Gurbhim's Chair - Part I

Gurbhim's Chair - A Short Story Series

Gurbhim's Chair - Part I 

"Gurbhim's Chair"

A crowd had gathered in the centre of the city around a wooden platform constructed especially to host the spectacle that was to ensue and which would decide the fate of the governance of that city’s folk previously labeled as unruly anarchists not prone to any paternalistic guiding hand to direct their fates and economies. The city’s folk’s abhorrence of a central governing structure or a chief leader did not arise from a clannish tendency but more from the ubiquitous acceptance of the essential corruptibility of the city’s denizens. Everyone, however, despite such acceptance, was nobler than many other neighbouring inhabitants by virtue of collectively not accepting any central leadership chiefly because it was opined by everyone, that if corruption was to be eternally ingrained as an inexorable incorrigibility of its society, then none whatsoever deserved the moral high-ground which entailed a position of control, guidance, and authority, and a fear of such an eventuality cemented their belief that their individual corruptibilities were best left to fend for themselves in a come-uppance race for survival than be institutionalized as a way of living that would place one form of corruptibility unimpeachably over other forms, which was inevitable, if one of their very own were to be selected for the high-post. So, while their society was quite modern in their unabashed acceptance of their way of living and for not being given unto any pursuits of utopian idealism, they were also considered as anachronistic in not accepting a shepherd.

This perplexed and dismayed our very own alchemist, Gurbhim, who valued the way his people had come to enamour an individualistic lifestyle fastidiously, but nonetheless, was appalled at the way each person’s personal ambitions stretched his society apart in multifarious directions in the manner of an upscaled version of Brownian motion. Given his conviction, about his people’s conviction in not letting anyone be christened as a supreme savior leader, he knew he had a task to complete. He had to develop something that would make his city people unanimously accept as a fool-proof method to select the worthy, the truly deserving incorruptible piece of human flesh. So, one night, when the thunderstorms galloped over the skies charioteered by whipping winds, he harnessed, the heavenly ladle of gods in preparing a bubbling potion into which he poured the harvested dreams of unborn children who, in their foetal prisons were impervious to the air that tempted men with experimenting with their honesties. Gurbhim knew he wanted to alchemize unaffected and unborn purity into a fool-proof method that will not only not select the undeserving, but will leave them shamed and humiliated so that they never again tempt themselves with the idea of pratfalling on the seat of central authority.

Out came a magnificent Chair glistening with the sheen of crystal clear water and was held together with foetal glue that was almost maternal in its purpose since what came out of Gurbhim’s potion, albeit appearing fragile, was fated to hold firmly the buttocks of the one who had the pure heart of a Golden Eagle that swayed high above daily banalities but had the precision and strength to swiftly lift away any murine pestilence gnawing away on the ground.

Gurbhim’s Chair stood firmly placed on the wooden platform and was being gazed upon by curious on-lookers. Several contenders for the Chair walked onto the platform and waved assidously at the crowd, not to affirm the aura of bravado that was growing like wines upon the spines of the on-lookers even as they pendulated between admiration and giddiness, but more as a tool of self-placation because of what was to follow. Despite Gurbhim’s sincere intentions to enable selection of a deserving leader, his alchemy not being perfect, he had potioned into existence a Chair with quite a few peculiar oddities. The Chair’s power was deemed authentic by everyone who tried to sit on it one after the other as they realized the Chair had a mind of its own. The corruptible ones crashed through the Chair as the slip seat would separate away like moses’ ocean waters if any of their ilk attempted to sit on it and as a corollary it was understood that the Chair would let the incorruptible comfortably enjoy its seat. To further display the Chair’s authenticity, Gurbhim also brought along with him the most famous lunatic of town, who even though considered incorruptible by everyone, was nowhere close to the minimum bit of sanity that was expected of a leader. Gurbhim had made the lunatic sit on the Chair too but the Chair’s slip seat had given away this time as well. That was not supposed to happen and just as the crowd folks appeared to lose interest, enthusiasm and excitement, Gurbhim surmised that the Chair must test purity not only in the metaphorical sense, but also in the literal sense, as the very existence of the Chair depended upon a principle of purity that would not let in even a literal exception to adulterate its foundational intents. So Gurbhim invited the lunatic to sit on the chair with his buttocks as naked as a new born’s child, to the disgust of many and to the satiation of his whetted up curiosity. The lunatic was more than happy to jump out of his clothes and onto the chair not to ensure intactness of Gurbhim’s alchemical prowess in  the minds of those gathered around, but to revel in the particular glee his bare bottoms provided to him when soft winds caressed his cheeks like the feathers of a bird of paradise. Regardless of individual aspirations that were fulfilled in the demonstration, the idea had started to worm into the minds of the public at large that the Chair will certainly deliver the townsfolk from its own defeatist yet fiercely protected anarchist setup and might become instrumental in producing a daunting edifice of collective governance by helping them select an incorruptible leader.

Gurbhim's Chair - Part II - "The City of Kejristan"

Image from here.