“Hey,” whispered the white bearded village chief to his bald deputy as they stood at the edge of their village, “do you think my fifty-six-inch chest is growing smaller?”

The bald deputy stared carefully at his leader.

“It is difficult to say, Chief,” he replied. “You are wearing jacket over jacket over jacket.”

“Yes,” whispered the bearded chief nervously. “I did not want people to notice.”

“Notice what?”

“That there seems to be less of me inside them.”

The bald deputy looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then helped his leader remove the jackets one by one.

The first jacket had promises stitched on it.

The second was embroidered with magnificent slogans.

The third carried pictures of ancient glory.

The fourth had several television anchors hiding in its pockets, ready to shout whenever anyone asked an uncomfortable question.

Finally, the last jacket came off.

Both men gasped. “Twenty-six inches!” cried the deputy.

“Measure again,” ordered the chief. The deputy measured again.

“Perhaps twenty-seven if you hold your breath.”

The bearded chief held his breath until his face turned red.

“Twenty-six and a half,” announced the deputy.

“But where did the other thirty inches go?” asked the chief sadly.

“Perhaps that young opposition leader took them,” suggested the deputy.

“Impossible,” said the chief. “We have called him foolish so often that people should believe us.”

“Perhaps it is all those young boys and girls shouting about examination leaks,” said the deputy. “They keep asking questions.”

“Questions are very dangerous,” muttered the chief. “Especially when we do not have answers.”

From above came the sound of laughter.

It was Pegasus, circling lazily in the sky.

“What are you laughing at?” shouted the chief.

“From my data it was never fifty-six inches,” said Pegasus, “it was simply inflated with speeches.”

“How dare you!” thundered the deputy. “Our chief has the greatest chest in the world.”

“Then why do you say it is shrinking?” asked Pegasus.

“Foreign conspiracies!” shouted the deputy.

“Opposition propaganda!” cried the chief.

“Faulty measuring tape!” they shouted together.

But villagers had begun gathering around them.

They looked at the empty jackets lying on the ground. They looked at the slogans, the promises and the frightened television anchors peeping from the pockets.

Then they looked at their leader’s twenty-six-inch chest. Nobody laughed and that silence frightened him more than ridicule.

An emperor in a fable had once discovered that he had no clothes. This emperor discovered something worse. Beneath the jackets, slogans and carefully manufactured muscles, there was no mighty chest at all. Only a chest of lies.

And lies, however loudly inflated, eventually lose their air, even as Pegasus swore to his owners in Hebrew he had information it was always twenty six…!

———————————–

Become an author… Click here

————————————-

Would love to hear from you in the COMMENTS section below…and IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE BOB’S BANTER EVERYDAY, PLEASE SEND YOUR NAME AND WHATSAPP PHONE NO TO [email protected]
————————————————–