Almost halfway around the world from Trusy, there was a rich and powerful country called Maravilloso. It was so rich and so powerful, it made Trusy look like a backwards autocracy…which it actually was. Now, Maravilloso was a country unlike any other country.

Ever.

In the entire history of the world.

It had never had a king, a queen, an emperor, a dictator, or a tyrant. Instead, the government of Maravilloso was based upon what was called the Radical Idea. The Radical Idea was an extremely liberal vision developed by the sainted Founders of Maravilloso. It argued that if citizens were willing to live by the rule of consensual law and the principle of egalitarianism, then together they could carve out their own destiny. While the leaders and other governments around the world were God-ordained, the Maravillosan government was people-ordained.

Although Maravilloso had many great cities, one of the greatest of all was a city called Heupencool City. Heupencool City was the largest city in the State of Heupencool. It had been the original capital of Maravilloso. This was something that many Maravillosans didn’t know. This was understandable once you realized that Maravillosans weren’t really keen about being bothered with history or world affairs. In recent years, it had also become evident that they weren’t interested in science either. What did interest Maravillosans was their pocket book, becoming famous, and their ability to buy stuff. Stuff ruled! Especially if you were famous. Even more so, if you rich and famous.

Heupencool City, being the original capital, had had a long, illustrious history. It had participated in every significant, as well as every insignificant, event in Maravillosan history. Heupencool was a very large city, filled with millions of people. Many of these people were just regular folk with regular lives, chasing regular aspirations.

Heupencool also had its fair share of people who were poor. Some, as they said out in the boondocks, were even dirt poor. But nobody really cared about them, largely because everyone knew that they were just too plain lazy to work hard and make their own way. Poor people were parasites who dragged everybody else down. At least, that was what the Hypocrites Conservateurs, a right-wing political party, nicknamed the Club des Milliardaires, told everyone. The Hypocrites Conservateurs had developed their political philosophy after reading the works of Ayn Rand, a less than second-rate writer of pulp fiction, who had suffered from two mental disorders throughout her life: the Greed Is Good Disorder and the Compassionless-Me First Disorder. She had died a lonely, bitter old woman, ranting with her very last breath about how she had given birth to the world.

Heupencool was a destiny point for athletes and sports teams. It was also a Mecca for those with creative aspirations. It was filled with artists, actors, writers, musicians, fashion designers and, of course, everyone’s favorite: street mimes.

Heupencool was the home of many great businesses. It was also the home of many rich people.

Some of those rich people had built great business empires, employing tens of thousands of people. These wealthy entrepeneurs had helped their employees prosper as they, themselves, prospered. Although they took a larger cut, they believed in sharing the profits with those who had shared in the labor.

Other rich people had the challenging job of making money. Each morning, they dragged themselves from their comfy beds in order to sit in front of their computer and trade stock. In the morning, they bought low. In the afternoon they sold high…except during tax season, when they bought high and sold low, so that they wouldn’t have to pay taxes on their wealth. This was a very challenging job and, as they liked to point out, it was very important work, because they were the job creators. Truly, without creating all of those maids and gardeners jobs on their vast estates…or as they liked to joke quietly amongst themselves, their plantations…there would be many more unemployed men and women living in poverty.

Finally, there were some rich people who had made a fortune by failing at pretty much everything they did. They had learned the ins and outs of bankruptcy laws, which meant that they could keep the money that investors gave them. It also allowed them to keep the property that others had built for them, while not having to pay those same people who had built the property. When folk questioned the ethics and morality of this method of acquiring wealth, these rich people would respond that since the laws allowed them to do these things, it must be okay to do these things. If the politicans didn’t want them to do these things, then they should change the laws. In fact, if God didn’t want them to do these things, it would say so in the Bible. If nothing else, they were just very smart businessmen. Besides, as this group liked to point out, they were job creators. After all, if they hadn’t hired all those people to build stuff for them, those people would have just been sitting around, idly twiddling their thumbs.

To belong to either of these latter two groups of wealthy people, you had to have parents who could leave you vast sums of money. Aside from being born with a silver spoon, another commonality shared by these two groups was that they were unfairly taxed. After all, they were burdened with hard work and the responsibility of creating jobs. Why, they would ask, did they have to carry the burden of high taxation as well? They gave so much and took so little. Yet after every tax season, they were left to live as virtual paupers. And society’s greed didn’t end there, they would complain. After living all those years under their parents’ control, they had to pay huge taxes on the wealth their parents had left them. It was like they were being taxed twice: first when they lived in their father’s mansion and, then again, when living in their own mansion. The system was stacked against them. It was all so unfair.

After listening to their tales of their horrible trials and their heart-wrenching tribulations, one could only stand there and feel…well, who couldn’t feel sorrow and shed a tear for the horror of their everyday lives? Who, I ask?

In Heupencool City, lived Pequeñas Manos, a modestly wealthy man, who had gotten his wealth from rich parents and then had acquired property and had buildings built without having to pay a dime for them. He liked to point out that he knew so much about bankruptcy laws that it would amaze everyone. In fact, he knew more about bankruptcy than a room filled full of bankruptcy lawyers.

Although he had failed at pretty much everything he had touched, he still flourished. He was able to do so because he had accomplished the one thing that was beyond the grasp of all but a few. He had created a brand around his name: Manos. When people heard the name Manos, they immediately thought of gilded, low-rent crap that cost more than it was worth. This feat of creating a brand around his name was a perfect example of fame absent accomplishment. In spite of this tiny fact, he liked to regale his employees with tales of how hard he had had to work in order to achieve this level of success. What his employees thought of his tales has never been recorded. The silence on this issue is probably correlated with their desire to remain employed. And, in the country.

Manos was a rather rotund man with hair dyed the color of clown orange[1]. He was above average in height, but he had hands and feet that had stopped growing when he was eight-years-old. He liked to think of himself as a family man. He was such a successful family man that he had sired numerous children with multiple wives.

His main criteria in selecting women was that they had to be hot and look good on his arm when he went out into the public spotlight with them. They also needed to be appreciative and know their place. To his dismay, however, he had found that very few modern women, especially if they were from Maravilloso, embraced these virtues. Compared to the women of his youth, even the hot women of today’s world thought that they had more to offer than their hotness. It was a formula for failure, he told whoever would listen, when women forgot what their purpose was.

Pequeñas had been on the verge of giving up being a successful family man and becoming, instead, a ‘playah,’ as he liked to phrase it, when he struck gold. He had met an Eastern European prostitute of Trussian descent named Jai, who had illegally entered Maravilloso to become a super model. On the surface, she seemed perfect. She was hot. She said that she would do whatever he wanted. She was even duly appreciative when he deigned to talk with her or he gave her some sort of bauble, such as a diamond bracelet. But it was when she stood up on his hotel bed, straddling his body, and released her golden nectar all over him, that he knew that he had finally found The One. After all, the only thing better than a hot babe was a hot babe who would pee all over you. And they were far rarer than one might think.

Pequeñas Manos had many children, mostly boys. His oldest son, Pequeñas Manos Junior, wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he loved and admired his father unconditionally. Although Pequeñas knew that Pequeñas would never achieve equivalent stature as himself, he also knew that his son was mindlessly loyal.

Manos’ favorite child was his eldest daughter, Idiota. She was smart, and she was hot. Or, was it that she was hot, and she was smart? How to phrase this always confused Manos. Whatever.

Manos could remember when she was born. His first thought was that he hoped that she would be hot. His second thought was he wondered how big her knockers would get. His third thought was that he wasn’t going to be changing any diapers.

He had gotten his wish with Idiota. She was hot. Of course, Pequeñas Manos, being the ultimate authority on what made women hot, had assisted nature by introducing his daughter, when she was fifteen, to a plastic surgeon he knew. Although nature might have had other plans, Manos made certain that Idiota’s breasts would be the perfect size[2].

Idiota was so hot that Pequeñas would tell people how much he wished that Idiota wasn’t his daughter so that he could ‘tap that ass.’ Although some might be offended by a man talking about his daughter this way, the fact was that this was just locker room talk and everyone knew that all real men talked like this in the locker room.

Pequeñas Manos had built a skyscraper in the Heupencool downtown area to run his modest business empire and to raise his children in. Of course, his children spent most of their time living with their mothers or at some elite, private boarding school, learning how to express guilt at being born into wealth[3]. So, the tower that he had named The Manos Cloud Buster, was mostly used for hosting his business activities, as well as luxuriating in his hard-earned wealth.

When Pequeñas had been a young lad, his father would send him to a summer camp in Alabama called The Tacky Trailer Park Camp for the Offspring of the Exceptionally Wealthy[4]. Back in the day, a lot of rich fathers sent their kids to such camps. The idea was that these experiences would expose their children to how the other ninety-nine percent lived. It was believed that when their sons became the Captains of Industry, as was their right and their destiny, this exposure would help them to develop a common touch. Unfortunately, the demographics of Maravilloso had changed in the ensuing years. The typical Maravillosan was now better educated and didn’t live in trailer park-like squalor in a quasi-religious Southern state that was proud of its slave-holding history. Nor was the typical Maravillosan white. Or male. In the end, the social skills those children learned at their summer camps had been for naught.

Another issue that had arisen from exposure to these camps was that some, although not all, of these children had developed an unusual taste for trailer park squalor. This was the reason why no one could find Elvis paintings on black velvet in cheap motels any longer. They had all been bought up by the children who had spent their summers in the trailer park camps.

Pequeñas Manos was the perfect example of such a child who had grown into adulthood with trailer park tastes[5]. He had painted the entire exterior of The Manos Cloud Buster with gold gilt. In the afternoon sun, it was a blinding blaze that could actually blind people who weren’t wearing sunglasses.

The entire interior was splattered with gallons upon gallons of gilt and red paint with a final touch provided by crystal that was really only plastic that looked like crystal. Although the average Maravillosan might see the Cloud Buster as being a bit gaudy and tacky, it was in Manos’ bedroom that you could see his childhood influences come to fruition. Amid a mixture of gilded columns and red bedsheets, there was a television in nearly every direction you could look. But what really brought it altogether was that the entire ceiling and all of the walls were covered in mirrors. As Manos would tell his wives and his children, you could never see to much of a good thing.

Manos also had an ulterior motive for building his mighty obelisk in the middle of Heupencool City. He wanted everyone to see how great he was. But, he didn’t want this for himself. He wanted this for the people of Maravilloso. Heck, he wanted this for people of the entire world.

Ever since watching Buck Rogers as a kid, he had secretly dreamed of becoming emperor of the world. He knew, though, that the road to becoming emperor was paved with baby steps. He knew that, even though it was a relatively low status job compared to what he already had, he would first need to become the president of Maravilloso. By being the president, the world would have an excellent opportunity to see how great he was. This would be critical if he was to ever be elected emperor of the world.[6]

Although others might not know this, he knew that he was the smartest person on the planet. He knew more about anything than anybody else. If only the world would let him run things, he could make the world a paradise to live in. Everybody would get what they deserved.

Because he was such a big-hearted fellow, Pequeñas Manos had created what he called his “Master Plan.” It was the plan that would rule over all his other plans. It would be this plan that would guide his fight to make the world a great place to live in once again. It was this struggle, or as Pequeñas liked to refer to it, My Struggles, that he was born for. It was his destiny.

 

Stay Tuned for Chapter 3

 

Pace è Bene

[1] Although Manos was unaware of this, his Heupencool neighbors had nicknamed him The Orangutan.

[2] Manos had actually gotten a twofer, so that his hot wife could also be perfectly hot.

[3] This ‘rich guilt’ helped them to acknowledge the hardships of their lives, which enabled them to identify with and expect sympathy from those who were less fortunate.

[4] Tacky Wealthy for short.

[5] Manos actually had nine Elvis, six dogs playing pool, three different clown, and one very hard to find black panther paintings.

[6] Pequeñas Manos was apparently unaware that there was no emperor of the world, but lack of knowledge had never hindered him.

Once upon a time, in a far and distant land called Trusy, there lived an autocrat named Mała Głowa. As his name suggested, he was a small man. He was a very small man with a balding head, a perfectly waxed body that needed to be waxed every three days, and squinty, little eyes that gave his face a ferret-like appearance. Other than that, he was a rather bland-looking fellow.

Despite his blandness, or perhaps because of it, there was nothing he liked more than posing for photographs. He knew that the people of his country loved to see photographs of him. The sight of his image plastered on billboards, on the front page of newspapers and magazines, on the sides of government buildings, and on the little greeting cards that were sent out to everyone on the anniversary of his “election” to office…these gave to the citizens feelings of security and brought inspiration into their rather sad, pathetic and ordinary lives. After all, who couldn’t feel inspired and secure when they saw a real man, such as himself, willing to be their leader. He could easily imagine how the women of his land, young and old, beautiful and ugly, all swooned when they saw his photograph. Poor Trussian men, he would chuckle to himself. Never could they compete with their Supreme Leader. He was the epitome of manhood for his people.

Although he looked amazingly good in each of his pictures, there was one photograph that he was particularly proud of. His aides had convinced him that a powerful way to symbolize his manliness to his people was to have a photograph of him riding a horse bareback. It would give his people confidence that they were safe in his hands. However, as with all great ideas, there were a few problems. First, he couldn’t ride a real horse, otherwise he would appear to be too small. So, his aides had arranged for him to ride a Shetland pony, digitally altered to look like a larger horse breed. The second problem found Mała Głowa constantly sliding off the pony’s bare back. That, of course, would never do. He decided that, instead of the pony being bareback, he’d be bareback. So, while his aides found a saddle for the pony, Mała Głowa tossed aside his shirt. After that, a little airbrushing removed his wrinkles and his flab, and he had a photograph that was like a shot heard around the world.  Now, not only was he admired by the Trussian people, but his fanbase now extended to the people of the world.

It was a glorious world and he was a glorious man. He was a man made for the world and his people loved him.

And if anyone disagreed with him on this point, well… There had been one newspaper editor, Vladislav Popov, who had suggested that Mała Głowa looked like a miniature ferret. A day or so after Popov had printed his editorial, he had, according to the new editor of the paper, decided to take a holiday. Everyone assumed that he must be having a very good time, because he had now been on holiday for close to ten years.

The most incredible outcome of Popov’s vacation was that every newspaper throughout the land of Trusy talked glowingly of Mała Głowa. The Trussian people knew that there was probably no other country in the world that was lucky enough to have such a leader…one that journalists found flawless.

Despite his low stature, he was certain that he was a great man. All he had to do was to look at such luminaries as Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Caesar. They both had been short men and Mała was shorter than either of them. They had both achieved godhood, at least in Mała’s opinion. Using syllogistic logic (Mała considered himself the master of syllogisms), he had reasoned that since Bonaparte and Caesar were short and they were gods, then he, Mała, being short, must also be a god.

But, despite being a god, a flawless one at that, Mała Głowa was lonely. After all, he lived in a world filled with mere mortals. Even worse, most of these mortals were weak and, if Mała was to be honest, which he couldn’t help being, nowhere near as clever as he himself was. His body might be short, but he was a giant among men.

But, he was a very, very bored and a very, very lonely giant.

What he needed was a friend. No, not just a friend, but a companion. One who he could turn to for brilliant conversations. One who held similar world views, and was likewise a giant among men, who exuded greatness in every graceful move. Someone who was just as good looking and as physically perfect as he was.  In short, someone he could look to as an equal. Or, given that that was highly unlikely, someone who closely approached his own stature.

But, where would he find such a person? As he pondered this question, he realized that he would need someone who could travel the world, scouring the planet for a man who could be his true companion.

But, who could he trust with such a mission? As soon as he had thought the question, he knew who. His friend, Beskharakternyy Chelovek, owed much to Mała Głowa. First, there was his immense wealth, from the lucrative development contracts Mała had directed his way. Of course, Beskharakternyy, being who he was, had made sure that Mała was financially reimbursed for his efforts. Second of all, Beskharakternyy had a beautiful wife and a beautiful mistress, both of whom had been given to him by Mała. Third, Mała had extended to his friend tremendous power. And finally, Mała had personally helped Beskharakternyy Chelovek’s son, Govno, reached the pinnacles of Trussian society as a much-adored pop star…despite, in Mała’s humble opinion, being a talentless twit. A decent enough looking fellow and a relatively nice voice, but nowhere worthy of all of the panties thrown at him by the Trussian women during his concerts.

Mała buzzed his secretary and told him to call Beskharakternyy. It was only seconds into the conversation before Beskharakternyy proudly accepted his Supreme Leader’s request.

Mała Głowa hung up the phone, smiling. For the first time in a very long while, Mała was filled with the excitement of anticipation.

Stay Tuned for Chapter 2

 

Pace è Bene