Constitution! Constitution! Constoootion!

Constitution! Constitution! Constoootion!

          
                     ‘Now that you’ve finished your breakfast,’ said the Queen, as she peered over her copy of the Daily Nation which was propped up against the teapot, ‘Don’t forget to take your pills. The brown one is for your prostate, the yellow one for your kidneys, the green one for your blood pressure, the white one for your heart, and the bright red one is for your temper.’

          ‘I shall swallow them all,’ said His Excellency King Chumbu. ‘I have to keep fit and healthy in order to rule the nation!’

          ‘It says here,’ said the Queen, reading from the newspaper, ‘that the students are rioting again because they haven’t been paid their allowances.’

          ‘That reminds me,’ said the King, ‘that nephew of yours that got redirected from Yunza, what’s his name?’

          ‘Kakokotwa?’

          ‘Yes, him.  Is he still unemployed?’

          ‘Yes. For the past three years.’

          ‘I think I’ll make him the Governor of the Bank.’

          ‘Hah,’ laughed the Queen, ‘he can’t even understand simple arithmetic!’

          ‘Then I could make him my Ambassador to Peru!’

          ‘We don’t have an embassy in Peru!’

          ‘Then we must build one! I’ll ask old Uncle Alex to get another loan from the World Bank!’

          ‘It says here,’ said the Queen, pointing at her newspaper, ‘that yesterday parliament was surrounded by armed police and…’

          But just then the King’s phone rang. He rummaged for the phone in his dressing gown pocket. ‘Yes, you are speaking to His Excellency … What? … Chief Kukumukulu? … Escaped from his hut? … Then I order you to put the entire army on full alert! Declare a State of Emergency! Confiscate all bicycles!’ Then he turned back to the Queen, ‘You were saying something, Your Royal Highness?’

          ‘Yes, Your Excellency, I was just saying that parliament seems to be in a turmoil over the new…

          ‘But the phone rang again. ‘What? … Well arrest him! … ‘What for?  Just find an offence and charge him with it! … Search his house and find something! … Call in the Trumped Up Charges Commission!’

          He turned angrily to the Queen. ‘That’s the last time I’m putting one of your relatives in charge of the police. Let’s send them all to Peru! We’ll build a very big embassy!’

          ‘I was trying to tell you, dearest,’ said the Queen gently, ‘that parliament is up in arms, saying that you have swallowed the Constitution!’

          ‘Don’t you worry your little head about them, My Dearest Queen, that place is just an empty talking shop. I am the one in charge!’ So saying, he puffed out his little chest and declared ‘As the King I am supposed to swallow the Constitution. I am the Constitution! I have all the powers in my person!’

          ‘But parliament is saying that your powers are fading and you no longer have a strong Constitution,’ said the Queen, pointing at the newspaper. ‘This editorial says you are preoccupied with trivial issues while the country is going to rack and ruin. They want a new Constitution.’

          Now King Chumbu rose in all his fury and stood on his dining room chair, grandly addressing his empty dining room as if it were the entire world, and pointing to the various parts of his royal person to illustrate the parts of the Constitution. ‘With this brain, I am the Executive. With this Heart, I am the Judiciary! With this right arm I am the army! With this other arm I am the Panga Force! With this right foot, I am the Police Farce! With these eyes I am the Shushushu who peers into every bedroom. With this bladder I piss on all my critics! With this voice I speak for the people! With these boots I shall trample on this cheeky parliament…’

          But as he explained it all so eloquently to himself, a rising chant could be heard from the other side of the palace walls, ‘Constitution! Constitution! Constitution!’

          ‘But with your ears,’ said the Queen quietly, ‘you are unable to hear the voice of the people. Your Constitution is fading. You are losing control. You can’t even control the Paramount Chief Kukumukulu.’

          The King remained standing on his chair, addressing his invisible supporters. ‘I am the King. I am the State. My constitution is the State Constitution. I have all the powers!’

          But outside the chant grew louder as the protesters entered the palace grounds. ‘Constitution! Constitution! Constitution! We want a People’s Constitution! Not the King’s Constitution!’

          ‘I am the King,’ shouted the King, his eyes now bulging and his face turning purple. Then he fell down flat on the floor. His Constitution had collapsed.

          The Queen immediately summoned all the doctors and nurses who were always on hand to attend the ailing king. ‘The time has come,’ she told them, ‘for the operation.’

          When the king came round from the anesthetic he was covered in bandages and sustained by three different drips and a tube of oxygen. ‘It was a long transplant operation,’ the Queen whispered to him. ‘We have given you an ordinary people’s Constitution. That King’s Constitution has been removed, and turned into a book which explains the various responsibilities which will now be done by different people, because they were all too much for one man.’

          ‘So what job remains for me?’ asked the thin little voice of what remained of the King.

          ‘You will take the salute at all march-pasts,’ explained the Queen.

          ‘Will I have to hold press conferences?’

          ‘My poor dearest little Chumbu,’ she said, putting a kindly hand on his head, ‘even when you had all your powers, you were too frightened to hold a press conference.’