Thursday, May 1, 2008

"Chocolate"

A very curious little problem had cropped up in the king’s land. Thanks to a poker faced gentleman who had very sharp pointy ears, the startling news reached the king’s court.

We are losing the war, your highness. The troops are all eating chocolate.
Chocolate? Why, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!
Sad, but true. Not a single one of our cannons in sight. The battlefield is littered with wrappers.

And so the story spread through the king’s land.
It was embroidered and picked in every chapter. Each one made his own prediction.
All arms had been abandoned. The soldiers had taken to eating chocolate.
The soldiers had vanished. Now chocolates would go to war.
The king himself had ordered for chocolates. Oh, they were delectable.

The war was lost. The king was furious.
A major smuggling racket was uncovered. A minister and the troops were convicted.
Charges: Abandoning arms in a battlefield.
Refusing to fire the provided weapon.
Smuggling chocolates in metal shells.
Eating chocolates in the course of the battle.

HANG THEM ALL!
BAN CHOCOLATES!

The king issued an arrest warrant against anyone found in the possession of chocolates. The kids were also not spared. Nip them in the buds, he would say.
But the chocolate shops and chocolate factories remained. The poker faced gentleman had a brainwave.
Why not use them for making extra cannons and shells? The stores could still have their chocolatey decorations, you know. Imagine how pretty it would look! The guns being sold in those large candy boxes. Bullets in candy wrappers. Even the children wouldn’t be able to resist such temptation!

And then, it happened. The initial hesitation, suppressed apprehension peeled away.
People took their first faltering steps towards the new “chocolate” shops, embracing the acrid odour of gunpowder, the new scent of “chocolate”.

It was one happy land, united by chocolate.



(Inspired from “The arms and the man” by George Bernard Shaw)