A tale of old tells of a certain king who each year invited a selection of his subjects to a banquet to celebrate the annual harvest.

Many were invited –old and young, rich and poor, simple and sophisticated, people of all religions and races, men and women from all over the kingdom.

On the year in question, which was, unbeknown to him the last year of his reign, and the end of the last year of the millennium, some 500 people assembled under a great canopy set out on the palace lawn at tables laid sumptuously with a tremendous variety of food, behind which loomed the great palace upon which was a great, and rather ugly, ornamental chiming clock.

The king and queen, their family and courtiers entered and all the people stood up, heads bowed in respect to their sovereign.

The king stood before them and gave a short speech thanking them all for coming along, and making a few jokes about the weather which quite a few of the people and most of the courtiers and the king’s family found amusing and pleasant. Then the king said: “Well, let the banquet begin”, upon which he sat down and everyone else took their places and began to eat.

“Delicious”, “scrumptious”, and “very agreeable” were some of the words uttered up and down the tables.

After several hours of eating and talking, joking and hailing old friends from the past, while avoiding others –because they had shown themselves to be parasitic or deadly, or because in a world such as the one they knew, people who should have been friends had become enemies –on came the acrobats, the jugglers, the conjurers, singers, dancers and jesters to entertain everyone.

As the last jester was leaving, there appeared before everyone a wizened old woman with white hair wearing a long black cloak and a battered black hat. She just stood before them all and said nothing.

***

The silence was broken by people whispering to each other. “Who’s the old goat?” “Is she the old woman who lives in the haunted forest.” And so on. However, the king and most of his family and courtiers appeared to know who she was as they all sat smiling –rather smugly in some cases –and exchanging winks with each other.

Then the king stood up saying “Pray, be seated” to his subjects. “This is Amalthea who lives in what is known among some of you as the haunted forest. She is a very wise woman and has traveled far to be with us. Please listen carefully to all she says.”

He sat down and everyone waited in anticipation as the crone cleared her throat and began to speak. They had to strain their necks to see her and listen very carefully as she spoke in a hoarse whisper: “I am very honored to be here with all of you tonight and I want to give you all a gift, a small thing really, but something I hope that you will all remember. Holding up a small glass with a bluish tinted liquid within it, she said: “This is a wine which I have been keeping especially for this event. It was brewed some time ago to mark the coming millennium, and I call it the Elixir of Truth. I want you all to drink it, because, as well as being a very fine brew, it will give you an unforgettable experience.”

The people started looking down at the tables and sought the glass which they had not seen earlier among all the food and drink. “Ah, here it is”, “Here!”, “Ah, yes, now I see it”, “But it surely wasn’t there before,” “No, I don’t remember seeing it”, were some of the expressions used, as the king and his family and his courtiers smiled among themselves.

Then the king stepped forward again with a glass of blue wine in his hand. “We have already tried this wine,” he said urbanely, looking towards his Court who smiled back obsequiously at him, “and we can assure you that it is quite exceptional. Moreover, as Amalthea says it will give you a beautiful experience which none of you should miss. Please rest assured that no harm will come to you, for I, my family and my courtiers will all drink with you upon the first chime of twelve. Pray stand.”

Everyone stood on his command. And they were truly filled with rising anticipation as they waited for the hand of the clock to move to twelve. As the first chime sounded, the king let his arm, which had been held high, fall. “Let us drink to Truth!” he declared, and swigged his wine, and everyone, as well as the queen, the royal family and the courtiers, followed suit and drank down the strange brew.

Having downed the delicious stuff, the people became aware of a strange feeling of immobility in their bodies and their mouths, although they could turn their heads around and think, and could see and hear.

Then the old woman, Amalthea, stepped forward. She cleared her throat and began to speak, but as she spoke her voice changed to a clear and beautiful, almost singing tone which everyone could hear very clearly. She said: “I have an admission to make.”

***

Everyone was listening intently, and everything seemed to them to be exceptionally clear –the delicious taste of the wine still in their throats, pervading their bodies warmly, the colors of the things around them, the faint night breeze, the shapes and movements of the trees and grass and the words of the strange woman.

Speaking to the people, she went on “This is exactly the same wine as the king and his Court tasted on several occasions a week ago, but the time has changed. Then they saw what they wanted to see, and believed that this was all that it did, which would be good for their subjects as it would help to hold you under the Court’s domain. But now, now is the dawn of a new millennium, and, with a second to go before midnight, time has stopped and it is the time of Truth –and the Truth will out! You cannot move yet, but you can see and hear everything around you. The Truth will be revealed to you by certain changes, which will become clear very soon. Watch!”

Everyone felt a heightened sense of eventfulness. They all looked at the woman who had begun to change (and who had once appeared as a goat) and was transformed into a beautiful nymph, Amalthea, the Goddess of Plenty. All around her a sort of glory seemed to emanate from her smiling face and laughing eyes, a kindness that filled the people with an even greater warmth than the wine, a sort of billowing sense of love and fullness. Then she moved a delicate hand and the people’s gaze followed it in the direction of the king.

He and his courtiers stood there totally frozen, though some of his family were able to move their heads a little. But their faces had become terribly deformed. The king looked like some ravenous beast, stained with blood and gore, with fangs for teeth, saliva dribbling from his mouth, snot from his now very long nose, great hairy ears, bulging greedy eyes, claw-like hands, and a tail extending from his arse.

The people were horrified and Amalthea spoke again: “Now you see your ‘generous’ king in his true light, because you see him, not as he appears, but as he is. You see his soul. All this food and drink he has so ‘generously’ provided came from you, his so-called subjects. You produced it and all he has done is surround it in POMP. Look at his Court and see their souls,” and the people looked and saw.

His courtiers now consisted of a hideous mixture of animals of all shapes and sizes. Many were reminiscent of vultures, but with snouts and eyes that made them look more like pigs, others were like dogs or wolves, others like serpents, spiders, centipedes, maggots and rats. The same metamorphosis had affected the king’s family, except one or two, who looked more or less normal, but most of these were still quite young. The queen was like a praying mantis with piggish eyes and venomous teeth.

Although the people could not speak, a cry of horror seemed to pass among their ranks –but this turned to laughter, although none of this could be heard in the usual way.

“Now look among yourselves” said Amalthea.

And the people turned to see their partners, their friends of old and others. There was Tom, the baker, a smiling, round-faced, honest man, unchanged from before, but somehow more confident, with sharper-looking eyes, his wife beside him, looking serene and happy. And Jones, one of the farm workers, stern but also smiling, again with sparkling eyes reflecting a new inner strength. And so on, and so on, the people began to move their mouths and smile greetings to each other with their eyes.

There were among them, however, some whose visages had changed in various degrees, some indeed had even become like the courtiers –animalistic humanoid vultures. And none of them could move. They, like the king and his court were frozen still. Then people began to recognize them from the clothes they wore.

“Of course, Jack was always a scrounger.” “Yes, we knew that.” “A bloody crook.” “Now look at him –looks more like a chimpanzee than a human being,” said one man to his wife, and she smiled.

“But look at this fellow. Who would have known he was one of them?” said a young woman, looking at a fellow who was half vulture and half jackal. “I always thought he was a good, honest type.” “Yes,” said another, “but then with some you can’t always tell.” An old man piped up: “I saw through that bugger ages ago.” And another: “Then why didn’t you say anything?” “Because you wouldn’t have listened”. And so it went on.

As their bodies loosened and they started to find their movements returning, they began to realize that they had found something that had been lost long ago –the ability to talk among themselves about something that really mattered but which they had kept locked up for a long time. Yes, they had communicated among themselves, but they had not spoken about this, and had not asked of others what was happening. On this they had kept their hearts closed from each other and this had created a gap in their minds which had been filled by the king and his court. Their own feelings had been replaced by the stories put around by the gang now standing frozen before and yet amongst them.

How had this come about? Again, Amalthea spoke: “Dear people, you must now decide what you are going to do. It is good to ask how and why and what for. But you must discover the reasons for yourselves. And please do not think that answering these questions can be done alone in your heads –only by changing things can you answer the riddle that has befallen you. But you must think and you must discuss because that is a very important part of the change that will usher in the epoch of Truth. Now I am going, and when I have gone, you will know what has happened, but your animal tormenters will not –to some extent those who have not completely fallen into that state will remember bits and pieces, but the most deformed will forget all of it. When I go, time will return, and will belong to you.”

And with that she disappeared and, depending on how you look at things, everything or nothing returned to normal.

October 21st, 2005