Chapter Ten



*How some animals switched sides and General Loony’s radical philosophy of
Me-Alone*



For a while after the Tragic Day of the Foxes, some of the animals who were
not top officials in the former government but were closely associated with
Talkmuch Dolittle kept a low profile, afraid that the foxes would hunt them
down and lock them up or kill them. Prominent among these were Jege the
hen, Nice Boy the monkey and Cheku the parrot. Jege the hen kept close to
home and made it known that she had a dream that she was going to lay eggs
soon. Nice Boy pretended that he had caught the flu and constantly coughed
and spluttered and loudly blew his nose, while Cheku claimed that he had
high fever. His wings and head drooped ominously and his entire body
continuously shook and he constantly croaked “I sweat, I sweat, I’m cold.”



Soon however, Jege the hen, Nice Boy the monkey, and Cheku the parrot
started making public statements in praise of Loony the fox and his
infinite wisdom. Jege the hen who used to call Talkmuch Dolittle father and
his two wives mother, publicly denounced and renounced the ousted royal
family and declared her undying love for Loony. She made a great hue and
cry and loudly declared that she could give every single one of her
feathers to Loony if the new king demanded them right there. She would wipe
his shoes and sweep his palace without pay and she would plunge into a fire
if that was required to show her love for Loony. Nice Boy the monkey, never
to be outdone, declared that Talkmuch Dolittle was an evil king who
deserved his evil fate. The animals of Smiling Forest, he preached, should
thank the Great God Yallah and pay humble homage to General Loony for
saving them from what could otherwise have been a horrible fate. The chorus
was picked up by Cheku the parrot, who now specialized in singing loud
songs of praise for the Great Leader and his gallant cabal of armed foxes.
Cheku, also reputed to have called Talkmuch Dolittle father and his wives
mother, now declared that the former king was in fact a cheat and a liar
and that he had so much love and respect for General Loony that he could
willingly become his slave. The eventual effect of these profuse
compliments was that Jege the hen, Nice Boy the monkey and Cheku the parrot
were soon declared national patriots, awarded the highest national honors –
the national honor of the lips - and co-opted into the new ring of die-hard
Loony loyalists. They were given new jobs and held up as shining examples
of the new revolutionary creed and disposition of unquestioning patriotism.



Meanwhile, the ordinary animals of Smiling Forest regarded their new king
with dreadful awe and wonder.  A web of fantastic tales and myths was woven
around the Great Leader’s person, which soon made him larger than life in
the minds of the less imaginative animals.  All manner of tall tales were
told about him.  Word soon spread that General Loony had great supernatural
powers and could even turn himself into a donkey.  Rumor had it that the
General was actually all-knowing and all-seeing and could turn himself into
a chameleon if he was in the mood.  Some said that he could make one of his
eyes red and the other eye green; and that if he looked at you with the red
eye, you dropped dead and if he looked at you with the green eye, you
immediately turned to stone. Some even argued that General Loony was a
reincarnation of the great prophet Moosaa, sent by the Great God Yallah to
save His people from the clutches of the evil Firr-Awoon and lead them on
to the Promised Land. Some whispered that he was in fact a reincarnation of
the legendary Yadicone of the numerous tails, king of the cats. At their
most dramatic, the rumors had it that Loony was in fact the mythical Yappa
Yakh, king of the squirrels.



Still other tales had it that General Loony had great healing powers. The
General himself declared that he came from a great lineage of healers and
that he was himself a great witchdoctor.  He claimed that he could heal all
manner of illnesses ranging from leprosy, to hapati, to poverty.  Through
the rattling beaks of Cheku the parrot and Jege the hen, now his most vocal
spokespersons, General Loony spread the word that he could heal any disease
with a single tap of the hand.  When Toothy the boar heard that one, he
loudly groaned and blew his nose.  Sindah the lizard instantly had a
running stomach! Mbota the frog loudly croaked and plunged into the pond
for his annual hibernation, even though the time was not yet ripe. Momba
the tortoise quietly withdrew into his shell to avoid, he said, the
fantastic hailstorm from breaking his fragile head.



But General Loony’s greatest renown came in the field of philosophy.  He
soon made it known that he was a great thinker with a unique mind and
baffling thought processes.  His personal philosophy of life, he declared,
was the infallible philosophy of Me-Alone, which showed the general’s
profound understanding of the workings of not only the animal mind, but
also this mortal world whose cardinal characteristics were past, present
and future plus one, two, three. At every possible opportunity General
Loony would delve into a learned exposition of his erudite philosophy of
Me-Alone.  He would explain to his faithful cronies and to the entire
Smiling Forest community how any animal would drown in hell who did not
know that everyday was divided into morning, afternoon and evening.  “You
cannot come to afternoon if you do not pass through morning and there would
be no evening without afternoon”, he would loudly squeak, his head titled
to one side, a distant look in his eyes.  He would proceed to indicate that
it was thanks to his personal wisdom that he was able to discover this
brand new philosophy of life which hundreds of generations of wise animals
had tried in vain to discover, namely, that life is divided into yesterday,
today and tomorrow.



“My personal philosophy of Me-Alone,” he would squeak, “is no simple
philosophy and can only be understood by animals whose eyes, ears and noses
are in their right places.  But those of you whose eyes are where your
mouths should be will never understand that one sunrise follows another,
just as yesterday was followed by today, not tomorrow.” Another favorite
line of exposition for the wise general, who now insisted on being also
called Chief Londibali, was that in counting, one must always start with
one, two, three. Everything in life, he preached, was based on one, two,
three, which were also the basic principles of his erudite philosophy of
Me-Alone.



Indeed, such was the great depth of the Great Leader’s wisdom that apart
from Chief Londibali, he was soon called Chief Jahasay, Kidunnit, and
Monteh. Some of the more modest animals called him WaSenagi, MoiTurugi, and
Kanjagi. Loony gleefully basked in the light of these new titles which, he
insisted, had come into existence as a direct result of the boundless
wisdom of his philosophy of Me-Alone, which would now define his ruling of
all the animals and land of Smiling Forest.


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