At last, the Truth Seeker had proof the King was a fraud. He’d tapped into the hidden frequency used by the monarch’s Secret Army to carry out their nefarious tasks. With incontrovertible evidence he could tear off the mask of the monarchy and reveal its true, wicked nature. As the world had grown dark, the Truth Seeker was set to boldly blast a shining light.
All the King’s men had been in on it. These masters of illusion and manipulators of men convinced the masses to declare the King who brought disaster to their kingdom to be a "good man". The monarchists had portrayed themselves as defenders of the castle, keepers of all that is right and were relentless in their claim as the only ones fit for such roles. Any opposition was violently attacked in word and in deed and many saw this strong renunciation as proof of righteousness.
But these illusionists knew mere lies would not be enough. To bring disaster and call it victory required more than sheer propaganda. It required a willing populace to engage in its own self-deception. “Do you want a strong leader? Do you want to follow a good man?” “Yes!” they replied and thusly did they believe the King to be so. “Are we not a good people? Are we not godly in all our efforts?” “Yes!” they replied and thusly did they believe themselves so. “Do you not want to win? Are we not on the path to victory?” “Yes, we are!” they replied and thusly did they believe. Doom was imminent.
The Truth Seeker was going to change all that. On his recordings was the King’s own voice ordering bombs to be placed under the kingdom’s foundations, followed by a wholesale looting of its riches and a plan for the king and his men to escape to a new kingdom to live in decadent splendor for the rest of their days. The plot was diabolical in its conception and ruthless in its inception. This King so hailed by the public was in reality its worst nightmare, a true enemy of the state.
For the Truth Seeker, the journey for truth had been lonely and frustrating. Penetrating the miasma of lies had left him groping blindly for answers and confidence in his beliefs was slipping. If the monarchists were so evil, why couldn’t he find the evidence? Was he a truth seeker or simply a malcontent? But the Truth Seeker stayed the course until the fog of war cleared and he was able to see both them and himself in true light.
But the glare of truth was too much for the eyes of the kingdom. Friends and allies of the Truth Seeker who had supported his journey were of a different mind once they learned its destination had been reached. They informed the King of his betrayal but the ruler merely laughed. “Excellent! This ensures all my plans! I’ll have my blind shock troops ready for the traitor once the crowd turns on his wretched soul.” The informants left confused by the King’s plan, but the King understood one thing about the world they did not: that the Truth Seeker was going to commit the greatest sin of all: he was not going to tell the people what they wanted to hear.
The Truth Seeker called a meeting of both high and low throughout the land. He showed his evidence, played the recordings and gave details on how he got them. But the King had planted his men in the audience who then shouted "Fraud!" and "Usurper!" at the Truth Seeker. And comfortably closed minds found facts to be irrelevant in the face of such a cruel reality: "Our King would not do such a thing! Never will we call him evil!" And still others, stillborn in greed, hailed the monarch's madness and hoped to share it.
For saying "By his fruits ye shall know him", the Truth Seeker was branded an enemy of the state by the raging crowd. In his hopes to set the people free from a cruel tyrant, the people became the cruel tyrant. The Truth Seeker had triggered the release of their own self-hate and by crushing its mirror they hoped to crush their reality. As he was dragged off to his highly sought execution, the Truth Seeker asked 'Why?' of his former friends.
“It’s all about winners and losers, man. And we want to be with the winners.”
POSTSCRIPT: The King's plan worked to perfection. Amidst the dead and wounded from the planted bombs, the King and his cabal looted the kingdom, living the rest of their days in luxury, never to see justice in this world. Devestated and impoverished, those left in the kingdom faced starvation and misery for the rest of their lives. For some, this was a chance to come clean, but many remained bitter.
"The King was evil! He destroyed us all! The Truth Seeker was wrong. Truth doesn't set you free, it ruins your life! Truth is the enemy!"
"You fucking moron," rebuked one who had come clean. "You have it all backwards. This is what happens when make yourself an enemy of the truth. We didn't save our future when we killed the Truth Seeker, we forsook it. We are in this hell for one simple reason: we chose it."
POST POSTSCRIPT: Centuries later, historians played the What If? game on the downfall of the kingdom. What if the Truth Seeker had not been betrayed? What if the King's men had not been in the crowd? What if the Truth Seeker had presented his evidence in a more effective way? But questions such as these are only asked by the self-deceived. For when the kingdom turned corrupt, all roads afterwards led to doom.
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