The leader of a country built a huge wooden horse in the front yard of the presidential palace. The horse was so large, over two stories and as large as a yacht; it towered over the white palace, blocking one wing from the view of the street. When asked by the press, Why?, the leader said he loved horses. He didn’t own a horse. In fact, no one had ever seen him with a horse. According to his authorized official biography, he said he had never even ridden a horse. The leader denied it and said, it wasn’t because he liked horses. He had it put there because it reminded him of his mother, his deceased sweet mother. The press swooned to those words. What a nice man, they printed. His advisors, all google-eyed and adoring, applauded like parents at their child’s first public performance. He had a giant horse made out of wood because it reminded him of his mother. When a reporter at another presser quoted from his bio, where the leader confessed to hating his mother, (p. 282). And it was in ALL CAPS. The leader denied saying that and stated that he was considering making the horse our national symbol. Why a horse? they asked. Why not? he replied, and, suddenly, some in our country loved horses. They painted pictures of them on their houses. They rebuilt their cars to resemble them. One news organization changed their programming to be only horse stories and, soon, everything was named Horse Stories. And, in loyalty, every member of his political party got a horse tattoo!—some were bucking, some had a male rider, all were in the pretty colors of our flag—inked upon their skin. They wanted to rename their political party, The Horse Party, because they did shell out for those tattoos, and some of the country unified around it because, well, who doesn’t like horses? (They had already forgotten that their leader didn’t like horses, but no one wanted to bring that up again.) Finally, at a press conference with the leader, a reporter who snuck in brought up an old story about how the wooden horse was from an old poem about how one day a big wooden horse was wheeled into a town as a victory trophy, but it was really hollow and the soldiers of the enemy were in wait, and, after dark, they came out and murdered all the citizens of the town, winning the war. And the leader laughed and said, That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Why would we wait until night?
