A sea of red

A sea of red. People all dressed to kill. In red. ‘Hallelujah’, they cried. Joseph the King was there. In flesh and blood. Long live the king!

Long live the saviour who had taken us, long-forsaken subjects, out of our wilderness; our long stay in marginalised opposition now a thing of the distant past.

Now he is to live as king no more. Now, the multitudes, the adulators, the sycophants, the blind followers, are all saddened and feeling “betrayed”.

They sing praise and hymns to Joseph the Leader of the unified indestructible kingdom – a tribe tied in all things red.

Joseph gave everyone hope through mantras to beat all mantras. For this, the sea of people pays homage – in a sea of red. Red as the heart of the people out in the streets feeling lost now that the king will go.

And Joseph appeared on the podium and saw the vista that any outgoing king wants to see. An ecstatic, waving, swaying crowd.

He looked on and couldn’t help himself. He swooned, he fell, he fainted.

And while still semi-conscious he mumbled words which only the ones next to him heard: “Is that red the sea of blood I was connected to while I was king?”

Joseph, no legacy in blood is ever worth remembering. Blood that an innocent woman shed for your greed and for the greed of those around you.

Whether part of the deal to have a woman killed or because you gave the perpetrators free rein in your own office, you will always be the king who promised plenty but delivered bad blood.

By making it a point to help your own entourage destroy, obstruct or deviate investigations, you assisted in the miscarriage of justice. Even kings are damned once they do not stop the killing.

May you, in your royal exile away from the kingdom’s shores or behind bars, realise that that same woman was murdered thousands of times before her execution. And even after death, through the attempts to wipe away the memory of her. All this happened on your watch.

Now leave. As long as you remain king the kingdom bleeds.