salome could not remember the steps, but had an almost instinctual ability to read everyone else and go exactly the wrong way, it made Salome a natural star of the dancing. After two days, they were very happy, but of course, Salome was miserable. Finally, one very old Hijra came to Salome's tent late at night. Salim and Salome were both scared that he was going to be used like a woman, but instead, the old Hijra spoke softly and said.
“I have seen that you are frightened.”
Salim and Salome both bobbed their head up and down violently.
“It is natural.”
Salim thought because all of this it was unnatural, at least for him.
“So because of this, I give you this.” She offered up a bag that was fragrant of some hard to place odor.
“What will it do, oh old wise one?” Salome at least, could find her voice, Salim was still busy grieving his not yet lost manhood.
“This will make your manhood shrivel, and your testicles ascend, it will weaken their effect, but it is almost always reversible. We give this to those who are not quite sure yet that they want to go this road permanently.
Salim was overjoyed, rapidly thanks flowed, and Salim listened very attentively, very, very, oh so attentively, to the instructions for preparation and application. He wanted to use not a drop more than needed, but not a drop less either.
So several days passed, and when the time came Salome was given time to make up her mind, as is the prerogative of women the world over. But they did working her in the weddings. Salim had to get used to all of the indignities that women are subject to at such events, or should have, but never did. Every time he would come back sweating and uncomfortable.
But his being exactly off rapidly became considered to be an attraction. Salim thought that truly, even in dancing, the wrong thing to do, was the right thing to do.
God is good. God is great. And God loves a good party.
However, at one particularly large wedding, with a large and complex dance routine, Salome came too aware of how she was out of step, and of course, she then turned right when she was supposed to. This was a disaster, as one dancer after another tripped and stacked up, creating a huge pile in the center. The drums kept beating. There was noise, there was clapping, there were the shaking o bells and small cymbals. Never had the guests seen such an occurrence. They paid double and then double again for this once in a lifetime spectacle of every dancer on the stage is wrong, except the one who had been out of step for all of the rest of the dance.
However, sadly for Salim, Salome's leg was broken, and she would not be able to dance for the next several weddings. This, according to the iron laws of the troupe, meant she would not be fed, unless she worked as a sacred prostitute instead. The days passed, and Salim was again terrified. Then on the last meal before the next wedding, inspiration struck. Salim asked for a chance to see the great guru, and Salome was granted time alone with him.
Salome walked in, her brocade dresses having gotten finer and finer as she had brought in more and more money. They rustled softly, as Salome's body had gotten softer under the influence of the tea. The guru gave a lecherous leer. Outside there was noise, and clapping, and the shaking of bells and small cymbals.
“Great guru.”
“Yes, Salome?” His voice dripping with expectation, as much as Salome's body was dripping with sweat.
“I have come to enlightenment on something.”
“Yes, Salome?” The guru's hands were shaking in expectation, as much as Salome's hands were shaking in fear.
“There is something I want as much as life itself.”
“Yes, Salome?” The guru's man flesh grew hard, as much as Salome's ass was hard with clenched up panic.
“I know what I need to do in place of dancing.”
“Yes, Salome?” The guru's body rolled back and forward, as much as Salome's stomach rolled up and down.”
“In the ceremony, it is often the case that a Hijra gives marriage advice.”
The guru thought how wonderful it would be to add Salome to his wives.
“And you have decided?”
“That is the job I want, so that I can be here without being a burden. We do not have one right now.”
The guru's heart sank, the guru's gut sank. But most importantly, the guru's dick sank. But, in the cold light of thought, he thought that this was an idea. A truly horrible idea.
“But Salome, how can you give advice, if you haven't been married.”
The guru gave a lecherous leer, and outside there was noise and all that, because of course the guru had pulled the tent open behind Salome, and everyone could see and hear the whole thing.
“In my old life, I was married. Four times.”
“And so divorced three times. That would disqualify you.”
“No, I was one of the faithful, and had four wives.”
“And stayed married to all of them?”
“Yes, guru.”
Even the guru was impressed, and so he gave his consent.
And there was noise, and clapping, and the shaking of bells and small cymbals.
So the day of the wedding came to pass. The troupe went into town, making noise and clapping, and rattling bells and small cymbals. There was a crowd to meet them, throwing coins at them, while they threw flowers and garlands and containers of lipstick back.
The wedding was held, and after the dancing, Salome was set on a small seat, and the first couple came up, they were both richly dressed and were quite rotund with prosperity. They were also both clearly miserable. The husband mumbled something, and then the wife spoke. She explained that her husband was a successful farmer, and insisted on doing everything himself. She stayed at home, and all she had to do was to cook to occupy her time. So they were fat but unhappy. Very, very, very, unhappy. The wife moaned about how the husband left her alone in a small house with a leaky roof, and then only came back to shovel food into his face before falling asleep. And snoring. Loudly.
So Salome sat, and Salim had an idea.
“You are to manage the farm, and your husband stays home, and cook for a year.”
“Really?”
“Truly,” said Salome, “The wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
There were noise and clapping, and the shaking of bells and small cymbals. What an appropriate decision!
Both made a face and looked unhappy, but it was less unhappy than before, so they agreed to try it.
The next couple came up.
They were both small boned and thin, and had seen some number of years, though it was hard to say how many. The husband explained that they seemed to be strangers. The wife complained they never talked any more.
This one was easy.
“I want you to fight at least once a day, it does not matter how small a matter it is over. One fight, every day.
“Really?”
“Truly,” said Salome, “The wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
There was deadly silence. What a dreadful decision!
Then the third couple came up. They were both slouched forward, and disheveled, as if they barely had had the energy to get dressed.
The wife explained their problem. It seemed they both were depressed because they could not have children, and did not know what to live for.
“Then kill yourselves. Obviously.”
“Really?”
“Truly,” said Salome, “The wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
They went around this way, and for months, it seemed they were becoming more and more popular. It seemed that everyone wanted to find out what horrible thing Salome would say next. Finally, a whole year had passed, and they came back to the same town that Salome had first officiated a wedding.
The troupe came back, making noise and clapping, and rattling bells and small cymbals. There was a crowd to meet them, throwing coins at them, while they threw flowers and garlands and containers of lipstick back. While they paraded in, a thin woman ran up to Salome and a thin man behind her. The thin woman threw her arms around Salome. “It is so good of you to return! You have saved our marriage.” Salim's memory was still not good, but even if it had been, it would have been difficult to recognize the person.
“What happened?”
“We were the first couple at the wedding a year ago.”
“And.”
“You told us that we had to swap our duties. I was to run the farm, and he was to cook and clean.”
“And how did it work?”
“Well, first, my husband is a terrible cook. So we both stopped eating because his food was so bad.”
“And.”
“Well we were very unhappy, and it turned out I was a terrible farmer, I wasn't even close enough to strong enough to pull the plow, or to pump the water into the rice paddies.”
“And.”
“Well at first we were miserable, but we thought, you gave us the advice, and we should give it a whole year.”
“And.”
“So we started to lose weight, and I was near home all the time.”
“And.”
“So we began to talk again, and we were both much healthier, having lost so much weight. And I planted vegetables and flowers and other small things.”
“And.”
“Well at this point we were not so unhappy.”
“And.”
“Well I sold the vegetables and flowers, and we had as much money as my husband made from wheat and rice. So we were less unhappy. And another thing, as we lost weight, we both snored less.”
“And.”
“Well then there was a massive typhoon, it ruined the whole grain harvest. We would have been wiped out!”
“Did your husband ever become a better cook?”
“Oh no, but that is the strangest thing, once he was home he did all the cleaning I was not strong enough to do, and did all the repairs that I was not strong enough to do, such as fixing the roof. When the storm came, everything was ready, and we were safe. We stayed the storm out, ate our vegetables, and looked into each other's eyes. Now I am pregnant and we are very happy.”
“Good. See, the wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
“Yes! Thank you, Mistress Salome.”
The troupe walked a little way farther, and then a man and a woman ran up to her and embraced her. Salim's memory was still quite poor, but even if it had been better, it would have been difficult to recognize the couple, they looked young, and both of them had skin that was taut.
“Oh Mistress Salome, we are so grateful.”
“What happened?”
“We were the second couple you advised at the wedding.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, we started out fighting every day. We were so miserable, and the fighting made it worse! But, we thought, since you gave us the advice, we should try it for a whole year.”
“And.”
“Well, while we fought, at least we were talking to each other, and everything that we had never said came out. Oh so often, the other person had been doing something wrong, and not knowing it. So we changed these things one by one. We were a little less unhappy.”
“And.”
“Two things happened. First, we started talking without fighting, and second, we became so good at arguing, that we both applied to law school, and have both been accepted. So now, we will both be lawyers, and be respected and well off. All because of fighting every day!”
“That's wonderful. Remember, the wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do.”
“Yes, Mistress Salome!” And they both thanked her.
The troupe progressed very slowly at this point, because they were very near the center of town. When they reached the center, a man and a woman ran up to her and embraced her. Salim's memory was still quite poor, but even if it had been better, it would have been difficult to recognize the couple, they were bright-eyed and energetic, and filled with life.
“Oh, Mistress Salome, we are so grateful.”
“What happened?”
“We were the third couple you advised at the wedding.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, we were so depressed, that we agreed to kill each other, but we were both afraid. So my husband studied to be a police officer, and I studied to be an apothecary. We agreed that I would poison him, and he would shoot me.”
“And.”
“Well on the appointed day, we both realized how much we loved life, and how much we had to live for, with him almost ready to graduate and be a police officer, and with me having a good future as an apothecary. So we broke down in tears and hugged each other, and decided never to waste another day.”
“Good. See, the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do.”
“Yes! Thank you, Mistress Salome.”
And so it was, that the fame of Mistress Salome's marriage advice grew, and this went on for another year until someone came to the troupe and offered Salome a radio show. But Salim refused since it would mean never escaping this identity, which he still intended to do.
Also during this time, the wise woman who was providing Salome with the tea noticed how he read the Koran every day. She also noticed that whenever he read certain verses, he would become agitated, so she started cutting out whatever he read the night before. Over the two years, she cut a great deal. By the end, Salim was reading all of what he had in only 10 days.
He was becoming holier and holier.
God is good. God is great. We just need to make a few small changes. Though many people are waiting for the director's cut.
After two years, the troupe prospered, and Salome was famous. The guru had become very rich but he was very very unhappy. Salome was renowned for wisdom, and the guru knew that she was a fool. Salome was more and more renowned for her beauty, and his wives and hijra were jealous. Salome was famous, and he was obscure.
All of this made her want to fuck her even more than before, but as she became more famous, she was less and less in danger of any such thing happening.
6
The Wanderings of Salim, Non-Master UnFakir
So out went Salim, emptied of all possessions, wearing only a simple pancha, and carrying only a begging bowl. He hoped that all of the people looking for him would never guess that the once rich Salim, and the once famous Salome, had been reduced to this. His one compensation was that as he stopped drinking the tea, his manhood grew back, and back, and back, and back, until he had testicles the size of watermelons, and a dick that swung between his knees. So while he was very happy that there was more of him than ever before, he was unhappy that he had no wives, and that he had to waddle back and forth on his way down the road.
Unbeknownst to him, the waddling had made his rice bag swing back and forth, and bang against his knees. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, that he did not notice it. Over time the banging had made a hole in the rice bag, and grains of rice were dropping out, one by one, as he waddled along. So absorbed in is own problems was Salim, that he did not notice this.
As he did so, a small group of baby ducks saw him, and their mother and father being away, they began to follow him, because he waddled like a duck, picking up the grains of rice that fell out of his bowl. And while they followed, quacking, they looked at each other, as if talking. Salim waddled, the ducks waddled and quacked. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, he did not notice this.
Not long there afterward, a cat started following the baby ducks, but because Salim was so close by, the cat did not dare take one of the ducklings. But he did yowl from time to time in frustration. Salim waddled, the ducks waddled and quacked, the cat followed and yowled. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, he did not notice this.
Not long there afterward, a dog started to follow the cat. But because of the noise of the ducklings, he did not dare attack the cat. But he did bark from time to time, to scare the cat. Salim waddled, the ducks waddled and quacked, the cat followed and yowled, the dog ran and barked. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, he did not notice this.
Not long there afterward, some birds landed on the back of the dog, to pick at his fleas. The dog was annoyed at first, but the birds were picking at the fleas, and this was such a relief, that he put up with it. They began chirping. Salim waddled, the ducks waddled and quacked, the cat followed and yowled, the dog ran and barked, the birds chirped. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, he did not notice this.
Not long there afterward, two cattle heard the birds, and knowing that this was the sound of the cattle egret, they followed hoping to get their own backs picked clean. The egret saw them and began fluttering around, and picking at the parasites on the back of the cattle. The cattle brayed as they walked. Salim waddled, the ducks waddled and quacked, the cat followed and yowled, the dog ran and barked, the birds chirped, the cattle brayed and walked. So absorbed in his own problems was Salim, he did not notice this.
Finally, an elephant heard the noise, and pushed aside the fence that was in its way. It saw the cattle egrets, and the cattle, and hoped to have its back picked clean. So the egret flew from the running dog to the walking cattle, to the trumpeting elephant. And still so absorbed in his own problems was Salim, that he still did not notice this.
However, the town he was walking through was filled with people who stopped and gaped. Children pointed, old men stared, old women gossiped. Mothers hushed their sons, not to disturb such an obviously holy man in the middle of leading the animals on a pilgrimage.
A beggar saw the procession, and he thought what a wonderful meal the ducklings would make, and so he grabbed a bag and began stalking the procession, hoping to get a duckling. An old woman with a dinner party saw the procession, and she thought the cat would make a perfect delicacy to serve, so she took her pot, and began chasing after the whole procession. The cats of the town saw a single dog, and all those birds, and decided that if they killed the dog, they could hunt the birds and have a truly sumptuous repast. The farmer who owned the cattle, who had been chasing after them for many miles finally caught up with them, slowly panting as he walked, half bent over, but determined to get his cattle back. A great white hunter saw the elephant, and thought this was his chance to make up for shooting the governor on the last hunt, so he loaded his big, heavy, elephant gun, and went out to shoot the elephant.
This whole mob chased after Salim and his pilgrimage of animals.
Salim waddled.
The ducks quacked.
The cat followed.
The dog barked.
The birds flew and chirped.
The cattle wandered.
The elephant trumpeted.
The beggar chased the ducks.
The woman chased the cat.
The cats chased the dog and the birds.
The farmer chased the cattle.
The hunter chased the elephant.
And the people watched. Clearly, this was a very holy man.
When Salim reached the center of the square, he finally turned around, just to see how far he had walked, and he looked at the entire assembly, and they all looked at him, and every duck, dog, cat, cattle, and person ran and scattered in every direction.
There was a huge commotion.
God is good, God is great. If you wish peace to be upon you, praise God. And get out of the way of any charging elephants, or you will have more peace than you know what to do with.
The people watching applauded; it was one of the most amazing sights they had ever seen.
They talked among themselves and agreed that this was the greatest fakir they had seen. Well, all but three, who were all fakirs who had hoped to set themselves up in the town, but now knew that until they dethroned this interloper, that they had no chance at all.
So the first fakir came up to Salim, and he looked at Salim, and Salim looked at him. The first fakir said. “I accuse you of being a fake fakir.”
“No,” said Salim, “I am not a fake fakir, because I am not a fakir at all. I am just wandering begging for my living.”
“That is a lie, you purposefully created a great spectacle to show off your abilities.”
“If you say so.” Said Salim, confused.
“I challenge you to a breathing contest, I can go hours without breathing, and if you are a greater fakir than I, you have to prove it by going longer between breaths than I.”
“If you insist,” said Salim. Because, after all, since he was not a fakir, claiming to be one was the wrong thing to do, and the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do.
So they set themselves up in the square, and a judge was appointed, the first fakir grew calm and began to ready himself. But because he knew that the people loved Salim already, he wanted to watch to make sure that if by some miracle the contest was close, he would not be cheated.
The judge raised his hand, they both took their last breaths, and the judge dropped his hand, signaling that the contest was to begin. The fakir was still. Salim, however, knew no more about holding his breath than, well, he knew about anything else, and immediately his cheeks puffed out. He had to bear down his jaw to hold in his cheeks. He then grabbed his nose with his fingers, and had to grab his hand with his other hand. He was shaking and fell over, his arms twisting and writhing. The fakir pointed and said, “There, he took a breath.” But Salim, despite all the thrashing around, had not taken a breath, and everyone had seen this. The judge pointed at the first fakir, and said, “You have lost.”
The crowd cheered. Someone shook some bells and small cymbals.
God is good. God is great. Praise be to God. Otherwise, it is often better to keep your mouth shut.
So the second fakir walked up, and said, “I accuse you of being a fake fakir.”
Salim, having gained confidence from the first time, said: “I am at least as real as the first fakir who challenged me.”
“Well, he is obviously fake too.”
“If you say so. But it seems to me that a real fakir would be less concerned with other fakirs.”
“I say that the first fake fakir was your confederate, who you paid to fail in such an obvious way to enhance your standing.”
Salim shook his head, and said, “I can truly say that I had never seen him before, never talked to him before, and have never paid him anything to the best of my memory.”
“I challenge you to a fire walking contest. You have to be able to walk farther than I or you are a fake.”
Salim, thought, well since I am still not a fakir, then claiming to be one is the wrong thing to do. So, since the wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do, I should accept.
“I accept.”
So the town's folk built a big bonfire, and it was let to go to coals. The second fakir insisted that Salim walks in front, because he was afraid that Salim would not walk the coals. Salim lined up and stared at the roiling hotbed of coals, and he was afraid, because, of course, he knew no more about firewalking than he knew about anything else. He decided to just walk forward, because caution was the right thing to do, and the right thing to do is the wrong thing to do. He took a step, and his watermelon-sized balls swung one way, and his long dick swung the other way, and he felt a pain on his foot that made him take another step. The second fakir was almost to the point of laughter, but remembering how the first fakir had failed, kept his mouth shut and walked right behind Salim, hoping, if nothing else to be able to push him down.
Salim was in a terrible shape, every step was painful, and he almost had to dance to prevent himself from screaming. He jumped up and down, spun, and did the steps from dancing from his time as Salome. These were burned into his brain, and he did not even know he knew them. Every moment the second fakir was right behind him, but was also in terrible shape, because Salim was making such slow progress that the second fakir's own feet were being burned. Even worse, Salim's dancing and jumping meant that the swinging of his balls and dick were fanning the coals to be even hotter.
Finally, the second fakir was spending so much energy fighting the pain, that when he looked up and saw Salim jumping and spinning, his dick sticking out three feet as he spiraled around, his balls smashing into his thighs, that the fakir could not help but laugh from his belly. This proved, alas to be fatal, as he then fell straight over into the flames. They tried to pull him out, but he was burned horribly and died several days later in terrible pain.
Salim did not even notice this, but hopped, howled, and spun, to the other side.
The judge declared Salim the winner again.
The crowd cheered. Someone shook some bells and small cymbals.
The third fakir strode forward, confident that he had discovered the key to success. He knew that the best way to lie, was, to tell the truth. Or most of it.
Salim looked at him.
“So you accuse me of being a fake fakir?” Asked Salim.
“No. I freely admit, oh stranger, that after seeing your pilgrimage of animals, and your victory in the breathing contest, and your victory in the firewalking contest, that you are a great and mighty fakir.”
Salim was puzzled, because, after all, if someone is doing the right thing, it must be because they think it to be the wrong thing.
“That is very generous of you.”
“You are so great and mighty, that I will tell you that the whole town wants you to be their fakir.”
“Well that is very kind of them, but I am a wanderer, and do not want to settle down again.”
“No, really, we all insist very much that you settle down and be the fakir.”
“I have denied once wanting to be fakir, now I deny it twice.”
“Truly your humility is overwhelmingly great.”
“I have twice denied wanting to be fakir, now I deny it thrice.”
“So you do not want to be fakir?”
“I do not want to be fakir of the town.”
“So you would not mind if I nominate myself to be fakir of the town.”
“That's between you and the town. I am just a wanderer.”
The crowd was very disappointed but accepted that Salim was a wanderer, and that was his karma.
So Salim wandered on alone, still trailing rice behind him, though from a full rice bag. The third fakir took over, taking no pay at all, saying the job was his satisfaction. As far as anyone knows he is still the fakir of the town, and fucking the young boys without anyone knowing, because, of course, that is what he had always intended to do. He only did it for the satisfaction.
God is good. God is great. But most people, somewhat less noble.
And in this way, Salim made his progress. He begged for rice, lost most of it to the hole in the bag, and was always followed by birds of the air and water. People thought him to be more and more holy. As the months wore on, Salim's manhood slowly went back to the right proportions, and his sandals were worn thin. He finally sat down one day and began to read the Koran.
A revelation came to him.
His feet hurt, and he did not want to walk anymore.
7
The Land of Milk and Money
Finally, he stood up again, and walked back to his grandmother's house, that he had last visited before fleeing the city. He found there the box of money and jewels that he had hidden because he had written this on the back cover of his copy of the Koran. He realized the money had greatly decayed in value, but that the jewels were much more valuable than before, and this more than evened out. He walked back to the small city of his birth, by his old house, and found that it was up for sale. He briefly thought of buying it, but decided that a house in town without wives to keep it, was far too much trouble.
So he went wandering until he found a dilapidated farm for sale, though no one was around. Realizing that the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do, he simply took the sign down, and moved in. He bought cattle and set up a dairy. Every day a gang of radical Hindu youths pounded on the doors, growling that they would beat to death anyone touched even the milk of the cow, since it came from the udders, and therefore was a sacred as the meat. But they then grew to quarreling over whether the milk was enough - should not be a be sacred as well, since the cause had to consider something? And if a is sacred, then grains from they would be sacred, and since the hay needed bees to pollinated, should not be used also the sacred? Until finally they were left with nothing to eat since all would be consumed or excreted by a cow, and therefore must also be sacred. Three were going to the Himalayas to eat salt, which had never been consumed in their lifetime by anything.
This life suited Salim better than any since he pissed for a living, since running a dairy is basically getting cows to piss milk. He had a bad memory, but since he had to do the same things day in and day out, it was not so bad. The fences were in such bad repair, that bulls got in and mated with the cows, so he did not have to do anything but feed the cows, milk the cows, and sell the milk. He spent the first money to buy a book on dairy farming, from Islam worse and he read this every single day.
After his time in America, Salim returned home to his hometown, now a small city of 7 millions. He bought the house he was born in and paid to clean it up. He then decided to find out the fates of his four wives.
He found out that his first wife had gone back into being a Madame, and was found after having been run over by a truck, four times. According to the news story, she had been stealing from customers when they were having sex.
God is good. God is great. But don't mess with him while he is getting it on.
He found out that his second wife had gone to America, and gotten married to a woman. The woman then had a sex change operation to be a man. The two of them had been deported for two parking tickets, and fought the government to have their marriage recognized. They were living in poverty in the same city. Salim sent them some money, and a week later they were found dead having been robbed and raped by a man who was taken away shouting that he was going to cure all the lesbians in Longwindia the same way. The man was acquitted at his trial and ran for parliament.
God is good. God is great. But not everyone seems to appreciate his gay children.
His third wife had gone into acting in pornography and had contracted AIDS after doing a movie where she had anal sex with 15 men. She was now in a hospital near Mumblebuy.
God is good. God is great. But perhaps he is not so fond of gang bang videos.
His fourth wife he found working in a small shop. She immediately recognized him and flattered him. He was so enamored of her sweet words that he took her back in, along with their two children.
God is good. God is great. Especially to gold diggers.
Almost immediately, the fourth wife – who had graduated from Gormenghast University on the Gauges, at Ghaziabad, where for men name was everything, and for women, the more unpronounceable the better - had decided that she would run the money. She had gotten a degree in macrömicröeconomics, and thought she could do better than Salim.
First, she set herself on a strict program of New-Old Classical Economics, which assured her that lending money to the government was not wealth, and therefore could not be destroyed, since it had never been created. So she bought Gilts from the government, and speculated on the side with kilts, though their provenance was somewhat secure as to whether they were actually made in Scotland.
Within a year, it seemed Salim was rich - until the worst happened, and the market for breaking the BokChoy had collapsed - apparently, it did not occur to the New-Old Classicals that it could not be possible for Nash equilibrium to coexist with an infinite number that is required for government bonds to not be well. The panic bled out until the then president bailed all of the rich people out, and let the poor people paid off the loans – at the pre-contraction price.
God is good. God is great. God does not play games with the free market, especially when it is not particularly free or a market.
The lesson was that if the rich needed to deal things out, the best way is to get the people to do so.
With this nirvana, Salim decided to run for Prime Minister.
It was a hard-fought campaign, and they waited for the returns to be doctored.
8
Prime Minister Salim
The returns came in slowly, in part because Salim's party was having to buy ballots all the way to the end. In several cases, they found they had bought too many, but in a few, they found they had not bought enough. However, even this was to the good, because where they lost, their proxies argued that this showed the election was fair. “Wouldn't we have bought enough votes?” And at least enough people believed this.
In the end, more people decided they loved being bribed than they hated bribery, and Salim was given the first chance to organize the new government. However, because he needed help from so many small parties, there was a great deal of negotiating to do.
The returns came in slowly, in part because Salim's party was having to buy ballots all the way to the end. In several cases, they found they had bought too many, but in a few, they found they had not bought enough. However, even this was to the good, because where they lost, their proxies argued that this showed the election was fair. “Wouldn't we have bought enough votes?”
He also called in a famous economist from America, an expert on the Great Depression. He told the economist, “I want you to help me, and advise on how to create a Depression here in Longwindia.”
The economist said, “Why that would be the wrong thing to do.”
“Yes, which means I am sure it is the right thing to do.”
So the economist came up with a plan for a new depression in Longwindia.
The new government was installed, by only three votes, and Salim stood up and said:
“In the past several years, there has been a great deal of torment and trial in our nation. So I promise that in this new government, there will be economic tranquility.” There were cheers, and shouts, and someone shook bells and small cymbals.
“For too long money has gone to the undeserving. Under this government, I promise that people will get what they deserve.” There were cheers, and shouts, and someone shook bells and small cymbals.
“All my life I have had to work very hard, and I have learned that it is better to put your trust in God, than in yourself. So under my government, we will put our trust completely in God.” There were cheers, and shouts, and someone shook bells and small cymbals.
“Finally, I remind everyone, that I have learned to live my life by believing that the right thing to do, is the wrong thing to do. No one knows more about how to take care of himself, than himself. So I promise you, under this government, you will be totally on your own.”
There were cheers, and shouts, and someone shot the person with the bells and the cymbals.
There were more cheers.
“I promise I will feed the poor.” There was a loud prolonged ovation.
“I promise I will make our people stand tall again.” There was a loud prolonged ovation.
“I promise to govern by the same principles that I have lived my life, that is here in this holy book.” He put his hand on his copy of the Koran, with all its changes. There was even more loud cheering.
After the speech, everyone agreed that they had never heard such a marvelous speech in all their lives. A week later, the Nobel Prize committee voted him the Peace Prize, the Literature Prize, and the Economics Prize, so impressed was the whole world by the wondrous changes he had promised to bring.
The second election was nowhere near as interesting or exciting as the first, and Salim found himself swept into power, with enough seats to govern without coalition powers. His advisors said the right thing to do was to bring in other parties to the government so that they would have every reason to support what he did. The nation was in crisis, the told him, and it was essential to have as much support as possible, even a government of national unity.
Salim thought about this, and wondered if it was really the right thing to do, or whether his advisors were advising something that was really the wrong thing to do that they hoped to profit from. So he decided to do the easiest thing to do: he announced that he was giving parties the unprecedented chance to put their country first, and prove that there was no corruption involved at all in their decision. He said that he would allow any party to join the government, but that none of them would get any portfolios. Several parties joined immediately, and Salim was convinced that these parties were weak, because they had done the right thing.
So the next day, with an even larger majority, he said that if a party wouldn't do the right thing for the country, that they would have to do the right thing for their voters, and said that any budget would have no money for any of the districts that were not members of the government. “Why should people who vote against the budget get any of it?” Everyone in his circle of advisors said that this was the wrong thing to do, and this convinced him that all would work out.
Surely enough, the country supported him, because, of course, most people hoped that if there were less for some, there would be more for others. One by one all the other parties joined the government, except for one religious party whose cult required that they vote no on everything. So Salim commanded the parliament 537-1, with the President of the house not voting, and what is more, soon afterward the religious party representative was assassinated by a concrete contractor, who dropped a block of concrete on the member, and his entire family. They were buried using a paper shredder, so flat were they.
In the end, Salim was almost an absolute dictator, as several Prime Ministers before had essentially been.
With this, he called his cabinet together, and said:
“I am not a very intelligent man, there are many of you who are more intelligent than I am. I have learned over the years, that when my wives took care of money, and God took care of my destiny, that would be best. That people scheme and think, and God laughs, putting barriers in their way. What is more, I went to the West, and studied under their great wise men, and they told me that being greedy and selfish is the best course. So, we will govern by my father's wise words, who knew all of this without leaving home, and that is 'The right thing to do, is the wrong thing to do.' In this one phrase is all of the knowledge of the world.”
“I read the great American sage, who said that the government is the problem, and so it will be. Under my premiership, the government will be the biggest problem possible, and that will unleash the creativity of the public.”
“So I am asking you, as the collected sages of the country, to propose for the legislative program, and to do in your own departments, the worst things you can imagine because these will be the best things to do.”
“Does that include taking bribes?”
“Saves the public on salaries.”
“Does that include selling state equipment for our own benefit?”
“You will be richer, and someone will use it better than the government.”
“Does that include forcing the women who work under us to be our Mistresses?”
“I have always found that matters work best when men run the world, and women run the men. A woman who is capable enough to have a minister under her thumb is at least as capable as the minister. Then we will have two heads for the success of the department.”
“What about living in luxury?”
“Why then you will be hiring servants, and building mansions, and throwing lavish parties, and that will create jobs for so many deserving people. In fact, I will make it the official policy of this government; that members should show the world how well we can live. It is that way in every other important country.”
And so it went, with the cabinet asking about all of the misdeeds possible, and each time, Salim gave them an explanation as to why the wrong thing to do on the surface, was really the right thing to do.
So they left, energized, and eager for the life of reward and luxury that was coming.
The parliament was meeting in a few days to confirm the new government, and Salim realized that he would only get one chance to pass a massive program that would change the country forever. He had learned from his first term that too much tranquility is not good for his legacy, and so he told his advisors to create a plan that would be a bold expansion of private jobs.
Finally, they gave him a secret plan, and he put it forward to a secret committee. Parliament was given a chance to approve or disapprove of the plan but without any details. He spoke to the nation and told people that either they were in favor of jobs or not, since the secret plan was the only plan that would be submitted.
The parliament overwhelmingly voted for the jobs plan, believing, at the very least, that they were saving their own jobs.
For four long years, well actually three, things progressed pretty well, because tax hikes reamed the poor, and who cares about them? So Salim was duly re-elected. But things got worse after that, with plummeting tax revenues, and with a great deal of runoff slush pile. Even by the end, many prominent figures were saying that they would vote for the other guy. To make a very long story, by the time the election rolled around people were miserable as a whole get out. So they elect the other party which promised it would keep corruption down, a little bit, and they would monitor it so it wouldn't be more than the economy could handle. But just a little bit. A month before he would've gotten about that would be manageable to his party. Then the crash hit, and only the believers denied it. The result was that the other man won, and by the substantial amount, though there were many true believers who would vote for the man they were supposed to.
So dizzying was the man's victory that no one talked about Salim anymore. It was truly that bad. Though many of their followers turned out to for more corruption anyway.
God is good! God is great! But don't stand too close, or your nose will get caught when he slams it shut.
9
The Gift
So, my readers, I give this gift to you, and the lesson you should learn from Salim. The right thing to do is the wrong thing to do, the wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do. Learn that selfishness is the most selfless thing and that the worse you are to others, the better it will be for everyone.
Finally, I will give you another gift, and that is all that remains of Salim's Koran after the revisions and deletions, that he can simply glance upon and gain the whole of the knowledge of East and West, Christianity and Islam, and every other religion as they were truly practiced. Do not as they say, but as they did:
“The right thing to do is the wrong thing to do, no good deed goes unpunished.
The wrong thing to do, is the right thing to do,
This all the sages have admonished.
Whether your god is dollar, franc, or yuan,
Bow down before the invisible hand.
Live only for today, and in this life,
sow war, and discontent and strife.
If someone gives you their back, give them a knife.
If you know the truth it will set you free,
So long as for lies, you charge a hefty fee.
There is no God but sod, and Lombardi is his profit,
Do not worry, do not frown,
to get ahead always suck up,
and then excrement down.”
By the end, Salim could read these words in less than a minute, and everyone thought him a truly holy man indeed. Because all he was not talked about, he lived in the desert and was quite rich.
God is good. God is great. And even shook in office will do fairly well.
