The bellyaching below went to a scrotum-crunching pitch.
Sore at the din of whines streaming off a pond, an incensed Bathala stormed down from heavens to face a gaggle of 54-million strong croakers who wanted an audience with the deity.
“And what is it that you, pitiable pestering crackpots turning this pond water into whine, what is it you whine for this time? I have already given you a king! A king that you all deserve,” thundered the deity. “You insufferable nincompoops can only get what you deserve. Did I not make myself clear on that point?”
Chorus of croakers whined some more: “We want a fresh mandate of heaven. A new deal is what we deserve. Whatever you gave us was an insufferable computer game addict whose only lasting legacy bequeathed to us was a word annoying-- noynoying.”
“You only get what you deserve,” reiterated the deity.
“And we deserve a fresh mandate of heaven, do we not? Not the log you have tossed down here. It’s rotten and would rot some more,” bellyached the throng.
“You’re getting what you deserve. And you’re really getting on my nerves,” deadpanned the deity. “Did I not tell you that whatever addled matter you have in your skulls is largely of water, and water seeks its own level, eh? Level up!”
“We’ve had enough of the ordeal. We beg you; we implore you for a new deal.”
“You get better, you get better. You get denser, that’s what you all get-- denser,” roared the deity as he soared skyward, leaving a blast furnace spell of the electoral exercise that was to come to pass.
As the inert, useless log was shoved away, it came to pass that a fresh mandate of heaven came and held sway—a nightmare come true for the croaking throng, a stork with its beak filthy as the morass the pond had become.
Famished for flesh, the stork began its feeding frenzy, engorging its belly with a stash of some P2.4 billion in undeclared funds, picking at and eviscerating emaciated bodies of the poor croakers—and they croaked some more croaking, whining and weeping at their sorry turn of fate.
And Bathala could only look down in askance, hurling out a too-late reminder, “You had it coming, croakers. You get better, you get better. You get denser, well, that’s what you get.
“Too bad, even Aesop from which this fable had been cribbed always puts the moral lesson at the tale’s end. Or is it tail-end? Or is it you really haven’t learned after all these series of asking for deals and ordeals?”
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