Wise King Taken by the Foolish One essay no. 4 The realization which follows a finite series of unsuccessful assaults by the Foolish One upon the Wise King, (each upon a different defense and each somewhat surprising), that ultimately, inevitably, the Foolish One will catch up with and overwhelm the Wise King in a single battle. Someday. Even if the Wise King wins 99.999% of the time Dan Plonsey October, 2001 Keywords: Clouds form upon the inclusion of eternity into our sunny philosophy. Go to: Wise King essays, home page, or one of the Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.

The realization which follows a finite series of unsuccessful assaults by the Foolish One upon the Wise King, (each upon a different defense and each somewhat surprising), that ultimately, inevitably, the Foolish One will catch up with and overwhelm the Wise King in a single battle. Someday. Even if the Wise King wins 99.999% of the time

The Wise King feels his wide belly pressing outwards. Ate too many noodles. "I can still hear them," he realizes, "`Hey, batter batter, swing, batter batter.' They used to say that, and I've never recovered. I'm no longer a youth, but that taunting chant keeps going, on and on." He feels his belly pressing now against a spot too rungs below the dangerous top one, the one from which he can already feel himself falling, the feeling of fear of falling being identical with the feeling of falling itself. I am afraid much of the time, he thinks.

The Foolish One feels nothing, but reaches for his wallet to buy the Wise King a drink - looks like he could use one. The Wise King warily declines, surrendering to his own well-worn suspicion of the motives of the other.

This will be a challenge for me, thinks the Foolish One. How can I circumvent the Wise King's resistance to engagement? In an open field, in the light of day, the Foolish One would stand little chance against the Wise King - he's much bigger, more powerful and more obvious than the Foolish One - but here in the big city there is a lot of cover, and unexpected assistance from unsuspecting allies could tip the balance, but at this point it still seems just another quiet night...

Suddenly, the baby makes a few very strange noises, as if choking or vomiting explosively, the Wise King can't tell exactly, but something is going wrong. Hmm, he thinks. Do I give into the dread (perhaps foolishly) and investigate, or sit here in a privileged spot, confident (perhaps foolishly) that nothing can really go very wrong; nothing that his wife can't handle? Am I certain that her silence is a sign that what he has heard is nothing much, or is there a more sinister explanation than that? Perhaps she is "sleeping through it," or perhaps she is occupied in a calm, wakeful ministration to the baby's needs. Then the Wise King decides: this dilemma, this anxiety, and especially this indecision about what to do are all part of a trap laid for him by the Foolish One, a trap which he can easily sidestep by simply dropping his pen, and going to check. There is nothing wrong with that; his wife will appreciate his attentiveness even more if nothing is wrong... And nothing is - just some falling-asleep sounds. And indeed, a half hour later his wife enters their bedroom, her face shaded iconically with red, white and black make-up, and he thinks of Cleopatra, these being the three colors of the Egyptian flag. He is happy to see her. Score one for the Wise King!

After he and his wife make love, the Wise King muses about the flag of Saudi Arabia: it is green with white Arabic writing upon it. What does it say? It looks like a lot of writing, and he can't help but feel a little threatened by it: the threat is the script itself: the language, more than the way that his ignorance of the language hides whatever message it has, and more than the message itself (which is presumably fairly innocent, he recognizes).

Meanwhile, off in his hideout, the Foolish One grumbles. He has lost two points this evening, and it's nearly time for sleep. His next attempt to take the Wise King will be even broader, but therefore also riskier, less likely to succeed than were the two failures. And should he again fail, it will cost him many points, many small, but decisive and experience and confidence-building victories for the Wise King. Can I afford to hand him such a lead, wonders the Foolish One, will I ever be able to turn it around? But the Wise King is also worried, knowing that the Foolish One only needs one big victory to seal his fate...

Is this war primarily a game of wits, of skill? Is not the Wise King the favorite by dint of his very wisdom? Or is foolishness wisdom's trump, just as paper is to rock. Rock, of course, can handle scissors, which in turn, easily overcome paper. So then how does paper manage to "smother" rock? Is it an exceptional game for paper, or an ongoing streak of luck, or just another of our meta-universe's ironic reversals?

Notice now, says the Wise King to himself, that use of the rock-paper-scissors analogy is yet another attack upon me by the Foolish One, upon my equanimity and my faith in things like the dominance of equivalence relationships over other sorts; my innate mistrust of the way that people fold the flaps of boxes together at the bottom: putting the second on top of the first, the third over the second, the fourth over the third - but then the other side of the fourth being tucked under the first. If A > B, and B > C, then I expect A > C, but the Foolish One says, "Not so fast..." But I think I've averted it, even if the Foolish One scored a few, I'm still in the lead. Definitely. I hope...

The Wise King is nearly asleep when he registers the image of a long ago dinner with his wife at a small town diner, up a short slope from a crossroads. This image blends confusingly with another memory of a meal, a late lunch at the roadside version of the same, a small highway rest stop, not really part of a town. Dinner at a crossroads - were we driving from North Carolina back west? What stage of that journey would it have been?

Another memory then begins to emerge: a mountainside face criss-crossed by two ascending switch-backed roads, with traffic slowly zig-zagging upwards on these helical park-entrance roads, each leading to a highway which encircled the park, one going west, the other east. Not as many cars going east; although you can circle all the way around, there are apparently superior attractions which are closer on the west. We ended up at a suburban campground, recalls the Wise King, and we amused ourselves that night by photographing ourselves jumping off tables and whirling candles around.

Then the Wise King thinks: there's gold here - I've done more than I give myself credit for doing, there are plenty of memories waiting to be dredged up. Curious that I can't remember or re-create my state of mind, though. Is it because I was never truly calm, or was it a lack of more intense agitation? I'm agitated right now, he thinks, but not enough to remember later. When did I last have a peaceful moment? I'm sure I have them - but when? Probably at the last un-prompted, un-scripted smile which I received... this morning.

The Wise King sleeps and dreams: he is walking around the edges of Manhattan (although at first he thinks he is on another circular park road, the highway which rings the hardened lava fields and craters in Hawaii's Volcanos National Park). He is in Brooklyn, or Queens, at the end of a bridge which was formerly for cars but which now is closed to all but pedestrian traffic, of which there is nearly none. He feels anxious; he is looking for a way to get somewhere in Manhattan. Now I'm tying to get onto a train, dreams the Wise King. I encounter an old woman whose questions betray a leaky memory. I walk along a wide, windy river. On a river boat there is the possibility of relaxation, but when I get off to stretch my legs, I am unable to re-board. Instead, I struggle through a dim labyrinth of subways and commuter trains, some of which emerge on small, urban islands. From a distance and from above, I see a museum, a giant city, and then I'm in a rooftop park on the top of the Empire State Building. I'm afraid of the elevators, afraid of being tipped out of the park, but I need to get down fast...

I did once work in the Empire State Building, thinks Dan Plonsey, for a company called Rapidata. I wonder what has happened to all those people I worked with?

Now I'm at an airport - this could be anyone's dream - and the airplanes are taking off too steeply; there's a great deal of risk even - or especially - to the short flights.

-- Dan Plonsey, October 2001, El Cerrito, California Go to: Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.