Standfirst: The Supremacists put all their eggs in one basket but the outmoded eggist ideology of Mahasneerism was rejected as Oilwellians have wised up.
Helen Ang
Flashback: To thwart Anoo-war's takeover bid, the Able-doolah administration hatched a half-boiled plot to sequester 40 pro-consuls in a faraway galaxy.
An old Oilwellian saying goes: 'The greater distance an intergalactic trip, the more likely a spaceship will run out of fuel.' This folk wisdom was evidently conceived before the invention of FTL hyper-drive but nonetheless retained its meaning, in that when leaders stretch the people's credulity too far, their fanciful flights of imagination would soon be consigned to a black hole.
While the pro-consul group studied (but didn't learn) agriculture in the Dai-One sector, it was business as usual back in Oilwell with two Oppositionists arrested under the Egg Safety Assurance ordinance, or ESA.
The ESA was dual-purpose in preserving the planet from threats to its security, peace and public order. Interestingly enough, in its duality, ESA was both a punitive piece of legislation and a protective custody law. Oilwellians whose lives the authorities wanted to safeguard were taken in under ESA so that police could babysit them in the lock-up.
As for the criminal acts falling under the ambit of ESA, it was up to the Homeland Guardian to decide what or who constituted enemies of the state. It could be egg smugglers, those who raised eggist sentiments or questioned the sanctity of egg. As egg was the object of utmost veneration, it was held to be beyond criticism. However, an Oilwellian can safely say anything seditious he likes of carrot, turnip or radish.
It was for crimes against egg that police arrested senior pro-consul Terry-sar and boggler Arpeekay in September, 208 AD. Bogglers were a band of merry men who mind-boggled the general public by challenging the propaganda put out by the state. Arpeekay was Oilwell's best known and most popular boggler; because of him, the authorities banned Internet on the planet.
Meanwhile, Anoo-war denounced Terry-sar's arrest, saying the accusations against her were false and malicious. Greater numbers of Oilwellians were beginning to believe that the ESA was a much abused law caught in a time warp.
"No more ESA! No more ESA!' they demanded.
On their last legs
The ESA arrests indicated a regime on its last eggs, and how the Adder was fast losing his grip, if not the plot altogether. Oilwellians were simply left bewildered by the wild swings of the planet's political yo-yo.
Anyone who has resided long enough in Oilwell soon got used to its bipolarity. It was not only the ESA which featured split functions but the political lingo as well. For instance, when Adder Able-doolah said one thing, Oilwellians typically interpreted his words in the opposite. If he announced that egg had registered a bumper ding of a crop, his listeners would understand the harvest had actually donged.
Reading newspapers like The Comet and The Asteroid which were written in Doublespeak conditioned Oilwellians to antonymic reflexes. If Able-doolah asserted a flip, Oilwellians through long experience expected a flop. Their constant need to display antipodal reactions to reality increasingly led Oilwellians to mentally short-circuit, unable to think straight any longer.
Thinking straight during the tenure of Mahasneer, Able-doolah's predecessor, was never en vogue as the former Adder through leadership by example had famously conceived of a Crooked Bridge, and a half one at that (which reflected the winding disconnect of his thought processes).
After 122 years of pervasive Mahasneerism, the planet ultimately found itself at a crucial crossroads where it could plunge deeper into the eggist ideology ' which was actively percolating even in 208 AD ' or pull itself from the brink.
To Mahasneer, ESA was for Oilwell own good and he used it in liberal doses. Able-doolah was just too lax. What?! Two arrests only? Mahasneer loyalists could think of at least a hundred more Oilwellians who deserved ESA.
The man himself, reminiscing on those he had rounded up some two decades before, was sorely disappointed in Able-doolah's wishy-washiness. Compared to the present pathetic catch of two, Mahasneer was certain he could double his previous haul of 106 ESA detainees to 212 this time around ... if he was still Adder.
The ex-Adder contemplated making a comeback as power behind the throne, confident of doing a more efficient job of subjugating the recalcitrant planet than the younger Able-doolah. Age was no barrier as Mahasneer's longevity would once again be artificially enhanced by cryogenics. Or he considered paying a visit to Rem-bough for a dip in its famed Fountain of Youth (the electoral roll of the day recorded that many a Rem-bough resident lived to be late centenarians).
Egg on the face
Historians looking back on Oilwell's September Struggle noted that the equinox marked a milestone where the race for Addership was for the first time thrown wide open.
Contenders for Adder were prepared to do whatever it takes in the do-or-die battle as losing was not an option. The fate that befell Mahasneer's compatriots such as Comrade Mar-koz and Komrad Soohar-toe was a salutary lesson. Many senior Poly-burrito elders were mortally afraid of getting their 'licences revoked'.
Ramifications for those who had tied their political fortunes to the Adders past and present, and the several Adders-in-waiting, shivered their eggcups worrying over the possible outcomes of September equinox.
Eggists like Big Ender prefect Ahr-Mard went on a planet-wide roadshow to raise political temperatures. Attempts to whip up eggism were a manifestation of the disintegrating power centre putting all their eggs in one basket ' that of Egg Supremacy.
The Egg Supremacist credo was embodied in the spirit of the Big Ender ecckeris. The ecckeris was a sharp, wavy kitchen utensil and anyone executing the gravity-defying feat of balancing an egg at its pointed end was immediately awarded the title of 'Honorable Grandfather' and a generous remuneration.
Obviously, such a precarious stunt as balancing egg on ecckeris tip resulted in a lot of broken eggshells and splattered mess on the kitchen floor. In the despondency of crisis, Oilwellians were minded to ponder on the colossal waste of egg frittered away in the pointless pursuit of Egg Supremacy.
They mulled over more rewarding use of egg; to bake bigger economic pies where everyone could have a decent slice instead of scrambling for the crumbs off the ruling elites' table. The casual way in which the callous 'Let them eat cake' was tossed by the haves at long last stung the have-nots.
Light finally dawned on the downtrodden populace that they could show their respect for egg in a far, far better way than blindly following Mahasneerism. By 240 AD, the last vestiges of the Mahasneerist legacy were debunked and the tyrant Mahasneer ultimately remembered in the Annals of Oilwell in the same vein as his good friend Moo-gabby (but that's another tyrant for another bedtime story).
And what about Able-doolah? Alas, he was a mere footnote in history.
However, his son-in-law Khyi-ree, who was once Rem-bough pro-consul, left his name for posterity as Oilwell's most successful entrepreneur. Water bottled from Rem-bough's Fountain of Youth found galaxies of satisfied customers who swore the elixir was more efficacious than Botox. His Rem-baugh Sirop business empire made Khyi-ree a trillionaire by age 35 ? But there's another Oilwellian saying for happy endings: 'The rude die young'.
Note: The writer's maiden attempt at satire in Bahasa Malaysia can be read at '10 dalil kenapa Tun Mahathir wajib diletakkan di Seri Penanti'.
Part 1 of this story appeared as 'Anoo-war and our eggciting times'.