Universally Available

Up screamed the king, “Don’t annoy me with your cries for justice; poverty and death are privileges available to all!”  And a helpful voice from the crowd cried, “Don’t forget dumbness.”

Over in a brother – I mean, other, yes that’s what I mean now - over in another place was a guy who went around to several places talking to some groups of people about some stuff, and he would sometimes take out slips of paper and say that someone had written him a question about this-or-that and he would then read from the letter and comment thereon, and one day at one of the locations he told the crowd that there was nothing on the slips, that he’d made it all up, that no one had ever written him, and the next day someone wrote him and said it didn’t matter.

Metaphor to all who think metaphor;
something else for a few others.

The first guy up and announced that, as far as he was concerned, his own memory was his best friend, and this second voice said, “But you’ve got a terrible memory,” and judging from the pleased look on his face, the number one guy rested his case.

Throughout the evening, one man continued to insist
that the band had not begun to play, in spite of the fact
that he danced – oh how he danced.

J.